private partnerships, a lot of citizen participation and advocacy, and also a mayor who loves parks and thinks that they’re very good places to invest public dollars.
Adrian Benepe with New York City Mayor Ed Koch (center) and the rest of the Urban Park Rangers class of 1979.
Both your parents had a professional interest in cities. How did this influence your career path? My father is a city planner and architect, and my late mother was an urban anthropologist. So from my father I got an appreciation for the built environment—both landscapes and cityscapes—and from my mother I got an appreciation for people. You put the landscape and the people together and you get parks. And I really did depend on parks as a kid—to get away from the noise and confu- sion of the city, for sports, and for a lot of other things.
Which parks did you visit growing up? My main childhood park was Riverside Park, which I later learned was a Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux design from the 1880s with a Works Progress Administra- tion expansion from the 1930s. As a child I played in one of the great WPA playgrounds, and then eventually my own children played in those same playgrounds. And, of course, I spent time in Central Park. That was where we went to play touch football, or for concerts, to play Frisbee, or hang out with other teenagers.
How often do you get out to the parks these days? I’m usually out on a bicycle in a park whenever I have a free moment. Of course, the city now offers many more opportunities to enjoy parks than when I was a kid. The transformation of the West Side from derelict shipping piers and an elevated highway to Hudson River Park, a spectacular waterfront park and bicycle path, is the most profound transformation of Manhattan in 75 years. The same thing has happened all over New York City. I
was very fortunate to be at the helm of the parks depart- ment when so many things were coming together: public-
Why does the mayor believe parks are a good investment? If you build a great park and it’s well maintained and has active programs, people will want to live near it, which makes for healthy neighborhoods and spurs economic development. There’s a lot of tourism in New York that’s centered on parks. Central Park is one of the most-visited parks in the world, not just because it attracts the locals, but also because it’s a tourist destination. Places like Washington Square, Bryant Park, Battery Park, and so on—they’re full of tourists.
“
Parks were sort of the wild west in those days. if you weren’t committing a major crime, the police weren’t interested.
But that wasn’t always the case. The parks were in pretty rough condition back when you first got your start. Oh, yes. The first summer I worked in the parks, in 1973, they were in terrible shape, after a full decade of decline. Later, in college, I had a pushcart in Central Park selling soups and interesting breads. It was technically illegal, be- cause we didn’t have a concessions license, but parks were sort of the Wild West in those days. If you weren’t com- mitting a major crime, the police weren’t interested.
”
And then you became a sheriff. Then I became a sheriff. Just as I got out of college, the new parks commissioner, Gordon Davis, was trying to reestablish some sense of control in the parks by starting the Urban Park Rangers program—unarmed ambassadors who would explain how to use the parks and give environ- mental tours and so on. Joining the urban park rangers was a great introduction to the parks, because you got paid to walk around and talk to people, which seemed like a pretty great thing.
INSIGHT · 29
city of new york
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