When Amanda M. Burden's stepfather, William S. Paley, built the vest-pocket park that bears his name on East 53rd Street, he saw to it that the four wide stone steps from the street, each only five inches high, stood as an invitation to enter.

Those steps "are just perfect," Ms. Burden recently recalled her mentor, the urban scholar William H. Whyte, telling her. "It makes you want to skip into that park."

It is that kind of meticulous focus on the details that Ms. Burden inherited from Mr. Paley, the tycoon who built CBS, and is now using to profound effect in subtly reshaping New York through her role as city planning commissioner.

Posted on Thu, Oct. 12, 2006
Architect named as new Phila. planning chief

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"As we move forward with plans to redevelop and revitalize our riverfronts along the Schuylkill and Delaware Rivers, we need the expertise and guidance of the Planning Commission," Street said in lauding Woodcock and her decades of experience in Seattle, Boston and Portland.