City Lore develops a wide range of special projects, some generated by the staff and others by talented filmmakers, folklorists, artists, and historians who are developing innovative projects in keeping with our mission City Lore produces documentary films and collaborates with filmmakers whose work relates to the organization’s mission.

Award-winning films include Ric Burns‘ Coney Island and the five-part series New York: A Documentary Film; City of Dreams, a film about women artists in New York City; From Mambo to Hip Hop, a documentary which traces the history of music in the South Bronx; and DeAf Jam, which highlights the poetry and storytelling of the deaf performed in American Sign Language

In 2007, we received funding from the Coby foundation to transform our national traveling exhibition, The Weavings of War into a virtual exhibit, It explores a new trend in folk art still unfolding around the world: over the past 50 years, textile artists, mostly women, from Central Asia, Southeast Asia, Latin America, and South Africa have broken with tradition and used pictorial imagery to communicate their personal and collective experiences with war.

In 2017, City Lore teamed up with the Nurse Practitioner Healthcare Foundation is Seattle to create From Heritage to Health: An Art–Centered Approach to Cultural Competence (H2H), a multi-year project that highlights the ways in which storytelling and the arts can inform the diverse practices of medical professionals. H2H includes a learner needs assessment, public and professional presentations, eLearning courses, and other forms of educational outreach that enhance cultural competency in healthcare.

In 2019, City Lore became host to American Lore Theater and premiered the original play Salt Water People about the Bonacker Baymen of Long Island.

Across the Great Divide aims to bring out the individuality and common humanity of Americans from different backgrounds, political orientations, ages, genders and parts of the country.
CATCH is a non profit created by a group of NYC organizations to develop collaborative projects that foster New York City’s living cultural heritage.
CETA – Arts/Work
City Lore serves as a fiscal sponsor for projects in keeping with our mission to foster New York City – and America’s – living cultural heritage.
From Heritage to Health: An Art–Centered Approach to Cultural Competence (H2H) is a multi-year project that highlights the ways in which storytelling and the arts can inform the diverse practices of medical professionals. It is aimed at bringing healthcare providers closer to patients, using various art forms and stories as a bridge between western “medical practices” and personal beliefs, traditions and faiths.
Living Traditions is an online portal to video and photographic documentation of folklife practiced throughout the state.