Brooklyn’s Fort Greene Park is a 34-acre public space stewarded by the community to celebrate and sustain the neighborhood’s diverse, vibrant culture. The park is an incredible natural asset with a rich history, boasting Walt Whitman as the park’s spiritual founding father. The Fort Greene Park Conservancy is a non-profit that provides programming, maintenance, and advocacy to preserve and nourish Fort Greene Park as a community resource and public space for all New Yorkers for generations to come. Please join WWI President Karen Karbiener for a discussion on the history and future of Brooklyn’s first public park with present and past Conservancy leaders.
Rosamond Fletcher joined the Fort Greene Park Conservancy in 2019. As its first Executive Director, she is shaping its role as steward of the park with its Board, community partners and NYC Parks. Rosamond has worked for over 15 years at the intersection of public space planning and urban design, most recently, as Director of Programs at the Design Trust for Public Space, where she partnered with communities and government agencies on projects to improve NYC’s public realm. Rosamond has taught at the Urban Lab/New York University, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and Georgia Institute of Technology. She holds a Master of Environmental Design from Yale School of Architecture and a BArch and BFA from RISD.
Charles Jarden, board member of the Conservancy since 2002, and Chairman 2005 to 2019. Charles first activities with the Conservancy included building awareness and creating multi-year programming around the 100th anniversary of the Park’s historic Prison Ship Martyrs Monument. After the Monument’s restoration and celebration in 2008, Charles and the Conservancy began a programming track on Walt Whitman to produce year-round free events. Charles transitioned the organization from all-volunteer to professional staff and launched collaborations with local businesses. Outside of the Conservancy, Charles is fundraiser and producer for classical music projects across the county.
Julian Macrone is an advocate for communities and student of cities, currently completing a Masters degree at the Yale School of the Environment. Julian was Associate Director of the Fort Greene Park Conservancy. His professional and academic work centers around how we can build more resilient, just urban environments—perennially inspired by the ideals of Brooklyn Boosters like Whitman.
Karen Karbiener, president and founding member of the Walt Whitman Initiative, is a Whitman scholar and teaches at New York University. Winner of the Kluge Fellowship at the Library of Congress and a Fulbright recipient, she has published widely on Whitman (most recently working with Brian Selznick on Live Oak, with Moss, a new illustrated edition of Whitman’s secret same-sex love poems). As a cultural activist in her hometown, Karen has been working on the campaign to preserve 99 Ryerson Street since 2017, and gave testimony at the hearing to landmark 227 Duffield Place, Brooklyn, last year.