Gordon J. Davis, New York’s first Black parks commissioner who established the Central Park Conservancy and co-founded Jazz at Lincoln Center, died Sunday in Manhattan at age 85 from complications of emphysema, according to his daughter, Elizabeth Cooper Davis.
Standing 6-foot-5 and holding a Harvard Law School degree, Gordon J. Davis left an indelible mark on New York City’s public spaces and cultural institutions. Appointed parks commissioner in 1978, Mr. Davis ran a department encompassing more than 4,000 employees, nearly 600 parks, 900 playgrounds, over 100 swimming pools, 500 tennis courts, 10 golf courses, three zoos, and numerous recreation centers, beaches, ice-skating rinks, and sports fields. Reflecting on the demands of the post, he told The New Yorker
at the time about fielding constant complaints regarding tennis courts, rinks, and trees the very day his appointment was announced.
Gordon J.
Restoring Central Park and Sheep Meadow
Mr. Davis is best remembered for spearheading the restoration of the Sheep Meadow, an expansive Central Park lawn. Before closing the field for a year of repairs, he brought in singer-songwriter James Taylor for a final concert, securing a substantial grant from the governor’s office to fund the renovation project. His administration also made possible Elton John’s 1980 concert in the park and a celebrated reunion concert featuring Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel on the Great Lawn in 1981.
During his five-year tenure, Mr. Davis instituted a corps of urban park rangers, appointed borough administrators, privatized many public golf courses, spurred the Midtown restoration of Bryant Park, and reintroduced a herd of sea lions to the Central Park Zoo. In 1980, he served as a founding trustee of the Central Park Conservancy. Richard Gilder, a founding donor, and Betsy Gotbaum, a subsequent parks commissioner, later wrote in a The New York Times
letter to the editor that Mr. Davis foresaw the Conservancy not simply as an act of political will, but as a reaffirmation of the social democracy that is the hallmark of our park and our city.
Early Life, Legal Career, and Jazz at Lincoln Center
Born into Chicago’s Black aristocracy, Mr. Davis took great pride in his father—a University of Chicago professor who in 1947 became the first African American granted tenure at any white college or university in the United States. At Williams, where his father had also studied, Mr. Davis played basketball, graduated in 1963 with a political science degree, and co-founded a civil rights committee raising funds for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and other activist groups. After graduate work in city planning and public administration at Columbia University, he earned his law degree from Harvard in 1967, where he helped found the Harvard Black Law Students Association and contributed to the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review
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Following a stint as assistant to the budget director under Mayor John V. Lindsay and five years as a labor and real-estate lawyer, Mr. Davis stepped into municipal leadership. Later in his career, in 1987, he joined jazz musician Wynton Marsalis, Lincoln Center chairman George Weissman, and literary and music critic Albert Murray to found Jazz at Lincoln Center. He also married Peggy Cooper in 1968, who became a professor at New York University Law School. He is survived by his wife, daughter Elizabeth, brother Allison S. Davis, and two grandchildren.
