Tony Hiss

Tony Hiss is an author, lecturer, and consultant on restoring America’s cities and landscapes. In 1963, he became a staff writer at The New Yorker, and since 1994, he has been a visiting scholar at New York University, first at the Taub Urban Research Center, and now at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.

• Currently spearheading NatureRail, a new environmental and transportation initiative that works with commuter railroads to safeguard and restore the land they use, and to expand recreation and wilderness opportunities for all metropolitan residents
• Organized a 1997 conference for the Rockefeller Brothers Fund about the future of the New York/New Jersey Harbor Estuary, and as a result, four New York area foundations set up the pilot “H2O (Highlands-to-Ocean) Fund” to rescue and protect the estuary
• Wrote the initial vision statement for Amtrak’s new Great American Station Foundation, along with the report that launched New York State’s 100-mile-long Hudson River Valley Greenway initiative
• Serves as director of the Conservancy for Historic Battery Park and of the Village Alliance (a New York business improvement district), on the advisory board of Scenic America, Inc., a Contributing Editor to Preservation magazine, and a Fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities

Last updated 8/25/16