Gordon Davis photographs

1994-2005

Gordon Davis (born August 7, 1941) is an American lawyer who served as the New York City Commissioner of Parks and Recreation under Mayor Edward Koch from 1978 to 1983. Prior to this, he served in the administration of Mayor John Lindsay beginning in 1967, including a role as commissioner of the New York City Planning Commission.

Davis was born in Chicago, Illinois to Dr. William Allison Davis and Elizabeth Stubbs Davis, both of whom were among the first Black anthropologists in the United States. His parents were the authors of Deep South: A Social Anthropological Study of Caste and Class, a study of everyday racism in the American South.

Davis received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Williams College in 1963, and his Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School in 1967, after which he moved to New York City and became involved in city planning. As Parks Commissioner, Davis is credited with the revival of Bryant Park, the founding of the Central Park Conservancy, the creation of urban park rangers, and the establishment of the Prospect Park Alliance. At the end of the Koch administration, Davis served as a member of Mayor David Dinkins' transition committee. After this he went into private practice and servered as counsel for the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

In addition to these city administrative roles, Davis is the founding chairman of Jazz at Lincoln Center, and for several months in 2001 he was president of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. He is also a member of the Performing Arts Hall of Fame at Lincoln Center, a life trustee of the New York Public Library, and an appointee of President Barack Obama to the board of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Since 2012, Davis has been a partner in the New York office of the law firm Venable LLP.