The Beginnings of PIASA by Feliks Gross, July 1989 – PART 2

The PIASA first headquarters were located on 37 East 36th Street in New York City; this building was generously made available to the Institute, rent-free, by Herbert Livingston Satterlee. From its inception the PIASA has been committed to carrying out intensive research activities, the results of which were frequently published in the Bulletin of the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences, a continuation of the pre-war Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences Yearbook. The first issue of this bulletin appeared in 1942, and the periodical was published until 1946. The war years (1942-1945) were a period of very active work by the PIASA; during this time period, the Institute organized multiple conferences on food aid to Poland, a conference regarding reconstruction of Poland’s economy in the postwar period (1943-1945), a conference on the role and function of universities in postwar Europe (1943), and a conference on Polish immigration studies (1943). The 400th anniversary of the death of Nicolaus Copernicus was also organized by the PIASA during this time period and received wide coverage by the American press, as did the establishment of two additional branches of the Institute (in Chicago, Illinois, and Montreal, Canada).