Arlene Harrison
Founder & President of the Gramercy Park Block Association
Trustee Emeritus, Gramercy Park
Arlene grew up in Sea Gate, Brooklyn, spent 33 years teaching in New York City public schools and public hospitals, and raised her family on Gramercy Park. Today, she is the Founder and President of the Gramercy Park Block Association and a longtime neighbor.
Sea Gate, Brooklyn
Growing up in Sea Gate at the edge of Coney Island, Arlene learned early on what a true neighborhood feels like—a place where people actually know their neighbors and look out for one another. When she moved to Gramercy Park over fifty years ago, she didn’t just want a beautiful view; she wanted to recreate that same tight-knit Brooklyn warmth right in the middle of Manhattan.
Teaching, Her First Passion
A graduate of Cornell and Columbia Universities, Arlene found her first great passion in teaching. Before she was looking after our neighborhood, she spent 33 years looking out for New York City's children. Working as a special education teacher in New York City public schools and public hospitals, she learned that meaningful progress usually happens in small, quiet steps—a lesson finally clicking, a sudden burst of confidence. That same deep patience and personal investment in others is exactly how she approaches her work with our community today.
Three Generations
on Gramercy Park
Gramercy Park isn't just a historic landmark to Arlene; it's her family's backyard. She raised her two sons—Nicholas, now a primary care physician, and Timothy, who works alongside her at the Block Association—playing under these trees (always on the gravel, never on the grass!). Decades later, she watched her granddaughter, Tim's daughter Shinjoo, do the exact same thing. These days, the family circle in the neighborhood also includes a very special addition: her other "granddaughter", Tim's much-loved miniature poodle, Maisie. When Arlene advocates for the Park's preservation, she does it with the firsthand understanding of a mother and grandmother who knows exactly what this green space means to a growing family.
The Living Room Headquarters
More than three decades of bringing neighbors together.
"We proudly operate with the capabilities of an organization many times our size—all from an office that is also the living room of my apartment on Gramercy Park."
The GPBA doesn't run out of a corporate office. It runs directly out of Arlene's apartment at 34 Gramercy Park East. Her day starts well before dawn, fueled by a strong cup of coffee as she organizes the day's tasks, followed by a Pilates session five days a week. By mid-morning, she is back at her dining table—often buried under files requiring immediate attention—working directly across the desk from her son, Tim.
It is a perfect partnership. While Arlene is the fiercely protective, public-facing "people person" of the neighborhood, Tim prefers to stay strictly below the radar as the GPBA's behind-the-scenes engine. Making a conscious 180-degree shift in his career trajectory from finance to community building, Tim left an early career in investment banking to return to New York. He served as Director of Operations for the 23rd Street Association, and later as the first employee and Deputy Director of the Flatiron/NoMad business improvement district.
Drawing on that extensive operational background, Tim brought his former Flatiron colleagues to Gramercy to build the GPBA’s highly successful Clean Streets program. He is also the quiet architect behind several of the Association's most vital initiatives, from bringing in the ArborScope tree care system, to designing and building this website, to researching and writing the deep-dive building histories, newsletters, and all of the other correspondence for the Block Association. Together, they ensure the organization runs with both deep neighborhood empathy and sharp professional rigor.
For Arlene, that empathy always translates into personal action. Her fierce loyalty to the people of this city means she is just as likely to be arranging a meal for a homebound neighbor as she is to be celebrating the holidays with the officers and retirees at the 13th Precinct, who remain a deeply valued part of her extended neighborhood family.
An Inheritance to Care For
When Samuel B. Ruggles established Gramercy Park in 1831, he entrusted its care to future generations. For Arlene, this isn't just an abstract historical mandate—it's a daily, personal responsibility. For over twenty years, she carried out that mandate directly as a Trustee of Gramercy Park. Her approach has always been holistic: caring for the physical, historic grounds inside the fence with the exact same fierce dedication she applies to the community outside of it. Every afternoon, she still takes a break from the dining room table to spend time in her beloved Park, her trademark clipboard in hand. Having seen three generations of her own family thrive here, her primary goal is ensuring the next generation inherits a neighborhood that is even stronger, safer, and more vibrant than the one we have today.
The beginnings of Gramercy ParkThe Next Thirty Years
Planning for the Block Association's future has become a major part of Arlene's work. After more than thirty years leading the organization, she is preparing others to take on its programs and relationships. She has assembled a dedicated team of neighbors and professionals to continue that work and ensure its legacy endures.
"Our plans for the next thirty years are even more ambitious than when we began, and I couldn't be more excited about the people who will carry them forward.”