Clara Stimson Coffey

Professional career From 1921 to 1922, Coffey worked in the office of landscape designer Warren Manning in Cleveland, Ohio. She then moved to New York where she worked for two landscape architects: first Ellen Shipman and then Marian Coffin.

In 1957, Coffey teamed up with Irving Levine and Bertram Blumberg to found Coffey, Levine, and Blumberg. Each partner had a particular speciality: Coffey did plantings, Levine concentrated on grading, and Blumberg handled the business operations and contracts. Levine and Blumberg had both been educated in New York, at New York University and Pratt Institute, respectively. New York City's financial crisis during the 1970s led to difficulty obtaining municipal contracts and the firm dissolved in 1976. New York State regulations of the era restricted business partnerships between building architects and landscape architects, leading to many of the firm's projects being officially credited only to Levine and Blumberg.

Park Avenue Malls alt=Photo of plantings in the median of Park Avenue. In the foreground are red flowers, behind them are neatly trimmed shrubbery and taller trees. The New York and Harlem Railroad originally had tracks running at grade level on Fourth Avenue (later renamed Park Avenue) when it was constructed in the 1830s. The tracks were moved underground in the 1870s, leaving openings between the traffic lanes to allow for ventilation for smoke from the trains; these spaces were hidden from view by plantings and made inaccessible to the public by fences. After the line was electrified, smoke ventilation became unnecessary. During the 1930s and 1940s, trees, tulips, and other plantings were added but the areas were still fenced off.

The New York City Department of Parks brought in Coffey in 1969 to redesign these areas. Her plan included removing the fences and adding additional plantings of species which would be able to withstand the environmental challenges of the location such as Kwanzan cherry trees. Seasonal flowers included begonias in the summer and tulips in the fall. In conjunction with horticulturist Peter Van de Wetering, changes were made to improve soil drainage. These plans were implemented between East 50th and 96th Streets during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Coffey and Irving Levine designed the building's landscaping.

Other projects

alt=Children playing in a fountain in an urban park. Water shoots from jets in the mouths of animal sculptures. A large planter is decorated in a geometric design. Coffey, Levine, and Blumberg designed many New York City parks and playgrounds including Haffen Park (Bronx, 1968), Clement Clarke Moore Park (Manhattan, 1969), and Yellowstone Park (Queens, 1970), Strickland Park (Brooklyn), and Seton Falls Park (Bronx); the total portfolio counted 30 parks and 24 playgrounds.

Coffey's 1969 work in Prospect Park was controversial. M.M. Graff from the Friends of Prospect Park criticized Coffey for removing many of the existing trees and other plants such as hemlocks, rhododendrons, and azaleas and replacing them with weeping cherries which required a lot of work to maintain properly. Robert M. Makla from the Prospect Park Advisory Board likewise complained that the new design moved away from the original Frederick Law Olmsted design, especially lamenting the loss of what he called "one of the great rhododendron collections in the country". Makla noted that the new, more formal, plantings would require horticultural attention beyond what the Parks Department had allocated for the park.

A plan to renovate the southeast corner of Central Park, prepared by Coffey, Levine & Blumberg in , was also the subject of controversy. It had initially been approved and funded for $2,500,000 but then rejected by the Parks Department as being unimaginative. Parks official Leticia Kent said that the plan "looked like something the W.P.A. would do". The plan by Louise Dees-Porch which replaced it included dredging of the duck pond, different plantings, and replacement of about half the asphalt paved paths with soft clay.

Although she worked mostly on projects in New York, Coffey did some work outside of the city. She was a consultant to Julian Whittlesey and Albert Mayer for the Indian planned city of Chandigarh.

Honors

New York City mayor Abraham Beame named her as the landscape architect representative to the Municipal Art Commission in 1977.

Coffey died in 1982;