Andrew Haswell Green

Andrew Haswell Green (1820 - November 13, 1903) was a New York lawyer, city planner, civic leader and agitator for reform. Called by some historians a hundred years later "the 19th century Robert Moses," he held several offices and played important roles in many projects, including Riverside Drive, Morningside Park, Fort Washington Park, and Central Park. His last great project was the consolidation of the "Imperial City" or City of Greater New York from the earlier cities of New York, Brooklyn and Long Island City, and still largely rural parts of Westchester, Richmond and Queens Counties. He chaired the 1897 committee that drew up the plan of amalgamation. He is the brother of Samuel Fisk Green, a pioneering medical missionary of the American Ceylon Mission in Sri Lanka.

Timeline

• 1820 Andrew Haswell Green, one of eleven children, was born in Worcester, Massachusetts to a prominent family.
• 1835 Green moved to New York, where two of his sisters ran a school for young girls.
• 1845 Green became a lawyer under the tutelage of railroad attorney and future Democratic governor and presidential candidate, Samuel J. Tilden.
• 1854 Green was elected to the New York City Board of Education. He soon became its president.
• 1857 The Republican-led New York State Legislature began to institute measures to control the municipal affairs of the largely Democratic metropolitan region. One act created the Central Park Commission (CPC). Green was appointed to the......
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