When you approached in 1978 the issues associated with being the Commissioner of Parks and Recreation in a metropolitan area as intricately challenging and complex as New York City, you took on a task of enormous proportions, with responsibility for 25,000 acres of parkland, 700 playgrounds, 104 swimming pools, 7 ice rinks, and more than 500 tennis courts. Having already served for 10 years in New York City government, holding a variety of positions under Mayor John V. Lindsay, including a full five years on the City Planning Commission, your political, managerial, and budgetary skills were already finely honed. These skills, coupled with your love for your adopted city and for what you described as “maybe the finest urban park system in the world,” enabled you to implement vast changes. While carrying out the most sweeping restructuring of the department since the early tenure of Robert Moses as parks commissioner in the 1930’s, you refurbished such landmark sites as Brooklyn’s Prospect Park Arch, restored large areas, including the Sheep Meadow of Central Park, installed throughout the city thousands of benches, to say nothing of new seats in Shea Stadium, and restored 14 miles of beaches. Throughout this time, whether at your desk at the Arsenal Building in Central Park or out meeting with community groups in the five boroughs, you never lost sight of your goal of preserving and creating areas that provide within the city for all its people a multitude of pleasant, accessible and safe havens. When you first became commissioner you called the parks the city’s “jewels in the crown.” When five years later you returned to the practice of law, few would deny that those jewels had a brighter sparkle. In recognition of your distinguished achievement as Commissioner of Parks and Recreation of the City of New York, Williams College is proud to present you with its Bicentennial Medal.