Village Preservation’s Children’s Education program, founded in 1991 as NYC’s very first historic preservation program for children, uses our neighborhoods as living museums and classrooms in which NYC schoolchildren learn how history can be seen and understood in the built environment around them. It’s open to any NYC school class or summer program, regardless of ability to pay. Over three-and-a-half decades, we’ve served tens of thousands of NYC students, and expanded our program from a single curriculum on Greenwich Village architecture for lower grades to six different curricula focusing on immigration, Black history, Native American history, and the Revolutionary War, for students at every grade level through high school. 

We’re proud to report our most recent school year that just ended was our biggest ever, serving 3,069 students in 128 classes at 33 schools with 252 sessions. Eighty percent of those classes were offered for free and 15% at a reduced rate based on need, ensuring all can participate. 

This program is supported by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council, an anonymous donor, Craig Newmark Philanthropies, New York State Council on the Arts, and New York City Council Members Harvey Epstein, Christopher Marte, and Carl Wilson, and of course the generosity of our members.