Joshua David
Joshua David, co-founder
of Friends of the High
Line, teamed up with
Robert Hammond
in 1999 to save an historic
1.45-mile elevated railway
– formerly a spur of
the New York Central
Railroad – on Manhattan’s
West Side.
Together, Josh and
Robert successfully advocated
for the preservation
and reuse of the
High Line as a public
park, transformed and
opened the High Line
structure to the public in
three phases, turned Friends
of the High Line into a licensed
partner of the City of New York,
and raised significant private and
public funds for the park’s construction,
endowment, and annual
operations.
The High Line runs from Gansevoort
Street in the Meat Market
District north to West 34th Street
west of 11th Avenue. The final
portion of the park was opened in
2019.
In 2015, Josh became president
and CEO of World Monuments
Fund, a global non-profit dedicated
to protecting cultural heritage
sites, where he shifted the organizational
focus from a site-based,
bricks-and-mortar conservation
approach to a community-based,
social impact-driven model. Since
its founding in 1965, the non-profit
has orchestrated more than 600
projects in 90 countries.
Josh currently provides programmatic,
communications,
and funding counsel to mission
driven non-profit organizations.
He serves on
the Advisory Council of
Transportation Alternatives,
which seeks to
reclaim New York City
from the automobile by
advocating for better
bicycling, walking, and
public transit opportunities,
and he is a founding
board member of Friends
of + POOL, which is working
to build the world’s first floating,
self-filtering swimming pool,
to be sited in Manhattan’s East
River.
In 2017, as a board member of
the Greenacre Foundation, Josh
joined the effort to ensure that
the Midtown East rezoning plan
would protect Greenacre Park, a
public-access vest pocket private
space on East 51st Street – which
boasts a 25-foot waterfall and an
average of 700 visitors daily – from
the construction of tall buildings
nearby that would throw the space
into shadows for most of the day.
In 2010, Josh and Robert received
the Rockefeller Foundation’s
Jane Jacobs Medal for New
Ideas and Activism, and in 2013,
they received the National Building
Museum’s Vincent Scully
Prize, which recognizes exemplary
practice, scholarship, or criticism
in architecture, historic preservation,
and urban design.
Josh is a graduate of the University
of Pennsylvania and earned a
master’s of Fine Arts from Sarah
Lawrence College. He lives in Chelsea
with his partner, Stephen, and
his Cairn Terrier, Desi.
Co-Founder,
Friends
of the High
Line
Robert Hammond
In 1999, Robert Hammond
and Joshua David led efforts
to turn an abandoned
elevated railway line on
Manhattan’s West Side into one of
the world’s most celebrated parks:
the High Line.
They envisioned a park, which
runs from Gansevoort Street in the
Meat Market District north to West
34th Street west of 11th Avenue,
that would preserve the structure’s
wild, natural beauty and incorporate
parts of the historic elevated
railroad.
After seven years of planning,
gathering community input, engaging
donors and volunteers,
and persuading city officials,
construction finally began. The
High Line opened in June 2009
to immediate acclaim. This public
space became a continuous
1.45-mile-long greenway featuring
more than 500 species of plants
and trees where visitors can view
art, walk through gardens, or experience
a performance, all while
enjoying a unique perspective on
the city.
The High Line, the final phase of
which opened in 2019, now serves
as a model internationally for other
reuse projects and for community
activism. Most recently, the
organization established the
High Line Network, a group
of infrastructure reuse projects
and the people who
are helping them come to
life.
Robert continues his involvement
today as the executive
director of the High
Line, overseeing daily operations,
art, cultural, and
family programming, events,
finances, and fundraising, of
which nearly 100 percent is raised
privately.
Before his work with the High
Line, Robert supported the launch
of online businesses in the public
health and travel commerce
industries, and worked as a consultant
for an array of organizations,
including the Times Square
Alliance and Alliance for the Arts.
Robert has been awarded the
Vincent Scully Prize (2013), the
Rome Prize by the American
Academy in Rome (2010), the
Rockefeller Foundation’s
Jane Jacobs Medal, along
with Josh (2010), and an
honorary doctorate from
The New School (2012).
Robert is also a self-taught
artist and served as an
ex-officio member of the
Metropolitan Museum of
Art’s Board of Trustees.
Additionally, Robert is a
co-producer of the film “Citizen
Jane: Battle for the City,”
the story of the iconic urban preservationist
who wrote the seminal
book “The Death and Life
of Great Americans Cities.” Released
via IFC in April 2017, the
film chronicles the clash between
mid-20th-century urban planning
methods and how they relate
to today’s urban renaissance.
Robert has been a meditation
teacher since 2014.
He is a graduate of Princeton
University.
Co-Founder
of Friends
of the High
Line; Executive
Director,
The High Line
2020 Impact A 8 wards | GayCityNews.nyc