History
The Conservancy was born out of community concern during the Park’s rapid decline in the 1970s. New York City’s financial and social crisis left America’s first major urban public space virtually abandoned – a dustbowl that residents came to view as a dangerous, crime-ridden space. The Park had deteriorated so badly that some advocated handing it over to the National Park Service.
Many advocacy groups had been working separately to improve conditions in Central Park. Two of them - the Central Park Task Force and the Central Park Community Fund - were trying to address management concerns and improve physical conditions in the Park. The Central Park Task Force was led by Elizabeth Barlow Rogers, an urban planner, writer and civic activist; the Central Park Community Fund was founded by Richard Gilder and Soros.
The Central Park Community Fund commissioned a management study, led by Columbia University Professor E.S. Savas, which concluded that in order for the Park to be better managed it needed a single and unpaid individual employed by the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation to oversee its daily operations. It also recommended the establishment of a private, citizen-based board that would advise the overseeing individual. The suggestions of the Savas report were supported by Mayor Edward I. Koch's and Parks Commissioner Gordon Davis, and in 1979 the city established the Office of Central Park Administrator and appointed Elizabeth "Betsy" Barlow Rogers as the first Central Park Administrator.
Rogers maintained that Central Park was a cultural institution, no different than the city's renowned museums and performance venues. Backed by the suggestions made in the Savas report, she proposed following in the footsteps of those institutions by establishing a private board to help support the Park.
In 1980, the Central Park Task Force and the Central Park Community Fund joined together to form the not-for-profit Central Park Conservancy, a public-private partnership created to bring private resources to the public Park.
“We wanted something permanent and nonpolitical, not subject to changes when a commissioner or mayor leaves office; but also something that was accountable to the public and that worked in partnership with the city,” Parks Commissioner Gordon Davis said at the time.
On October 23, 2012, hedge fund manager John A. Paulson announced a $100 million gift to the Central Park Conservancy, the largest ever monetary donation to New York City’s park system.
Read more about this topic: Central Park Conservancy
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