MT Online Content
NYRP appoints new executive director
Written by Administrator
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
New York Restoration Project has appointed a new executive director, Amy Freitag, effective Oct. 1. The 15-year-old organization, founded by actress Bette Midler, is dedicated to reclaiming and restoring parks, community gardens and open space in disadvantaged neighborhoods throughout the city. Locally, NYRP runs the New Leaf Restaurant and Bar in Ft. Tryon Park and does programming in Swindler Cove in Inwood.
“I am excited and honored to be joining an organization that is so vital to protecting, preserving and programming New York City’s precious green spaces as New York Restoration Project,” said Freitag. “I grew up in the Midwest with a family devoted to gardening, parks and conservation so NYRP’s mission is in my DNA! My professional background and personal interests have prepared me to work with NYRP’s dedicated staff, supporters and partners to sustain their existing work while moving the organization forward in a way that will expand its impact on our city, the environment and everyone who calls New York City home.”
Freitag most recently served as U.S. program director for the World Monuments Fund where the myriad conservation projects she worked on include Taos Pueblo, Frank Lloyd Wright textile block structures, a Hopi petroglyph site on Navajo land and Shaker villages in New York and Massachusetts.
She currently serves on the boards of the James Marston Fitch Charitable Foundation and the New York Preservation Archive Project. Freitag lectures nationally on the history of women in conservation and is researching a book on the founding of the Garden Club of America.
Before working for the World Monuments Fund, Freitag spent six years as deputy commissioner for capital projects in the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. Notable capital projects the proceeded during her watch include work on High Line Park, Brooklyn Bridge Park, Freshkills Park, Union Square, Washington Square and a $200 million environmental mitigation in Bronx Parks.
