Henry Stern

Henry Stern
Henry Stern (left) speaking at City Hall New York City, 2008

Henry J. Stern (born May 1, 1935); was a member of the New York City Council from 1974 to 1983 and appointed as the Commissioner of the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation from 1983 to 1990 and again from 1994 to 2000.

Stern grew up in the Inwood neighborhood of Upper Manhattan. He attended Bronx High School of Science, graduating at 15. He attended City College and was the youngest member of the class of 1957 at Harvard Law School, at the age of twenty-two.

He began in public service in 1957 as law clerk to a New York State Supreme Court Justice, Matthew M. Levy. He was appointed Secretary of the Borough of Manhattan in 1962, and was an assistant to Borough Presidents Edward R. Dudley (a former ambassador, and prominent African American civil rights activist) and Constance Baker Motley, the first African-American woman to become a federal court judge. In 1966, Parks Commissioner Thomas Hoving appointed him executive director of the agency. He later became Assistant City Administrator in the office of Deputy Mayor Timothy W. Costello. In 1969, Commissioner Bess Myerson of the newly created NYC agency that was formed by consolidating the Department of Licensing, and Markets, Weights and Measures, The New York City Department of Consumer Affairs, appointed him Associate Commissioner and the next year he became her first deputy. Commissioner Myerson resigned on March 9, 1973 and suggested Stern succeed her, however, he continued to serve under the new Commissioner Betty Furness until the end of her tenure in 1973.

In November 1973 he was elected to the City Council as a Councilman-at-large for Manhattan on the Liberal Party of New York line, defeating the Republican candidate by about 1000 votes to win second place (two were elected per borough). His at-large colleague on the Council was Robert F. Wagner, Jr. and the two worked together on many matters, including the sale of neckties emblazoned with the Seal of the City of New York to raise funds for libraries and other public purposes.