Ted Berger is a noted leader in the New York arts community and integral part of the Design Trust. Ahead of receiving a special honor at next week’s Annual Benefit for Public Space, Ted shares the story of how he became involved over three decades ago.

How were you introduced to the Design Trust? What were you doing around the year you joined the board?

My involvement with the Design Trust was perhaps different than other board members.

For many, many years I was the director of the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA). One of the big areas of the foundation was a program I developed called the Fiscal Sponsorship Program. One day Andy Woodner [Design Trust founder] came to see me, and she had some ideas about her vision for what could be, and became, Design Trust. 

Design Trust became a fiscally sponsored project of the New York Foundation for the Arts in its infancy. During that period, Andy would come in and we’d chat and brainstorm and have some serious conversations, and I got really fascinated by what they were talking about. 

I am not of the design world. And so I would always ask these kind of naive questions about design or architecture that weren't really informed, but they were different. I was trying to bring a kind of public sensibility into this.

I have always been interested in the issue of who has access and who has opportunity, or the other side of it: who doesn’t? There’s certain overlapping values about public space, and who has access and opportunity to it that are critically important to me.

So when Design Trust received its 501(c)(3) and was going independent, Andy asked if I’d be interested in joining the board. It was then a really small operation. And I’ve been involved ever since.

How have you seen the Design Trust evolve during your board tenure?

What’s been interesting with Design Trust–in the beginning, we didn’t have the resources so there were lots of little, really community-based projects. Things in libraries, playgrounds, etc. 

Each was really quite wonderful. But they didn’t often have the policy implications, the scale that we’re working on now, with something like Water. I don’t want to forget those because they were really beautiful projects.

I have loved what we’re doing at Lillian Wald. It started out, really, as an artist’s vision–she just wants those fences taken down. And even though it’s taken forever, the community engagement part of it, the community ownership of it… it has a very special niche for me. 

I also have loved Under the Elevated, and [Five Borough Farm].

I’ve been on many, many boards, and many committees. I have found Design Trust one of the more fascinating organizations for me, because I keep learning and hopefully growing from it, and see things differently because of it. And besides what other things you can do as a board member, that ability to keep learning is helpful. Both personally and professionally.

What do you mean when you say you’re not of the design world?

At one point in my life, interestingly, I had thought about becoming an architect. And I can remember as a child, in the Sunday papers there used to be these architectural plans, and I would take tracing paper and go over it. What I liked was the idea that from something on paper, one could have a vision of how something could grow. 

In an odd way, I think I’m a kind of architect in terms of the work I’ve done over a 15 year period. I think I’m still a little kid drawing on the floor.

I’ve been privileged to be involved with a number of projects at a very large scale. I was one of the architects, for example, of the New York City CETA artists project, which was a jobs program. The CETA project has recently become part of the model for the recent New York Creatives Rebuild project, where I’ve been part of the think tank developing that project for a number of years. 

When I was at NYFA, we put together what was a seminal conference in Montauk for the first large gathering of private funders and public funders and artists, all by invitation, from different parts of the world as well as throughout the United States, to discuss the issue of artist support. Nothing like that had ever happened. 

And, vowing I would never do it again, we did one on the West Coast, on Orcas Island, and that really got us into a kind of national, international discussion of artist support, which I’m still involved in. I retired, and NYFA has continued. And so I was working with the governor’s offices and state arts councils in each of those states etc.

I like working small, but I can also work big. I like trying to create and build things.

You’ve made a lasting impact as NYFA’s Executive Director. Can you share more about this part of your life?

When I joined the New York Foundation for the Arts it was a two person operation. It was not meant to be a big, visible organization. The history is an interesting one. 

When Nelson Rockefeller was leaving to become vice president, he in particular had a great interest in the arts. At that point, the State Arts Council was a really fledgling organization, maybe about a two million dollar budget. He became vice president, and when the budget was approved it was 30 million dollars. 

At that point, there was no National Endowment for the Arts–that came five years later. 

When the Arts Endowment was born, one of their pilot projects was a program called Artists in Schools. And they decided that they were going to expand it to every State Arts Council. The State Arts Council in New York looked at it and said, “We have other priorities, let’s give it to this thing we just created called NYFA.” And it sat there for a while, and then one day NYSCA (New York State Council on the Arts) and the NEA said, “What’s going on in New York?”

They agreed to jointly fund a position at NYFA, which was a pilot project for the country. They wanted to hire somebody who would coordinate a state’s artisans schools program. They said, “Let’s find some fool who’s gonna go around, trying to figure this out.”  And I was hired to become the first in the country.

NYFA was never meant to be a very visible programmatic organization, but with the Artists in Schools program, it was a public program. And then I raised some money from the federal government for the Emergency School Aid act, where there were teams of artists put together that were interdisciplinary, multiracial, all working together. We were doing projects in Buffalo, in Roosevelt Long Island, and in New York City. And that really put it on the map and it just started to grow and became visible.

The bulk of what we put in place has stayed the same. Certain programs may change but it’s still kind of similar. Like Frankenstein it just kind of grew.

What lessons have you learned that might help today’s arts organizations adapt to the changing federal landscape? 

One of the reasons I love the arts and cultural sector is, each new work is really a learning experience. It’s about the process. Like scientists, it’s from the failures that we advance, and from the mistakes that new possibilities emerge. I like that tension.

I came into our field when things were just being born. There was no infrastructure. So I was part of a generation that helped to build an infrastructure, because nothing was there to support a growing field. I now certainly realize that that infrastructure is very broken, and needs to be reimagined and rebuilt, and perhaps rethought totally. And that’s the work of another generation.

One of the reasons I’m so interested in being on boards and being on committees–I like that intergenerational conversation that can happen. Because you need to know your history in order to change that history. Learn from the mistakes, and maybe a few successes.

I think we’re at a critical moment, when lots of things are either going to have to be rebuilt or rethought in order to survive.

You’re retired, but still keeping very busy. Among everything else, you’re being honored at this year’s Annual Design Trust for Public Space. What are you looking forward to in the near future?

I had some rough health issues over the past three years, so when I can wake up, when my eyes open, and I can get out of bed, that’s a plus. 

My wife and I will be celebrating our 61st wedding anniversary, and I’m gonna be turning 85, so that’s a nice thing. 

Our son, who’s an artist and also a professor, is going to be in residence at MOMA in August, and he has a lot of stuff going on career-wise. 

I’m also looking forward to planting our garden. We live in a brownstone, we have a lovely garden, where I spend a lot of time... I have books to read, and that kind of stuff.

And I’m involved with the launch of a new effort which I’m really, really excited about. It’s called ADAPT. It’s another form of this equity and access issue. 

When the Americans with Disabilities Act came into being some forty years ago, there was no muscle with it. And there’s a group of us that have been trying to think through how we can position the cultural community–particularly small and mid-sized organizations, organizations of color, etc.–to be better positioned to respond to ways of broadening their accessibility efforts. 

That requires, perhaps, some public-private partnership, the creation of an equipment rental program, all kinds of things. So we’ve just gotten some money for a planning grant which–this isn’t gonna happen in my lifetime–but it could very much position the cultural sector differently in this area. It’s really exciting.

Join us in honoring Ted Berger at this year's Annual Benefit for Public Space, alongside the Public Theater and HR&A Advisors, on Thursday, June 12, at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library.  Each year, our Annual Benefit honors innovative leaders who are instrumental in the positive transformation of the city’s shared landscape. Explore the potential of public space, reflect on our 30th anniversary year, and enjoy a festive evening of cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, and sunset views at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library rooftop. Support our work and mingle with friends of Design Trust — our Fellows, community partners, design professionals, civic leaders, and fellow public space lovers.