Elizabeth Barlow Rogers


Elizabeth Barlow Rogers is a landscape designer, landscape preservationist and writer. Her most notable project is the revitalization of Central Park in New York City. After serving as Central Park administrator, Rogers became the first president of the Central Park Conservancy, a private not-for-profit corporation that she helped found in 1980 to bring citizen support to the restoration and renewed management of Central Park.

Early life

Rogers was born in San Antonio, Texas to C. L. and Elizabeth Browning. She grew up with two brothers in Alamo Heights. A graduate of Wellesley College, where she majored in art history, she later received a Masters in city planning from Yale University. She moved permanently to New York in 1964.

Career

In 1979, Rogers was appointed the first administrator for Central Park by then-Mayor Ed Koch. At the time, the public space was strewn with trash and long neglected with virtually no funding allocated to improving its condition. Working with then NYC Parks commissioner Gordon J. Davis, Rogers conceived of a master plan to reinstate the Greensward Plan design by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, while also keeping in mind the public purpose of the greensward and practical considerations. Rogers' aim was "the renewal of the physical beauty of the park as originally envisioned by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, yet integrated with contemporary social and recreational uses."
Rogers recruited friends and volunteers to assist her in reclaiming discrete sections of the park. One of these colleagues was Lynden Miller. In 1982, Rogers asked Miller to tackle Central Park's Conservatory Garden.
She founded a program in Garden History and Landscape Studies at the Bard Graduate Center, New York, in 2001, and directed it until 2005.
Barlow Rogers is the president of the Foundation for Landscape Studies.

Awards

Her alma mater honored her with an Alumni Achievement Award in 1989.
In 2005, the American Society of Landscape Architects presented her with its LaGasse Medal for her achievements.
A discreet bronze plaque on a boulder on the slope above the Diana Ross Playground honors her service to Central Park.

Personal life

Rogers' first marriage ended in divorce. She has two children. She is currently married to Ted Rogers.

Selected works