Meet the Central Park Conservancy Rangers

We’ve all heard it said, one way or another: There’s a palpable energy in New York City. It bustles along the sidewalks, rumbles through the subway, vibrates through the air. It’s in every corner of the City, but perhaps nowhere more concentrated than in Central Park—the beating heart of New York, with 42 million annual visitors across its 843 acres. And with all this energy culminating in one place, quality-of-life issues often arise that can compromise the landscape’s beauty and the sense of peace it promises.

As the caretakers of the Park, the Central Park Conservancy works 365 days a year to ensure a safe, welcoming, and beautiful environment for all. To advance this mission, we’ve formed the Central Park Conservancy Ranger Corps, a reimagining of a Conservancy team formerly known as community relations coordinators. While the six Rangers’ titles and uniforms are new, their work remains community focused, grounded in communication and collaboration rather than enforcement. As Philip Jabouin, Director of Community Relations and the head of the Ranger program, puts it: “Our job is to educate and inform. We’re a security presence without enforcement. We look the part, we know the rules, and we have eyes and ears out there.”

What that looks like in practice can change drastically day by day—from checking on people experiencing homelessness and offering to connect them with City services, to reminding visitors to leash their dogs, assisting with medical emergencies, responding to a report of a lost child, and more. The Central Park Rangers are here not only to protect the Park’s natural environment, keeping it safe and thriving—but also to support the people who rely on them.

As the Rangers say themselves, one of the key components of their work—and highlights of their day—is getting to know visitors. Below, meet just a few of the Rangers you’ll see around the Park—each with a story that, like the Park itself, contains multitudes.

Jonathan Vasquez was a teacher when he first crossed paths with a Conservancy staff member. He’s always loved the outdoors, and that encounter inspired him to take a chance: He decided to pursue that passion by applying for a Park Maintainer position with the Conservancy. A year and a half later, he’s grown from a Groundskeeper to a Community Relations Coordinator—and now a Central Park Ranger.

As a Park Maintainer and Groundskeeper, Jonathan says he learned “how to be a personable human being and understand the different points of view that every Park visitor comes from.” That perspective serves him daily in his new role.

And despite his career pivot, Jonathan’s teaching instincts remain intact. “I feel like this Park is one big classroom,” he says. “We have the best job, because we’re not enforcing—we're informing people. And people love to be informed.”

In fact, when reminding visitors of the rules in the Park, Jonathan says he receives very little resistance—but plenty of “thank-you’s.”

“That’s the best part of the day,” he said. “The kids are happy, the adults are happy, the dogs are happy, the birders are happy. That's our main goal, to make sure all the communities are working hand in hand with each other.”

And to Jonathan, it all comes down to listening—building a strong rapport with the Central Park community and learning their needs. If there's one thing he wants Park visitors to know, it’s this: “No matter what community you're in, understand that we hear you, we hear your concerns, and we're here to address them.”

A former teaching artist, adjunct college professor, self-producing playwright, and writer, you could call April Ranger a Renaissance woman. Now, you can also call her a Ranger—it’s both her name and her new job title.

After joining the Conservancy as a Receptionist two years ago, April realized that her favorite part of her day was any time she got to spend outside in the Park. “I'm a huge outdoors person and have always spent time in parks,” she says. “I've lived in New York for 12 years, and I wouldn't be able to exist here without public parks.”

That love for greenspace led her to become a Ranger, where her approach is rooted in her education background. “Educating people really goes a long way,” she explained. “If we see kids climbing on a very fragile looking cherry tree, we don’t just say, ‘Get off that tree.’” Instead, the team explains why the tree is vulnerable and offers alternative options for where kids can play.

The response is often joy, not pushback. “Kids get excited about it,” she says. “They're kind of curious, and they want to protect the environment, too. Being a steward of the earth is a very natural impulse for most of us, I think.”

For April, this is the best part of the job.

Altman Studeny “fell in love with Olmstedian design” not in Central Park—Frederick Law Olmsted’s most famous creation, designed with Calvert Vaux—but in Brookline, Massachusetts. There, Altman worked for the National Parks Service at the Olmsted National Historic Site, where he learned one of Olmsted’s key design philosophies: a park isn’t truly finished until people arrive and enjoy it.

It’s a philosophy he carries into his work as a Central Park Ranger, interacting with Park visitors every day. Since joining the team three months ago, Altman has been learning the ins and outs of the Park, noting that in such a large space, his work is all about “negotiating energies.”

“There’s enough room for everything to be happening in the Park, but there's not necessarily room for everything to be happening in one space,” he says. “So it's about helping people find opportunities to do what they want to do where there's plenty of legroom to stretch out.”

To Altman, solving these quality-of-life issues in the Park is truly a collaboration with visitors, setting the Rangers apart from enforcement agencies. Like Jonathan, Altman says “the ‘confrontations’ are not confrontational.” The longer the Rangers have been out in the Park, he explains, the more people are learning Park rules and following them, giving waves and greetings to the Rangers as they do.

In the end, it’s all to create the best possible experience for visitors. Altman’s work with the National Parks Service focused on helping people connect with national parks. He now seeks to foster those same relationships here as a Central Park Ranger—creating a welcoming, safe, respectful environment where people can find meaning among nature.

Meanwhile, Altman is forming his own personal relationship with Central Park. Each night, as he walks through the south end of the Park to catch his train home, he admires the Olmstedian design he’s come to know so well.

“I just love how, as evening draws in, you really see this contrast between the living thing that is the Park and the City that grew around it,” he says. “It’s striking—standing on a big rock, surrounded by growing trees, with the skyline rising around you. It’s amazing how the Park is framed so well by New York growing around it.”

In a City where the pace rarely slows and the energy often steals the spotlight, the Rangers offer something vital: presence. They remind us that Central Park is not just a place to pass through, but a place to belong—a shared landscape shaped as much by its trees and paths as by the people who walk them. The Rangers are not only stewards of this beloved greenspace, but caretakers of the moments that make the Park what it is: a living, breathing commons in the heart of New York.

If you need assistance from the Central Park Conservancy Ranger Corps, you can:

• Speak with any Conservancy staff member and request Central Park Ranger assistance
• Contact us by phone or email so our team can connect you directly with the Central Park Rangers

For emergencies or general reports, continue to use 911 and 311.

Jenny Schulte is the Senior Marketing Writer & Editor at the Central Park Conservancy.