Jeffrey Kroessler Student Research Award

The Historic Districts Council is honored to announce the creation of the Jeffrey Kroessler Student Research Award, an annual juried award highlighting original graduate-level research on topics relevant to historic preservation in New York City. This research award will provide emerging preservationists an opportunity to gain public recognition by showcasing their research that is beneficial to the advancement of the historic preservation community. At least one $1,000 award will be presented each year and the awarded recipient(s) will have the opportunity to publicly present their research to peers and preservationists in 2025.

The award is open to current and recent graduate students within two years of degree completion. Students from Architecture, Historic Preservation, Urban Planning, and History programs are encouraged to apply. Applications close in early May and recipients will be contacted by the end of May. If selected, recipients are required to attend HDC’s Grassroots Preservation Awards in June to be presented with their award.

We request applicants to submit an abstract, introduction, and chapter of a thesis or other culminating work on a topic relevant to the historic preservation community in New York City. Applicants are not limited to complete work.

For more information please contact Kaija Mendez-Bryan at [email protected] or 212 614 9107, x403.

Meet the Jurors!

HDC is pleased to announce our inaugural jurors for the first Jeffrey Kroessler Student Research Award! Read more about them below:

Laura Heim is an award-winning architect with a firm located in historic Sunnyside Gardens, Queens. Her firm has a particular expertise in historic preservation and adaptive reuse/renovation. She served as the Chair of Architecture on the Steering Committee of the Sunnyside Gardens Preservation Alliance, as president of the AIA Queens chapter, and was on the Board of Directors of AIA New York State. She is currently honored to be the Co-Chair of the AIANY Fellows Committee. She frequently collaborated on historic preservation work with her late husband, Jeffrey Kroessler, which the award is named after.

Diana Budds is a design journalist based in New York. Her writing has appeared in Curbed, Dwell, Fast Company, and the New York Times.

Thomas Rinaldi grew up in the Hudson River Valley near Poughkeepsie, New York.  He is the author of “Patented: 1,000 Design Patents” (Phaidon, 2021), “New York Neon” (W.W. Norton, 2012), and the co-author of the book “Hudson Valley Ruins: Forgotten Landmarks of an American Landscape” (University Press of New England, 2006). His photographs have been published in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, the New York Observer, Westchester Magazine, CNN Online, and elsewhere, and have been exhibited at the New York State Museum at Albany and at the Municipal Art Society of New York.  He holds degrees from Georgetown University and Columbia University and has worked for the National Park Service, the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation & Historic Preservation, and the Central Park Conservancy.  Rinaldi currently works as an architectural designer in New York City.

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As a testament to Jeffrey’s dedication to preservation and the development of upcoming preservationists, we are honored to create this award in his memory. We acknowledge our donors and Laura Heim for their generous support and involvement. At HDC, we are dedicated to building for our future communities and a part of that work includes you. If you have not already, please consider donating to the Jeffrey Kroessler Student Research Award. 

Jeffrey Kroessler served on HDC’s board of directors and advisors for 36 years. As a preservationist, author, educator, librarian, and historian, Kroessler assisted in crafting the organization’s advocacy strategies and educational programs on preservation across the city. As an author and historian, he published three books, The Greater New York Sports Chronology (2009), New York, Year by Year (2002), and Sunnyside Gardens: Planning and Preservation in a Historic Garden Suburb (2021), which received critical acclaim in The New York Review of Books.

His contributions and publications have been included in The Encyclopedia of New York City, The Encyclopedia of New York State, Robert Moses and the Modern City: the Transformation of New York, Journal of Planning History, New York History, and Long Island History Journal. As a passionate advocate for the borough of Queens, Jeffrey co-founded the Queensborough Preservation League, participated in the successful effort to landmark the New York Architectural Terra Cotta Works Building in Long Island City, and spearheaded the successful campaign to designate the Sunnyside Gardens Historic District.

In honor of Jeffrey Kroessler being a champion of New York City history and his commitment to the education and development of upcoming preservationists, we are esteemed to create this award in his memory.

As we invigorate this campaign, we would like to thank all who have contributed to the cause and are actively helping us honor Jeffrey’s legacy.

Founding Donors

John M. Bacon

Françoise Astorg Bollack and Tom Killian

Peter Bray

Andrew Scott Dolkart

Franny Eberhart

Laura Heim

Ricardo Zurita

Additional Donors

Lisa Ackerman

Samuel Albert

Penelope Bareau

Suzanne Braley

Kathleen Benson Haskins

Sara Caples

Patricia Dorfman

Jonathan Epstein

Friends of Terra Cotta

Deborah Furlone

Jeffrey Gerson

Alison Greenberg

Michael Goldblum

Carol Heim and Philip Carter

Carolyn and Donald Heim

Diane Heim

Jeanette Heim

Nadine Heim

Susan Hopper

Carol Clark and Kyle Johnson

Daniel Karatzas

Margaret Latimer

Robin Lynn

Abigail Mellen

Natalie Mendell

Nancy and Otis Pearsall

Gina Kim Perry and William Perry

Liz and Herbert Reynolds

Joseph Rosenberg

Frank Sanchis

Wayne Sheppard

Elizabeth and Daniel Shields

David Smiley

Fernando Villa

Ronda Wist

To maintain the future of historic preservation, we need your support more than ever to make this award a reality for emerging preservationists. Their research is pivotal to the past, present, and future of our city. Your donation will directly support the prize for the awarded recipients, the student showcase, and the award ceremony. All donations are fully tax deductible.

Donors at the following levels will receive special recognition:

For more information please contact Kaija Mendez-Bryan at [email protected].