Mayor Zohran Mamdani of New York City announced a new leader of the Parks Department on Saturday, choosing Tricia Shimamura, who currently oversees the city’s green spaces in Manhattan, for the role.
As parks commissioner, Ms. Shimamura will now be responsible for more than 30,000 acres of parkland across New York’s five boroughs, from the Coney Island boardwalk in Brooklyn to High Rock Park on Staten Island to Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens. Those spaces include playgrounds, beaches, wetlands and forests.
Mr. Mamdani announced Ms. Shimamura’s appointment at a news conference held amid light snowfall on the High Bridge, stretching between Manhattan and the Bronx, the city’s oldest standing bridge. The span lies above Highbridge Park, a pocket of green space in Upper Manhattan.
“We know that for too long, our parks have been neglected and underfunded, the first victims of cuts, the public infrastructure most eagerly sacrificed,” Mr. Mamdani said in a brief speech that referenced both Frederick Law Olmsted, who helped design Central Park, and the Queens rapper MC Shan. “In a city that is typically concrete, they are what makes our home feel like home,” the mayor said.
Mr. Mamdani noted Ms. Shimamura’s Japanese and Puerto Rican roots, and described her as “an incredible New Yorker with a deep record of public service,” one who has “served New Yorkers from nearly every level of government.”
In thanking Mr. Mamdani for the appointment, Ms. Shimamura called the city’s parks and green spaces “the official backyard of New York City families.” As part of an administration that had campaigned on a vision of affordability, the Parks Department had “a mandate to uphold and a critical role to play in the future of our city,” she said.
Ms. Shimamura, who has served as the Parks Department’s Manhattan borough commissioner since March 2024, has a long résumé in public service, one that began as a social worker. She led community affairs for Mark Levine, the current city comptroller, during his time as Manhattan borough president. Before that she served as Columbia University’s director of government relations and as deputy chief of staff to Carolyn Maloney, a former Democratic congresswoman from New York.
The choice of Ms. Shimamura as parks commissioner is a safe one for the new mayor, whose first preliminary budget is due at the end of January. The Parks Department currently receives just 0.6 percent of the city’s roughly $117 billion budget, an amount that Mr. Mamdani pledged during his campaign to increase to at least 1 percent.
New Yorkers are eager for more parks funding. In a recent New York Times survey, readers said that increased resources for parks and libraries was their No. 1 suggestion for how the city could be improved.
Ms. Shimamura will take the helm of the Parks Department from Iris Rodriguez-Rosa, who spent nearly four decades with the agency before stepping into the commissioner’s role last year.
Miles G. Cohen contributed reporting.
Debra Kamin is an investigative reporter for The Times who covers wealth and power in New York.
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