Judith Heintz
Judith Heintz is committed to the public landscapes of New York City and the region. She has been working in New York City’s public open space since 1980 when she made the city her home. Stewardship of the environment is key to her work whether the project is set in an urban, residential or institutional context.
Prior to starting her own practice in 1985, she worked for the Central Park Conservancy where she prepared the plan for rebuilding the Park (published by MIT Press in 1987 as Rebuilding Central Park: A Management and Restoration Plan). From 1988 through 1995 the practice was known as Heintz/Ruddick Associates. Judith and Margie Ruddick completed many landscapes together, among them the much-loved, but temporary, ballfields and landscapes in the North Neighborhood in Battery Park City, the conceptual master plans for the Riverside Park shared pedestrian and bicycle path along the Hudson River and Stuyvesant Cove Park on the East River. In 1995 Judith formed Judith Heintz Landscape Architecture (JHLA) and completed such landscapes as Theodore Roosevelt Park at the American Museum of Natural History, the new entry plaza at the Brooklyn Museum, and the Bosk and Terrace at Battery Park City along with many NYC playgrounds and parks and work for other institutions.
In 2007 she merged her firm with Wallace Roberts & Todd, a Philadelphia-based firm looking to enter the NY public landscape. She was the partner in charge of Southpoint Park on Roosevelt Island, the final design phase of Queens Plaza (now encompassing Dutch Kills park), the New Stapleton Waterfront on Staten Island, the NJ Capital State Park in Trenton, NJ, and the interior and terrace landscapes at the Cleveland Museum of Art. She also was responsible for the open space planning and design guidelines for Hunter’s Point in Queens and the Hudson Yards in Manhattan. Since 2010, when WRT closed its NY office, Judith has been working in collaboration with Diana Drake and Napat Sitisara. Together, they have worked with architects on such projects as the East River Blueway (WXY Studio), Solar 2 environmental center at Stuyvesant Cove (Kiss + Cathcart), Roberto Clemente Plaza in the Bronx (Garrison Architects) and the East Midtown Plaza landscape on East 23rd Street (WXY Studio).
Ms. Heintz studied landscape architecture at Ohio State and Harvard Universities, and architecture at Columbia University.