Our History
The Foundation was established in 1978 by Jerry Greene, real estate attorney, philanthropist and consummate New Yorker. Born in Brooklyn in 1909, Jerry attended Columbia College and graduated from the Law School in 1928. He went on to become a founding member of the Manhattan law firm Marshall, Bratter, Greene, Allison & Tucker. Among many honors, Jerry received the Judge Learned G. Hand Human Relations Award and an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Columbia Law School as well as an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree from the Juilliard School. He also received the Citizens Committee’s Oscar S. Straus Award for Philanthropy on Behalf of New York City.
As a longtime member of Lincoln Center’s board of directors and emeritus council, Jerry underwrote the Center’s annual “Mostly Mozart” festival in celebration of his favorite composer. He also served as a trustee of the Juilliard School, where he established the Jerome Greene Fellowships in 1985. Given annually to music, dance, and drama students, his was the first scholarship fund in the School’s history to benefit students in all three divisions. Jerry served as chairman of the board of the Hirshhorn Museum of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and was on the Art Advisory Committee at The Jewish Museum. He was a great supporter of many of New York’s medical institutions. His gifts to Montefiore Medical Center helped pay for the construction of the Jerome L. and Dawn Greene Medical Arts Pavilion and the Children’s Hospital of Montefiore Medical Center.
Jerry Greene’s widow Dawn continued work begun by her late husband, including support to Calvary Hospital for hospice care in Manhattan, and funding to Johns Hopkins University Medical Center to undertake fundamental research in the rheumatic diseases. Dawn made the opening of The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space at WNYC a reality. She provided the resources for Columbia University to build the nation’s largest private academic science center devoted to brain and mind research, and the first building on the University’s Manhattanville Campus. The Jerome L. Greene Science Center, with seven floors of state-of-the-art research laboratories, was designed by Renzo Piano and opened in Spring of 2017. At the time of Dawn Greene’s pledge, it was the largest gift ever received by the University and the largest ever given to a U.S. university for a single facility.
In 2010, Christina McInerney succeeded her mother as president and CEO. Under Chris’ leadership, the Foundation’s focus has shifted from capital projects to more program-related initiatives. Investing in institutions and their leaders to advance programs that increase access to education and to the arts is one goal. New grants in social justice help organizations like the ACLU work to protect voter rights and ensure reproductive freedom. A new partnership between the Foundation and The New York Community Trust provides grants to 12 theaters in the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Manhattan to expand free and discounted ticket programs, helping to bring the performing arts to underrepresented audiences throughout New York. Foundation funding now supports exhibitions at key cultural institutions such as the Whitney Museum, The Morgan Library and the Museum of the City of New York. The Foundation has expanded scholarship giving for students to pursue training at New York City’s top schools, with more than 1,500 scholarships awarded since JL Greene’s founding.
Since Jerry started the Foundation more than 40 years ago, over $500 million has been invested in our non-profit partners, who continue to change the world in the arts, medicine, education and social justice.
