About Elizabeth Barlow Rogers
Elizabeth Barlow Rogers is the president of the Foundation for Landscape Studies. A native of San Antonio Texas, Rogers earned a bachelor of arts degree in Art History from Wellesley College and a master's degree in City Planning from Yale University. A resident of New York City since 1964, she was the first person to hold the title of Central Park Administrator, a New York City Parks Department position created by Mayor Edward I. Koch in 1979. She was also the first president of the Central Park Conservancy, founded in 1980 to bring citizen support to the restoration and renewed management of Central Park. She served in both positions until 1996.
Rogers is the author of Landscape Design: A Cultural and Architectural History (Abrams, 2001). Earlier works include The Forests and Wetlands of New York City (Little, Brown and Company, 1971), Frederick Law Olmsted's New York (Whitney Museum/Praeger, 1972), The Central Park Book (Central Park Task Force, 1977), and Rebuilding Central Park: A Management and Restoration Plan (The MIT Press, 1987).
In 1996, Rogers formed the Cityscape Institute, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to assisting citizens and public officials in the improvement of public places. Cityscape currently operates as the public outreach program of the Central Park Conservancy. She was the founding director of Garden History and Landscape Studies at the Bard Graduate Center in New York City between 2001 and 2005.
Rogers is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the recipient of several awards both for her work as a writer and as a landscape preservationist. These include the John Burroughs Medal for The Forests and Wetlands of New York City, which was also nominated for a National Book Award; the Wellesley College Distinguished Alumna Award; an honorary doctorate in Fine Arts from Miami University; the American Academy of Arts and Letters' 2001 Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts; and the American Society of Landscape Architects' 2005 LaGasse Medal.