East Hampton: A History and Guide

The impulse to capture history-in-the-making in images as well as with words is universal and timeless. Going beyond sketchbook artistry in terms of facile documentation, photography has been the prevalent medium of expression in this regard for the past century-and-a-half. As a subject for both professional and amateur photographers, the building of Central Park as a fusion of nature and art ranks high on the scale of place-focused photographic output during this time. To appreciate the fact that for the past forty-five years, the transformation from dereliction to renewed beauty of this world-famous landscape by the Central Park Conservancy has been systematically recorded by the civic organization’s own official photographer Sara Cedar Miller.

My online dictionary defines the word “organization” as 1) “an efficient and orderly approach to tasks” and 2) “an organized body of people with a particular purpose, especially a business, society, association, etc.,” thus implying a consensual approach within the workplace, as opposed to the structural nature of hierarchy, which is defined as “a system or organization in which people or groups are ranked one above the other according to status or authority. “Collegial,” which, on the other hand, is defined as “shared responsibility, as among a group of colleagues” is the term I would most associate with the social tenor of the Central Park Conservancy; however, the name “Collegium” which refers almost exclusively to “a society of amateur musicians, especially one attached to a German or US college,” would not have been an appropriate moniker for the public-private partnership that has evolved under the name “Central Park Conservancy. The fact that the dictionary definition of “conservancy” as “a body concerned with the preservation of nature, specific species, or natural resources: the Nature Conservancy” is partially apropos, and my choice of this name for the successor of the Central Park Task Force is a source of pride for me. It is important to note that the Central Park Conservancy has never been an activist organization giving public voice to prod city government to provide for the entire upkeep. Instead, thanks to the collegial relationship forged between me as the organization’s founder and Pam Tice, whose professional management skills as chief executive officer helped steer the course of this civic organization’s first five years of existence.