New Leadership at New York’s Oldest Public Space
The Battery Conservancy, the non-profit organization that protects, maintains, and enhances the 25-acre historic park at Manhattan’s southern tip, has a new leader: Paula Recart, who comes to the organization following a six-year stint as chief impact officer at McCourt Global, a private family company with investments in real estate, infrastructure, sports, technology, and media. She has also served as a board member at the Shed, an art center in Hudson Yards, and a director of Ashoka, a nonprofit organization that promotes social entrepreneurship.
“About a year and a half ago, I started volunteering at the Battery, my favorite park in New York City,” Ms. Recart says. “Many early mornings each month, before the City fully woke up, I would join the team of gardeners to help with planting, pruning, and general care of the gardens. I loved it – the quiet early hours, the sense of purpose, the beauty of working with others to tend a public space that belongs to everyone.”
Ms. Recart succeeds Warrie Price, who founded the Battery Conservancy in 1994, when New York’s oldest continually used public space (and one of the City’s first dedicated parks) was in ghastly shape. Ms. Price began her tenure shortly after The New York Times said, “Battery Park, the first green space in a city cluttered almost from the time the first Dutch settlers arrived in 1625, should be one of the plums of the city. It is more like a shriveled raisin at Manhattan’s southern tip.” Marred by graffiti, litter, mud in place of lawns, and broken equipment, it was avoided by residents and people who worked nearby, and used almost exclusively by tourists boarding ferries to the Statue of Liberty.
In the years that followed, Ms. Price spearheaded campaigns that raised $70 million in private funds and more than $100 million in City, State, and federal allocations. The transformation she presided over brought to the Battery world-class gardens, the SeaGlass Carousel, the Battery Playscape for kids, and the Urban Farm, where public school students participate in agricultural learning programs.
Today, the Battery Conservancy employs a staff of 34, manages more than 700 volunteers, and hosts more than seven million annual visitors from around the world.
Ms. Price decided to step down earlier this year, saying that the time had come for “a new voice, new blood, and new ideas.” This decision triggered a five-month search process that recruited Ms. Recart, who comes to the Battery Conservancy at an inflection point. The Battery Coastal Resilience project, which is rebuilding the waterfront promenade to make the park safe against climate change, sea-level rise, and future extreme-weather events, is more than half complete. But the FiDi-Seaport Climate Resilience master plan – which aims to achieve similar goals on the East River waterfront between the Battery and the Brooklyn Bridge – is finalizing a design that will require the installation of new flood barriers within Battery Park, buried beneath newly created landscape features. This plan will require the loss of 60 to 90 trees, and feature the creation of “a gently sloping landform” that will cover the flood protection structures. The new hill will rise approximately 15 feet above the existing elevation, culminating in a ridge. The northern end of this hill will cut in half the Battery’s Oval Lawn, with its far end (near the Bowling Green subway entrance) replaced by a new entry plaza.
The Conservancy’s board chair, Fred Rich, said, “without Warrie Price, New York wouldn’t have the magnificent park we have today. This is a pivotal moment for The Battery. We must now pass the torch to someone who can build on Warrie’s extraordinary legacy and expand programming that serves our vibrant downtown neighborhood, our millions of visitors from around the world, and all New Yorkers.”