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Parks & Recreation 2002-2003 Biennial Report
Eight Seasons of Progress
Funding Our Initiatives
Sponsoring the Dave Matthews Band Concert in Central Park gave us a wonderful, visible way to support a terrific cause.
-Jon Miller, Chair and CEO of America Online, Inc.
PRIVATE SECTOR SUPPORT ENERGIZES our initiatives. Our major non-profit partners, such as the Prospect Park Alliance and the Central Park Conservancy, lead private fundraising efforts for parks. Within Parks & Recreation, we created a Marketing and Corporate Sponsorship division to reach further into the private sector, and over the past two years, foundations, corporations, and individuals have increased their direct financial and in-kind support for special events, children’s programming, and greening. Below is a sample of some of the private support we received in the past two years; in the back of this report is a more substantial list of our many partners.
SPECIAL EVENTS
Privately sponsored public events have drawn record numbers of people to parks. AOL underwrote the Dave Matthews Band Concert in Central Park with a donation of $1 million to Parks and a commitment to raise $1 million for the Fund for New York City Public Schools; American Express and Con Edison funded the Cool New York winter event series; Newmark & Company Real Estate sponsored Halloween festivities throughout the five boroughs. None of these events would have been possible without private funding.
As part of Cool New York, presented by American Express, children sled down a hill of man-made snow at the 2003 Hormel Winter Festival in Central Park
CHILDREN’S PROGRAMMING
The private and non-profit sectors have been great supporters of youth programming. In the summer of 2003, the New York Jets ran a football clinic for kids in our AfterSchool flag football league. The Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City and its board member, columnist Liz Smith, raised $100,000 for the Parks Conservation Corps, an employment and environmental education program for high school students. BP donated $177,000 to Wildlife Management, which runs our American Bald Eagle program in Inwood Hill Park. Among our major non-profit partners, the City Parks Foundation has continued to lead efforts to bring high quality youth programming to parks.
GREENING
One of our most imaginative public-private partnerships has been the ongoing revitalization of the Heather Garden in Fort Tryon Park, spearheaded by the Rockefeller family, which originally donated and built this 60-acre park for the city in 1935, and local resident Dr. Ruth Westheimer. In partnership with the New York Restoration Project, we are renovating Fort Tryon Park, and a number of foundations, particularly the Rhodebeck Charitable Trust, are helping to raise an endowment to preserve the garden for the years ahead.
IN-KIND DONATIONS 
Park enthusiasts do not just contribute financially; many also offer in-kind donations. Daimler-Chrysler donated 248 Global Electric Motorcars, and Toyota gave us 10 electric RAV4 sports utility vehicles. Similarly, the Public Art Fund and the Rockaway Artists Alliance contributed labor and materials to monument installation and restoration.
LOOKING FORWARD
We will continue to expand the role of the private sector in parks. We will help our private partners find new donors, while creating appropriate opportunities for corporate sponsors and individuals to play important roles in underwriting programs, events, and projects in parks.
Another hot night I stop off at the Goldman Band concert in the Mall in Central Park. The people seated on the benches fanned out in front of the band shell are attentive, appreciative. In the trees the night wind stirs, bringing the leaves to life, endowing them with speech . . . It is a magical occasion, and it’s all free.
-E.B. White
Here is New York, 1949
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