Members of the architecture and urban planning communities are mourning the loss of Yale professor and influential New York city planner Alexander Garvin following the announcement of his death in Manhattan at the age of 80.

A notoriously pedantic native New Yorker, Garvin earned both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Yale and served in the city government under mayors Lindsay, Beame, Koch, Giuliani, and Bloomberg after working as an architect in the offices of Phillip Johnson for a brief period of time. 

Garvin was behind some of the biggest urban planning projects in recent American memory. His noteworthy contributions to the county’s largest cities included the post-9/11 master plan for the World Trade Center site in Manhattan and the BeltLine development in Atlanta. 

Garvin was also in charge of the development of New York’s unsuccessful bid to host the 2012 Olympics, which in the end, engendered a host of major construction projects including the MTA’s 7 line extension and what eventually became Hudson Yards. 

Garvin served on several boards including the Trust for Public Land and Forum for Urban Design in addition to his lengthy teaching career at his alma mater. His course “Introduction to the Study of the City” was very popular among SoA students and was taught in various forms until he formally resigned from the post in 2020 after 55 years at the institution. 

He was the author of several books on the subject including The Planning Game and What Makes a Great City as well as many of the changes that took place under the auspices of Michael Bloomberg thanks to his position as the administration’s Deputy Mayor of Economic Development. 

Garvin was a lifelong fan of the opera and of Frederic Law Olmsted. He died blocks away from his childhood home and is survived by his brother George.