The Bronx Academy of Letters is an Urban Assembly School.  The Urban Assembly was founded in 1990 to address a wide range of poverty issues. In the mid-'90s UA spearheaded a major planning effort to transform a 300-block area of the South Bronx. That effort identified the lack of high-quality local secondary schools as a major concern and recommended creating three model high schools, each tied to a major local institution.

 

      In 1997, in partnership with the New York City Department of Education and New Visions for Public Schools, the Urban Assembly opened the first of these schools, the Bronx School for Law, Government and Justice, and in 2002 it opened the second, the Academy for Careers in Sports. Based on the success of those schools, the Urban Assembly was invited to submit proposals for two more schools.

 

     In 2003, the Bronx Academy of Letters opened along with the New York Harbor School, and, inspired by the commitment of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, shifted the organization’s focus exclusively to the creation and support of new small schools.  Twenty-two Urban Assembly schools are now up and running.  Learn more about the Urban Assembly.

 

 

Richard Kahan, Founder & CEO, The Urban Assembly

     Richard Kahan has spent 35 years solving urban problems by fostering partnerships between the public and private sectors. In addition to founding the Urban Assembly, he co-founded in 2000 Take the Field, a nonprofit organization that in four years rebuilt 43 public school outdoor athletic facilities in all five boroughs at a cost of more than $132 million. As President and CEO of the New York State Urban Development Corporation, Richard initiated a $3 billion statewide economic development program that preserved and created more than 100,000 jobs. As Chairman and CEO of Battery Park City Authority, he was responsible for the planning, design, and development of Battery Park City, the largest urban development in the United States at the time. During this period he was also President and CEO of the New York Convention Center Development Corporation, creating the authorizing legislation and directing the design, financing, and construction of the $375 million Javits Center. Richard has been honored with many awards, including the Mayor's Doris C. Freedman Award, the Rockefeller Foundation's Jane Jacobs Medal, the American Society of Landscape Architects' Education Award, the American Institute of Architects' Thomas Jefferson Award, the Robert Moses Achievement Award, the Minority Business Development Award, and the Citizens Union's Robert F. Wagner Award.