Speakers
THE CITY OF NEW YORK
OFFICE OF THE MAYOR
NEW YORK, N.Y. 10007
May 1, 2002
Dear Friends:
I am delighted to extend warm greetings to all those attending the annual Alexander Hamilton Award Dinner, hosted by the Manhattan Institute. This is a special occasion as you gather to pay tribute to your honorees.
On behalf of the city of New York, I congratulate Ellen V. Futter, President of the American Museum of Natural History; Richard Gilder, Senior Managing Member at Gilder Gagnon Howe & Co. LLC; and Betsy Barlow Rogers, Founder of the Central Park Conservancy, on receiving this distinguished recognition and I applaud their dedication to our great City.
Your honorees have made incredible contributions to the culture and aesthetic atmosphere of the Big Apple. The Central Park Conservancy has been crucial to reinvigorating Central Park and continues to ensure that this gem remains one of the great municipal parks in the world. Next door to Central Park, the Museum of Natural History stands out as one of New York's worldrenowned institutions that adds to our City's reputation. I recognize Richard Gilder for his close involvement with both of these institutions, and I commend his efforts to support these wonderful organizations as well as so many other causes and charities.
The Manhattan Institute continues to provoke meaningful thought for policy in our City, and in the aftermath of September 11th, it is more important than ever to look forward to the future of New York. As our City is recovering, so is our determination and perseverance, and I applaud the Institute for its commitment. Today's event truly invokes the spirit of Alexander Hamilton, one of our nation's Founding Fathers and one of our City's greatest citizens.
Please accept my best wishes for an enjoyable event.
Sincerely,
Michael R. Bloomberg
Mayor
ELLEN V. FUTTER, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
Ellen V. Futter is President of the American Museum of Natural History. She previously served as President of Barnard College for thirteen years.
Ms. Futter graduated Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude, from Barnard in 1971. She earned her J.D. degree from Columbia Law School in 1974. She was elected to the Board of Trustees of Barnard as a student representative in 1971 and was subsequently elected to full membership to complete the term of Arthur Goldberg, former Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. She began her career as an associate at the Wall Street firm of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy where she practiced corporate law. In 1980, Ms. Futter took a leave of absence from Milbank, Tweed to serve as Barnard's Acting President for one year. At the end of that period, she was appointed President of the College and served in that capacity until 1993 when she joined the Museum.
Born in New York City on September 21, 1949, Ms. Futter attended high school in Port Washington, New York. Before transferring to Barnard College, she spent two years at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Ms. Futter is a director of a number of corporations and not-forprofit organizations. She currently serves on the boards of American International Group, Inc.; BristolMyers Squibb Company; Consolidated Edison, Inc.; J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.; Memorial SloanKettering Cancer Center; and NYC & Company, as well as on the board of the American Museum of Natural History.
She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Advisory Board of the Yale School of Management, the National Institute of Social Sciences and the Academy of American Poets, as well as of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York and the New York State and American Bar Associations.
She formerly served as Chairman of the Board of New York Federal Reserve Bank and Chairman of the Commission on Women's Health of The Commonwealth Fund. She has received numerous honorary degrees and awards
Ms. Futter is married and has two daughters.
RICHARD GILDER, GILDER GAGNON HOWE & Co. LLC
Richard Gilder.Since he graduated from Yale University with a degree in history in 1954, Richard Gilder has worked as a stockbroker on Wall Street, first at A.G. Becker & Co. and then, beginning in 1968, with his own firm, Gilder Gagnon Howe & Co. LLC.
Mr. Gilder has devoted considerable energy to philanthropy over the past two decades. In 1974, he founded the Central Park Community Fund, one of two park groups that merged in 1980 to create the Central Park Conservancy, of which he is a founding and continuing trustee. He serves as a Trustee Emeritus and former Chairman of the Manhattan Institute, and as a trustee of the American Museum of Natural History; the Pierpont Morgan Library; The Thomas Jefferson Foundation, Inc.; and the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture at Williamsburg, Virginia.
With his longtime friend Lewis Lehrman, he has created the GilderLehrman Institute of American History, perhaps his most significant philanthropic effort. The Institute has amassed one of the largest and most important private collections of American historical documents in existence (currently on deposit at the Pierpont Morgan Library). It sponsors history schools, history programs within schools, and Saturday academies for public and parochial schools in New York City, and holds weeklong summer training sessions for New York City high school teachers on aspects of American History at Yale, Harvard, Brown, Columbia, Amherst, Gettysburg, Monticello, University of Virginia, Oxford, and Cambridge. It also sponsors lectures to the public and creates traveling exhibitions that include two which celebrate the life of George Washington (one with the Morgan Library and the Huntington Library; and the other with the Ladies Association of Mount Vernon and the New York Historical Society). In addition, the Institute sponsors the Lincoln Prize with the Lincoln & Soldiers Institute at Gettysburg College and it has recently (1998) opened the GilderLehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale, Mr. Gilder's and Mr. Lehrman's alma mater. Mr. Gilder is cofounder of the Lincoln Prize and The Frederick Douglass Book Award.
Mr. Gilder is the recipient of honorary degrees from Gettysburg College and St. John's University. A lifelong New York City resident, he has four children and six grandchildren.
ELIZABETH B. ROGERS, FOUNDER, CENTRAL PARK CONSERVANCY
Elizabeth Barlow Rogers is the director of Garden History and Landscape Studies at Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design, and Culture. A native of San Antonio, Texas, Ms. Rogers earned a B.A. degree from Wellesley College and a master's degree in City Planning from Yale University where her principal focus was upon open space planning and environmental conservation. A resident of New York City since 1964, she is the first person to hold the title Central Park Administrator, a new Parks Department position created by Mayor Edward I. Koch in 1979. She is also the first president of the Central Park Conservancy, which she founded in 1980 to bring citizen support to the restoration and renewed management of Central Park.
As Central Park administrator and president of the Central Park Conservancy, she directed the landscape preservation planning process and authored the document Rebuilding Central Park: A Management and Restoration Plan, which served as the basis of a fundraising effort that added $150 million of private support to city funding for the goals her landscape preservation team had set forth. The synthesis of many parkwide studies undertaken between 1982 and 1985, Rebuilding Central Park details the various analyses, surveys, and resultant recommendations that continue to serve as the basis for a systematic program of fundraising, capital construction, and management innovation in Central Park. In 1996, Ms. Rogers stepped down from her dual role as administrator and president of the Central Park Conservancy to form the Cityscape Institute, a notforprofit organization dedicated to assisting citizens and public officials in the improvement of public places. Ms. Rogers, who serves as a life trustee of the Conservancy, continues to direct the Cityscape Institute in conjunction with the current park administrator and Conservancy president.
Ms. Rogers is the recipient of several awards for her work both 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 Alumnae Achievement Award; an honorary doctorate in Fine Arts from Miami University; and the American Academy of Arts and Letters' 2001 Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts. Her most recent book, Landscape Design: A Cultural and Architectural History, was published in 2001.
The Alexander Hamilton Award was created to honor those individuals helping to foster the revitalization of our nation’s cities. We chose to name the award after Hamilton because, like the Manhattan Institute, he was a fervent proponent of commerce and civic life. Through the years, we have expanded the scope of the prize to celebrate leaders not just on the local level, but also at the state and federal levels, who have made remarkable things happen in the realms of public policy, culture, and philanthropy. We hope our celebration of these awardees encourages replication of their efforts.