April 4th, 2025
The Saviors of Central Park: Part Four: Sara Cedar Miller
Before introducing the subject and co-author or this journal posting, Sara Cedar Miller, I wish to provide some insights into my own approach to photography as both a documentary tool and a branch of the fine arts, which has influenced my approach to my work as a writer as well as my personal memorializing of the lives of family members and friends as well as the places that have embraced and affected me in various ways over a long lifetime.
Point-and-snap:
I belong to the generation that grew up with family albums in which parents displayed photographs of their babies’ accomplishments from standing on two legs and taking their first unassisted steps toward the person holding a Kodak Brownie camera, the revolutionary, affordable, and user-friendly camera that brought amateur photography to the masses. I have taken periodic pleasure over the years thumbing through the album my mother kept in which I could see how my infancy in a lace-embroidered baby robe was followed by me wearing a sixth-grader’s private school uniform, which, six page-swipes later, has been exchanged for a high-school graduate’s cap-and-gown.
It is still satisfying to know that all of the passages through life can be documented by portrait images derived by paying a commercial darkroom operator to turn the roll of spent film one releases from the camera into a series of photographic negatives showing the light and shade or reversed color values from the original roll of film, which, when immersed in a developing solution, produces positive prints of each of the shots on photographic paper.
After my daughter Lisa was born in 1958 I put aside my cheap “point-and-shoot” and learned how to operate a thirty-five-millimeter Leica, through the lens of which I captured the various stages of her girlhood and, as I would like to think, helped inspire her adult career as professional photographic artist. Today, like so many other regular visitors, I like to carry a camera with me when I am walking through the Park. The excellent lens of Apple’s iPhone suits my desire to “capture the moment “with an easy tap of a finger, which gives me a dose of “carpe diem (seize-the-day)” pleasure on many occasions throughout the year.
It was natural that following my stint of directorship of the Central Park Task Force in the 1970s and the founding with the support of New York City Park Commissioner Gordon Davis, of the Central park Conservancy in 1982, I should realize that, in order to make the new privately supported organization successful in its mission to save the Park from further dereliction, I would need to present pictures of the current structures and areas that were in various states of visible neglect to prospective donors. Tracking the progress of restoration projects in order to create a record for posterity by publishing images in the form of photographic illustrations in the organization’s annual reports, which could also serve as slides in the public talks I was frequently asked to give on the subject of Central Park, gave ample reason for creating a Conservancy staff position of professional photographer.
While the job description for this position was necessarily focused on documenting Park’s ongoing sequence of restoration projects and fulfillment of new management goals, it also mandated coverage of handful of Conservancy social events throughout the year (most notably the Women’s Committee’s annual Fredrick Law Olmsted-award luncheon in the Conservatory Garden during the first week of May).
I felt strongly, and wisely as it turned out, that an official Central Park Conservancy photographer should approach the job with reverence for the Park’s design as a great work of American art and shining example of democracy literally in motion that both Gordon Davis and I espoused when we founded the Conservancy and still feel today.
Fortunately, on an auspicious day during the week preceding my marriage to Ted Rogers on June 26, 1984, Susan Stanton, my administrative assistant at the time ushered Sara Cedar Miller into my office.
Interviews with prospective employees are often tricky affairs, and sometimes the job candidate’s and the boss’s personalities are not simpatico. When the employee’s qualifications for the job are minimal and disjoined chit-chat ensues, the “Time will tell” rationalization is unrealistic. Such was not the case with Sara Cedar Miller and me, and we struck up a lively conversation. Sara, like me, was an art-history major in college, and like me, “the meaning of Place” is an intellectually driving force for her. An inveterate writer, her principal subject has been Central Park to date. Because of the influence she has through Conservancy-sponsored educational walking tours and four meticulously researched books about the Park, following her recent retirement as a staff member of the Conservancy, she was given the title Historian Emerita. My current title for her is that of Central Park Savior in light of all that she has achieved to give Central Park both a photographic and a literary legacy that are keys to its obvious salvation and current aura of immortality. Below, in Sara’s own words, is a personal memoir of her journey.
Between the Lens and the Landscape: Seeing the Art, History, and Restoration of Central Park
Sara Cedar Miller on the Great Lawn. Photography by Salaam Kahn.
Being the photographer and historian of Central Park for the Central Park Conservancy has been both a joy and a privilege. As a photographer, I had the opportunity to connect with the Park on an intimate, daily basis while also building relationships with its dedicated staff and generous donors. As a trained art historian, I delighted in exploring the wealth of beautifully preserved documents housed in city, state, and national archives – records that formed the foundation of my research. The Park’s landscapes and its history are deeply intertwined, each enriching my understanding as I delved into its past and photographed its present.
From childhood, I have been a visual person, drawn to the beauty and magic of the physical world. As a teenager, I gravitated toward the arts, spending weekends at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, captivated by the masterpieces on display. This passion led me to study Renaissance art – especially Michelangelo – first as an undergraduate in Florence, Italy, and later in graduate school in New York. Under the guidance of my brilliant mentor, Leo Steinberg, I learned how to ask the right questions – ones that shape how we see and interpret art. And as Central Park itself is a work of art, this background proved to be the perfect foundation for my career in documenting its evolving story.
My graduate training seemed to be guiding me toward the cloistered world of academia, while my life as an artist pointed toward the competitive realm of galleries, exhibitions, and collectors. But neither path truly suited me. My parents had instilled in me a deep commitment to community and service, and it was through the Central Park Conservancy’s vital mission that I found my true place in the world – a place where history, art, and purpose converged.
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