Emily Kahn ’19 is executive director of the New York Preservation Archive Project.
It’s a joke among Emily Kahn’s friends that she walks around her home city of New York like a tourist.
“I’m always looking up,” says Kahn ’19 of the habit that causes her to “constantly bump into things” but also feeds her natural curiosity about what came before.
“In New York, a lot of commercial storefronts have come in and changed the historic fabric that was there. But if you look up to higher stories toward the cornice, you can see more original architectural detail,” she says. “I’m constantly thinking about how things have changed over time.”
The executive director of the New York Preservation Archive Project, Kahn has been passionate about preserving the past since childhood, when frequent trips to historical sites — especially those visited on family vacations to Nantucket, Mass., or places connected to her Jewish identity — sparked an early interest.
“My parents instilled in me the importance of honoring the people who came before us, to know their stories, to learn from them, and to be grateful for what you have because people fought before you,” says Kahn, who grew up in Westchester, N.Y.
At Colgate she cemented her love for historic preservation while abroad as part of the London History Study Group and in Xaltocan, Mexico, where she worked alongside Associate Professor of Anthropology Kristin De Lucia digging for artifacts from the ancient agricultural village.
As a member of Colgate’s Class of 2019, Kahn reveled in the University’s Bicentennial celebration of its history and the research opportunities it presented. In 2018 she was one of six students to research and co-author the book Repression, Re-Invention, & Rugelach: A History of Jews At Colgate, edited by Professor of Jewish Studies and Russian and Eurasian Studies Alice Nakhimovsky. After graduating with a degree in history, Kahn enrolled in Columbia University’s historic preservation graduate program and swiftly found a mentor in Professor of Historic Preservation Andrew Dolkart ’73.
Since taking on her role at the Archive Project in summer 2023, Kahn has focused on not just protecting the physical aspects of New York history, but also in collecting, preserving, and sharing the city’s stories. For one of her current projects, Kahn is overseeing lengthy oral history interviews with leaders of New York’s preservation movement, which will be edited into an upcoming podcast series. The oral histories cover topics such as community garden preservation, the roots of the LGBTQ preservation movement, and the growing call to preserve modernist architecture — an issue of particular interest to Kahn since first encountering Colgate’s modernist Dana Arts Center as a student.
“Modernism is a major part of the preservation movement now in a point when many modernist buildings are being landmarked and listed on the National Register of Historic Places,” says Kahn. “Whether or not you think Dana is hideous or beautiful, from a preservationist’s perspective, you can’t argue that it’s important.”
Along with spearheading the Archive Project’s own preservation efforts, Kahn also helps the nonprofit award grants to other organizations working to steward collections related to NYC’s preservation history — crucial funding, explains Kahn, that has helped digitize collections of archival documents and make them accessible to the public.
And while Kahn’s spare time has become scarce in recent months, she has recently discovered a new hobby not too distant from her day job.
“I’m getting very into antiques lately,” she says, explaining how quirky flea market finds and antique shop scores (vintage postcards and art from the 1970s, mostly) have made their way into her Upper West Side apartment. “I’m not collecting things that I think will be worth millions someday, just things that bring me joy,” she says. “They’re like little statements that show an appreciation for a history that a lot of people think is lost.”
As an alumna, Kahn serves on the Presidents’ Circle Membership Council. She received the Ann Yao ’80 Memorial Young Alumni Award at Reunion 2024.