New York Center for Urban Folk Culture. City Lore is the flrst organization in the United States dedicated specifically to the documentation, preservation, and presentation of urban folk culture. The organization had its genesis in 1978 when a group of New York City-based folklorists founded the New York City chapter of the New York Folklore Society and in the following years sponsored a series of conferences on urban culture: The Folklore of New York City (1979), The Folklore of Urban Public Spaces (1980), and The Folk Culture of the Bronx (1981). In 1986 Steven Zeitlin, then president of the chapter, worked to incorporate the group under the name City Lore, and he became its first director; Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett became the first board president. Unlike the statewide folklore society from which it emerged, City Lore had the mission to document urban culture exclusively. In exhibitions such as City Play and “Welcome to Your Second Home”: New York City’s Ethnic Social Clubs, the organization has explored a number of themes characteristic of the urban environment. These themes, some of which were originally mapped out by KirshenblattGimblett in her essay “The Future of Folklore Studies in America: The Urban Frontier,” include the folk imprint on the built environment, customizing mass culture, and the process of traditionalizing as it continually transforms urban cultures. City Lore is conceived as a collaborative effort through which folklorists, anthropologists, historians, and filmmakers apply for grants and develop projects on urban folk culture and cultural history. It has explored urban phenomena such as graffiti, New York’s memorial walls, the history and culture of Coney Island, lawn shrines, citybased gospel music, Christmas lights, and urban pageantry, including the Italian giglio celebration and the West Indian Carnival. City Lore advocates for endangered local establishments and cultural sites crucial to their communities; houses a leading photographic archive of urban ethnic culture, primarily by photographer Martha Cooper; sponsors the annual City Lore Festival of Folk Cultural Film and Video, a major showcase for films on American folklore and folklife; honors grass-roots contributions to folk culture with the People’s Hall of Fame awards; and has taken a leading role in folk arts and education, organizing the conference “Folk Arts in the Classroom” for the National Endowment for the Arts in 1993. City Lore is located at 72 East First Street, New York, New York 10003; its telephone number is 212–529–1955. Steven Zeitlin