Amanda Burden#Honors

{{Infobox person

| name = Amanda Burden

| image = Amanda-Burden (cropped).jpg

| caption = Burden in 2008

| birthname = Amanda Jay Mortimer

| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1944|1|18}}

| birth_place = New York City, U.S.

| death_date =

| death_place =

| education = Sarah Lawrence College (BA)
Columbia University (MUP)

| occupation = Urban planner, consultant

| years_active =

| parents = Stanley Grafton Mortimer Jr.
Babe Paley

| spouse = {{plainlist|

{{marriage|Shirley Carter Burden Jr.
|June 13, 1964|1972|reason=div}}
{{marriage|Steven J. Ross
|1979|1981|reason=div}}

}}

| partner = Charlie Rose
(1993–2006)

| children = 2

}}

Amanda Jay Mortimer Burden ({{née}} Mortimer; born January 18, 1944){{citation needed|date=January 2017}} is an American urban planner who is a Principal at Bloomberg Associates, an international consulting service founded by Michael Bloomberg as a philanthropic venture to help city governments improve the quality of life of their citizens. She was the Director of the New York City Department of City Planning and Chair of the City Planning Commission under Mayor Bloomberg from 2002 to 2013.

Burden previously worked for the New York State Urban Development Corporation. She worked on Battery Park City from 1983 to 1990. She is also a member of the International Best Dressed List since 1996.{{cite magazine |title=The International Best-Dressed List Hall of Fame: Women |url=http://www.vanityfair.com/style/the-international-best-dressed-list/hall-of-fame-women |access-date=February 22, 2019 |magazine=Vanity Fair |date=July 7, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130712215415/http://www.vanityfair.com/style/the-international-best-dressed-list/hall-of-fame-women |archive-date=July 12, 2013 |language=en}}

Early life and education

Burden is the daughter of socialite Babe Paley and her first husband, Stanley G. Mortimer Jr. (1913–1999), an heir to the Standard Oil fortune."Planning Greatness", Avenue Magazine, October 2007 She is a descendant of the first chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, John Jay, and a granddaughter of Dr. Harvey Cushing, the "Father of American Neurosurgery" and Pulitzer Prize winning author. She has a brother, Stanley Grafton Mortimer III; five half-siblings, William Cushing Paley, Kate Cushing Paley, Averell Mortimer, Jay Mortimer, and David Mortimer; and two step-siblings, Hilary Paley Califano and Jeffrey Paley. In 1947, her mother married William S. Paley, the son of a successful immigrant cigar entrepreneur who built a family acquisition into CBS. Her stepmother, Kathleen Harriman Mortimer, was a daughter of railroad heir and United States ambassador W. Averell Harriman.

She graduated from the Westover School in Middlebury, Connecticut and attended Wellesley College until her marriage in 1964. She graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1976, with a concentration in environmental science. She later earned a Master of Urban Planning from Columbia University, writing an award-winning thesis about solid-waste management.

Career

Burden was a public school teaching aide in Harlem in the 1960s.

Burden worked with the architecture firm Gruzen & Partners and one of her mentors was William H. Whyte, the urbanologist, with whom she worked on his Project for Public Spaces.{{cite news |last=Cardwell |first=Diane |title=Once at Cotillions, Now Reshaping the Cityscape |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/15/nyregion/15amanda.html |work=The New York Times |date=January 15, 2007 }}

From 1983 until 1990, Burden was Vice President for Planning and Design of the Battery Park City Authority. She was responsible for the development and implementation of design guidelines for the {{convert|92|acre|m2|adj=on}} site as well as for overseeing the design of all open spaces and parkland, including the waterfront esplanade. In an interview for New York magazine, she cited her stepfather's influence on her design sensibilities, noting the Canadian black granite she chose for the esplanade was the same stone he selected in 1964 for "Black Rock", the CBS headquarters. Among her other New York projects are the Midtown Community Court[http://www.courtinnovation.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Page.ViewPage&PageID=591¤tTopTier2=true Overview of Midtown Community Court] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080609002527/http://www.courtinnovation.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Page.ViewPage&PageID=591¤tTopTier2=true |date=June 9, 2008 }} from Center for Court Innovation and the Red Hook Community Justice Center,[http://www.courtinnovation.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Page.ViewPage&PageID=572¤tTopTier2=true Overview of Red Hook Community Justice Center] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080608201950/http://www.courtinnovation.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Page.ViewPage&PageID=572¤tTopTier2=true |date=June 8, 2008 }} from Center for Court Innovation which provides integrated legal, economic and social services.Department of City Planning, City of New York

Starting in 1990, Burden served on the New York City Planning Commission, when she was appointed by New York City Council president Andrew Stein.{{cite news |last1=Satow |first1=Julie |title=Amanda Burden Wants to Remake New York. She Has 19 Months Left. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/20/nyregion/amanda-burden-planning-commissioner-is-remaking-new-york-city.html |access-date=February 22, 2019 |work=The New York Times |date=May 20, 2012 |page=MB1}} She served as Commissioner from 2002 to 2013 under Mayor Bloomberg.{{cite news|title=Tedtalk for Architects:Amanda Burden:How public spaces make cities work|url=https://www.re-thinkingthefuture.com/rtf-architectural-reviews/a3727-tedtalk-for-architects-amanda-burden-how-public-spaces-make-cities-work/|website=Rethinking The Future|access-date=20 April 2025}}

=New York City Planning Commission=

Burden served as Chair of the New York City Planning Commission and Director of the Department of City Planning from 2002 to 2013 under Mayor Michael Bloomberg. During her tenure, the department rezoned almost 40% of the city. The department helped to create the East River Esplanade, transform the High Line into High Line Park,{{cite web |url=https://www.bloombergassociates.org/principal/amanda-m-burden/|title=Amanda M. Burden}} Bloomberg Associates and develop the Brooklyn Waterfront and Hudson Yards. The Bloomberg administration also launched a "comprehensive waterfront plan known as Vision 2020", which would increase access to the water for kayakers and canoeists and address climate change. Burden said the goal of the initiative was for the water to become the "sixth borough" of the city. "The water should become a part of our everyday lives", she declared.{{cite news |last1=Santora |first1=Marc |title=New York's Next Frontier: The Waterfront |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/realestate/07cov.html |access-date=February 22, 2019 |work=The New York Times |date=November 7, 2010 |page=RE1}}

In her term, Burden sought to combine the large transformative change of Robert Moses with a neighborhood-sensitive ethic inspired by Jane Jacobs, writing in 2006, "Big projects are a necessary part of the diversity, competition and growth that both Jacobs and Moses fought for. But today's big projects must have a human scale; must be designed, from idea to construction, to fit into the city. Projects may fail to live up to Jane Jacob's standards, but they are still judged by her rules."{{cite news |last1=Burden |first1=Amanda |title=Jane Jacobs, Robert Moses And City Planning Today |url=http://www.gothamgazette.com/index.php/state/3402-jane-jacobs-robert-moses-and-city-planning-today |access-date=February 22, 2019 |work=Gotham Gazette |date=November 6, 2006}}

As stated in a New York Times story in 2012: "Ms. Burden, who spends her leisure time walking the city, boating or birding, argues that "good design is good economic development, and I know this is true." She unabashedly calls the administration "pro-development," and points to the High Line, which the city says has generated $2 billion in private investment in the area and has created 12,000 jobs. "What I have tried to do, and think I have done," she said, "is create value for these developers, every single day of my term.""

When asked how his administration would address the city's income gap, Bloomberg argued against the idea an income gap is negative, saying "They [rich people] are the ones that pay a lot of the taxes. They're the ones that spend a lot of money in the stores and restaurants and create a big chunk of our economy ... If we could get every billionaire around the world to move here it would be a godsend that would create a much bigger income gap."[https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Mayor-Bloomberg-Billionaires-Rich-Poor-Income-Gap--224592951.html "Bloomberg: Would Be 'Godsend' If More Billionaires Moved to NYC"] NBC4 (New York), September 20, 2013. Accessed February 13, 2018.{{cite news |last1=Robinson |first1=Nathan J. |authorlink1=Nathan J. Robinson |title=Everything You Love Will Be Eaten Alive: The Efficient City's war on the Romantic City |url=https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2018/02/everything-you-love-will-be-eaten-alive |access-date=February 22, 2019 |work=Current Affairs |date=February 9, 2018}} Describing the administration's approach to development, Burden said, "Improvement of neighborhoods — some people call it gentrification — provides more jobs, provides housing, much of it affordable, and private investment, which is tax revenue for the city."

Burden also focused on managing the aesthetics of new development in a way that maintains the character of a neighborhood. "We have tried to diagnose the DNA of each neighborhood", she said. "I have spent a lot of time in the streets, talking to communities." She emphasized public features like "open space, continuous shop fronts, and the inclusion of trees and other elements that foster lively street life." Because of Burden's contextual zoning, which required new development to fit in with the height and style of nearby structures, some developers were forced to restrain and redesign proposals, like 53W53, which was reduced by 200 feet.

The Regional Plan Association argued Burden's control over the aesthetics of development led to "profoundly conservative building" and a "local zeitgeist [that] has switched from big and bold to keeping everything small, nondescript and similar to everything else in the neighborhood." According to Eliot Brown in The New York Observer, "Ms. Burden is an increasingly powerful and apparently emboldened force in the Bloomberg administration—one whose often forceful views are imprinted and emblazoned on nearly every major skyscraper, mall, public plaza and large development that rises in city limits."{{cite news |last1=Brown |first1=Eliot |title=Proprietress of the Skyline |url=http://www.observer.com/2009/real-estate/amanda-burden?page=all |access-date=February 22, 2019 |work=The New York Observer |date=October 14, 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091018202745/http://www.observer.com/2009/real-estate/amanda-burden?page=all |archive-date=October 18, 2009}}

Despite a focus on increased development and intent to respect the wishes and diversity of neighborhoods, the increase in housing supply, density and major zoning changes had not translated into affordable rents or homes. Burden herself acknowledged the failure to address the price of housing when speaking in 2013 at a CityLab panel on urban expansion:

{{quote

|text=What we haven't figured out is the question of gentrification. I have never, since I had this job, come up with a satisfactory answer of how to make sure everyone benefits ... I had believed that if we kept building in that manner and increasing our housing supply ... that prices would go down. We had every year almost 30,000 permits for housing, and we built a tremendous amount of housing, including affordable housing, either through incentives or through government funds. And the price of housing didn't go down at all. That's a practitioner's point of view.{{cite news |last1=Goodyear |first1=Sarah |title='What We Haven't Figured Out Is the Question of Gentrification' |url=https://www.citylab.com/equity/2013/10/what-we-havent-figured-out-question-gentrification/7166/ |access-date=22 February 2019 |work=CityLab |date=8 October 2013 |language=en}}}}

=Honors=

Burden, then 22, was named to the Best Dressed List of the New York Couture Group in 1966, replacing Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, who had graduated to the Best Dressed List's Hall of Fame.{{cite news|title=Fashion:Goodbye Jankie,Hello Amanda!|url=https://time.com/archive/6628914/fashion-goodbye-jackie-hello-amanda/|date=21 January 1966|access-date=20 April 2025|website=Time Magazine}}{{cite magazine|last=Heilpern|first=John|title=Princess of the City|url= https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2010/05/otl-burden-201005?srsltid=AfmBOoqGa0N3opvyPDLJpeJ1kCv7XW0akpzujs8SBXN7C2T_Rc2w29r_3 |date=20 April 2010|magazine=Vanity Fair}}{{cite news|last=Adams|first=Michael Henry|title=Reading Amanda:One Black Man's Burden|url=https://www.huffpost.com/entry/reading-amanda-one-black_b_202819|date=13 June 2009|website= Huffington Post}}

In 2005, Pratt Institute awarded Ms. Burden an Honorary Doctorate in Public Administration and the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects presented her with its 2005 Center for Architecture Award. Ms. Burden's dedication to design excellence was recognized by the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, which presented her with its 2004 Design Patron Award.{{cite web |url=http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/about/pr102004.shtml|title=NYC.Gov press release}} In 2008, Ms. Burden was inducted into the membership of the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) College of Fellows,American Planning Association, http://www.planning.org/faicp/faicp.htm {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080719181255/http://planning.org/faicp/faicp.htm |date=July 19, 2008 }} and was named the 5th most powerful person in New York real estate by The New York Observer.{{cite news |newspaper=The New York Observer |title=100 Most Powerful People in New York Real Estate |date=May 13, 2008 |url=http://www.observer.com/2008/100-most-powerful-people-new-york-real-estate |access-date=July 10, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080710025621/http://www.observer.com/2008/100-most-powerful-people-new-york-real-estate |archive-date=July 10, 2008 |url-status=dead }} #5 on list

In 2009, Burden received the Urban Land Institute's J.C. Nichols Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development. This prize is the Institute’s highest honor and comes with a $100,000 award.{{cite news|last=Iovine|first=Julie V.|title=Amanda in Demand|url= https://www.archpaper.com/2009/10/amanda-in-demand/?noamp=mobile|website=The Architect's Newspaper|date=14 October 2009}}{{cite news|last=Stephens|first=Suzanne|title=Master of the Metropolis|url=https://www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/5297-master-of-the-metropolis|website=The Architectural Record|access-date=20 April 2025}} Burden announced that she will donate the prize money to ULI to create a yearly award honoring significant public spaces around the world.{{cite news|last=Pogrebin|first=Robin|title= City's Chief Planner Donates Prize Money|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/arts/design/20arts-CITYSCHIEFPL_BRF.html|date=19 October 2009|website=New York Times}}

{{cite news|last=Callwood|first=Brett|title=Detroit's Campus Martius Park Wins Urban Land Institute Award|url=https://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20100416/FREE/100419907/detroit-s-campus-martius-park-wins-urban-land-institute-award|access-date=20 April 2025|website= Crain's Detroit}}

In 2011, Burden received the American Architectural Foundation Keystone Award, which recognizes an individual or organization from outside the architectural discipline for exemplary leadership in design.{{cite news|last=Heintz|first=Molly|title=AAF Says Brava to Burden with Keystone Award|url=https://www.archpaper.com/2011/02/aaf-says-bravo-to-burden-with-keystone-award/|date=8 February 2011|website=The Architect's Newspaper}}{{cite news|last=Stephens|first=Suzanne|title=Strong Accent on Architecture Awards|url= https://www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/2114-strong-accent-on-architecture-awards|date=8 February 2011|website=Architectural Record}}

In 2012, the Architectural League of New York granted Burden the President's Medal.{{cite news|last=Cilento|first=Karen|title=2012 President's Medal|url=https://www.archdaily.com/225088/2012-presidents-medal-amanda-burden|date=11 April 2012|website=Arch Daily}}

Columbia University awarded Burden an Honorary Doctorate in Law in 2016.{{cite web|url=https://secretary.columbia.edu/directory/amanda-m-burden|title=Amanda M. Burden|access-date=20 April 2025}}

Personal life

File:Charlie Rose Amanda Burden Shankbone 2010.jpg in 2010]]

Burden has been married twice. Her first husband was Shirley Carter Burden Jr. (1941–1996),{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1996/01/24/nyregion/carter-burden-progressive-patrician-54-dies.html |newspaper=The New York Times |title=Carter Burden, Progressive Patrician, 54, Dies |access-date=November 19, 2008 |date=January 24, 1996 |first=Lawrence |last=Van Gelder}} In 1972, Mr. Burden and Amanda were divorced. a multimillionaire descendant of Cornelius Vanderbilt and a great-nephew of the actor Douglas Fairbanks Sr.{{cite magazine |author1= |title=People, Jun. 26, 1972 |url=http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,906089-1,00.html | url-access=subscription |magazine=Time |date=June 26, 1972 |quote= Last week Amanda, 28, filed for divorce for 'cruel and inhuman treatment.' Carter, 30, replied: 'I'm very surprised and disappointed.'}} Their engagement was announced in September 1963{{cite news |first=Bradford |last=Bachrach|title=S. Carter Burden Jr. Fiance Of Miss Amanda Mortimer | url-access=subscription |access-date=October 12, 2017 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1963/09/30/archives/s-carter-burden-jr-fiance-of-miss-amanda-mortimer.html |work=The New York Times |date=September 30, 1963}} and at the time of their marriage on June 13, 1964, Carter Burden was a student at Columbia Law School.{{cite news|title=Amanda Jay Mortimer Married on L.I.; '62 Debutante Bride of S. Carter Burden Jr., a Law Student|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1964/06/14/archives/amanda-jay-mortimer-married-on-li-62-debutante-bride-of-s-carter.html|access-date=October 12, 2017|work=The New York Times|date=June 14, 1964}} An owner of The Village Voice and New York magazine and later a New York City councilman, he worked as an aide to Sen. Robert Kennedy in the 1960s, sparking his wife's interest in social justice and inspiring her to pursue a teaching career. They had two children, Flobelle Fairbanks Burden (b. 1969){{cite news|title=A Daughter Is Born To Carter Burdens|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1969/05/08/archives/a-daughter-is-born-to-carter-burdens.html|access-date=October 12, 2017|work=The New York Times|date=May 8, 1969}} and Shirley Carter Burden III, before divorcing in 1972. Their son, Shirley Carter Burden III, is the founder of the managed web hosting provider Logicworks.{{cite web|url=http://www.logicworks.net/about-us/management-team |title=Management Team - Logicworks |access-date=August 9, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100814070737/http://www.logicworks.net/about-us/management-team |archive-date=August 14, 2010 |url-status=dead }}

Her second husband was Steven J. Ross (1927–1992), the head of Warner Communications; they married in 1979 and divorced in 1981.{{cite news |title=The Creator of Time Warner, Steven J. Ross, Is Dead at 65 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1992/12/21/obituaries/the-creator-of-time-warner-steven-j-ross-is-dead-at-65.html?pagewanted=3 |newspaper=The New York Times |last=Cohen |first=Roger |date=December 21, 1992 |access-date=November 1, 2009}} "In 1980, Mr. Ross suffered a serious heart attack. That same year he married Amanda Burden ... The marriage lasted 16 months and ended in a difficult divorce."

Burden had a relationship with journalist and talk show host Charlie Rose from 1993 to about 2006.{{cite news |last1=Gardner, Jr |first1=Ralph |authorlink1=Ralph Gardner Jr. |title=Social Planner |url=http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/politics/newyork/features/6005/ |access-date=February 22, 2019 |work=New York |date=May 13, 2002}}{{cite news|url=https://www.ft.com/content/847e4ce8-2a61-11e0-804a-00144feab49a |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221211/https://www.ft.com/content/847e4ce8-2a61-11e0-804a-00144feab49a |archive-date=December 11, 2022 |url-status=live|title=Lunch with the FT: Charlie Rose|work=Financial Times|url-access=subscription}}