LAFF Society

SPOTLIGHT

Marcia Thompson Celebratory Tribute

 

 
A tribute to the late Marcia Thompson is scheduled for May 31 from 6 to 8 in the evening at a park in the Tudor City complex in New York City.
 
“A Celebration of a Lifetime Achievement in Promoting the Arts and Fostering Community” will take place in the Tudor City Greens South Park at Tudor City Place between 41st and 42nd streets. 
 
Marcia, who died March 29 at her home in Manhattan, worked at the Ford Foundation for 30 years, most effectively as a program officer in the arts and humanities where, as noted in one obituary, in collaboration with the late Ford vice president W. McNeil Lowry she “created the framework for unprecedented, nation-wide expansion of professionally and fiscally sound initiatives, notably in the performing arts.”  
 
An obituary in The New York Times described her as “an unsung advocate for the arts and humanities”.
 
The site for the celebratory event was chosen to also honor her long-term commitment to the work of the nonprofit Tudor City Greens “to preserve and enhance Tudor City’s two landmarked parks”.
 
Ms. Thompson began working at Ford in 1953 and became a program assistant in the Humanities and Arts program in 1957. She became a program officer in 1967 and remained a key figure in the Foundation’s developing involvement with the arts until she retired in 1983. She was 94 when she died. 
 
A full obituary will be published in the next issue of The LAFF Society newsletter.

 

Comments (1)
Leslie Gottlieb 5/25/2018 11:46:20 AM
Marcia was a smart, savvy grant maker - devoted to the arts. During her long tenure at Ford I am sure she made an indelible imprint on the state of arts in America. Leslie Gottlieb

 

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