The John A. Reisenbach Foundation honors the memory of advertising executive John A. Reisenbach, who was the victim of a random and senseless murder in Greenwich Village in 1990. Inspired by John’s passion for life and compassion for others, the John A. Reisenbach Foundation has worked “For a Better and Safer New York” since 1991.

JAR provides grants and strategic support to nonprofit partner organizations throughout all five boroughs focused on the following program areas: youth and education, justice and safety, housing and community, and pandemic relief.

On July 30, 2020, the 30th anniversary of John Reisenbach's passing, Variety magazine published an article to honor the life and legacy of John Reisenbach.

Unsolved Murder of TV Executive Drives Foundation’s Work for a Safer NYC
By Cynthia Littleton
Variety

Even for jaded New Yorkers, it was a shocking murder. For the television industry, the shooting thirty years ago today of 33-year-old advertising sales executive John Reisenbach was a gut punch and wake-up call.

Around 11:40 p.m. on July 30, 1990, during a peak of the crime wave that plagued in the New York City in the 1980s and early ’90s, Reisenbach was gunned down in an apparent robbery while he was using a pay phone in a booth around the corner from his apartment in the West Village. He was struck three times, twice in the chest and once in the leg, by .38-caliber bullets.

Reisenbach’s co-worker and intended business partner, Larry Schatz, was on the other end of the phone at the time and heard what sounded like a scuffle and the receiver hitting the side of the phone booth. Schatz called 911 to report that his friend was being mugged. Reisenbach was pronounced dead a half-hour later at St. Vincent’s Hospital.

“It took everybody aback for a long time,” says Ira Bernstein, co-president of Lionsgate’s Debmar-Mercury, who worked with Reisenbach early in his career. “It’s not the kind of thing you can easily forget.”

All these years later, Reisenbach’s murder remains unsolved. Despite Hollywood’s affection for cold cases, law enforcement experts say there’s little hope of new leads emerging any time soon.

Rather than dwell on the tragedy of his death, Reisenbach’s family and friends have worked since 1991 to honor his memory through a foundation that has a simple mission: to make New York City a better and safe place to live and work. The John A. Reisenbach Foundation has defied the odds against small nonprofits to thrive into its fourth decade as a distributor of grants to grassroots organizations that have direct impact on the lives of residents across the city. The foundation was rooted in the determination of Reisenbach’s father, longtime Warner Bros. marketing chief Sandy Reisenbach, to leave a proud legacy for his oldest child and only son.

Read the entire article here. Please donate and help us as we work to support a better and safer NYC.