In 2007 Mayor Noam Bramson organized a Heritage Task Force to help initiate projects that would increase awareness and appreciation of the community’s unique and venerable past. The committee, comprised of residents qualified in historic preservation, local history and landscape design, developed the Heritage Award program to begin recognizing the scores of New Rochelle properties that are important to the community’s extraordinary 300+ year history. This was a critical need highlighted in a Reconnaissance Level Survey funded by a New York State Certified Local Government Grant in 1997.