tisch made substantial donations to his alma maters, leading to these institutions naming buildings and a school after him. tisch hall, on the university of michigan central campus, houses that university's history department. new york university's tisch school of the arts and nyu medical center's tisch hospital are named after laurence a. and preston robert tisch. nyu's preston robert tisch center for hospitality, tourism, and sports management was founded in 1995 and expanded in 1999 to meet the needs of a growing student population. in 1997, the central park zoo opened the tisch children's zoo. given two months to live by his new york doctors, tisch lived for 14 more months under care at duke university medical center. in recognition of their efforts, the tisch family donated $10 million to the duke brain tumor center which was renamed the preston robert tisch brain tumor center in october 2005. the tisch building in new york city which is the headquarters of the gay men's health crisis (gmhc) is named for him and his wife, who is on the gmhc board of directors, after they donated $3.5 million for it in march 1997. there is additionally a preston r. tisch professorship in judaic studies and the preston robert tisch tennis building at the university of michigan. tisch was also a founding member of the association for a better new york, which took on the task of tackling city problems that had previously fallen to the city's agencies. he additionally helped to found citymeals on wheels and personally served meals to the city's elderly. there is a tisch center for the arts at the 92y in new york, and tisch galleries at the metropolitan museum of arts. tisch founded the charity take the field, which raised $135 million in public and private funds to repair 43 athletic fields in new york city.