work / vision /
Central Park: Management & Restoration Plan
Judith Heintz was one of four landscape architects who developed the 1982 - 1985 plan for rebuilding Central Park. The plan was developed in two phases over three years. In the Inventory and Analysis phase, more than 10 teams of specialists investigated park-wide systems such as use, circulation (vehicular, pedestrian and equestrian), soils, hydrology, geology and vegetation. These findings were used to develop park-wide proposals for redesign and/or management. The team then divided the Park into manageable design areas for site specific recommendations. Priorities differed for the various areas of the Park: e.g., in the North End, natural systems and passive use took precedence over active recreation, while in the Great Lawn, active recreation and pedestrian circulation prevailed.
The team’s work recognized the Park as a constantly evolving organism made up of both natural and cultural systems. They studied the pre-Park survey and the many changes made after 1872’s as-built Olmsted and Vaux plan, including detailed surveys done in 1934 and 1982, acknowledging that their new plan would represent just one more layer in the accumulation of changes in the previous century, not a static artifact to be restored to one moment in time. The plan was published by MIT Press in 1987 as Rebuilding Central Park: A Management and Restoration Plan.
Project Team
Central Park Conservancy: Elizabeth Barlow Rogers, Marianne Cramer, Judith Heintz
Consultants Phase 2: Bruce Kelly, Philip Winslow
Plans and Before photos courtesy of Central Park Conservancy; After photos by Sara Cedar-Miller, CPC; Drawings by Judith Heintz.