Rockefeller Institute of Government Rockefeller Institute of Government The Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government is the public policy research arm of the State University of New York. The Institute conducts nonpartisan, data-driven research and analysis on state and local government and finance, American federalism, public management, and New York State issues. The Institute is located in Albany, New York. The Rockefeller Institute was founded in 1981, at the same time as the Nelson A. Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy at the University at Albany, as a proposal by then-SUNY chancellor Clifton Wharton to acknowledge the role that Governor Rockefeller played in
Rockefeller Center approval of the complex's status, the commission wrote, "Rockefeller Center ranks among the grandest architectural projects ever undertaken in the United States". The buildings became a National Historic Landmark two years later. The United States Department of the Interior wrote in its report that the center was "one of the most successful urban planning projects in the history of American architecture". Columbia University was not making enough money from Rockefeller Center leases by the 1970s, since a series of negotiations with Rockefeller Center Inc. (now Rockefeller Group) had effectively reduced the annual lease payment to $11 million. The university's funds