GETTY DONATES TO FIRST LADY'S PROJECT; $1.1 MILLION TO HELP CONSERVE HISTORIC U.S. SITES.

Byline: Reed Johnson Daily News Staff Writer

With first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and Gov.-elect Gray Davis looking on, officials of the J. Paul Getty Trust on Thursday announced a grant of $1.1 million toward conservation of historic buildings and districts throughout the United States.

The award, one of the largest in the Brentwood-based foundation's history, is being made to the nonprofit National Trust for Historic Preservation and will support up to 25 model projects, said Robert F. Erburu, chairman of the Getty's board of trustees.

Those projects will be part of the Save America's Treasures campaign, an initiative of the nonpartisan White House Millennium Council, chaired by the first lady. The council aims to protect artifacts and sites of historic value to the nation.

``If we lose these monuments, we can lose the history of who we are,'' Erburu said at an afternoon ceremony at the Breed Street Shul, a historic Jewish synagogue in the Boyle Heights section of Los Angeles, once a predominantly Jewish neighborhood, now heavily populated by Latinos.

The preservation initiative sends ``a statement that we believe there must be continuity among generations, and there must be connections among people,'' the first lady said.

Projects are to be chosen through a national juried competition administered by the National Trust. Individual grants will range up to $50,000 and will be matched dollar for dollar by the recipients.

To augment the national initiative, the Getty also announced a Los Angeles preservation initiative to compile a survey of historic buildings and districts in Los Angeles, award planning grants and fund selected demonstration projects.

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PHOTO First lady Hillary Clinton greets well-wishers in Boyle Heights after accepting a grant for the Save America's Treasures campaign.

Evan Yee/Daily News