SIM-17: Robert Hagenhofer Collection

Robert Hagenhofer was a graphic designer and Staten Island environmental activist who was active in preserving park land now known as The Greenbelt. He was born in Chicago in 1923 and served in the military during World War II. He graduated from the Chicago Institute of Design, and moved to Staten Island in 1952, where subsequently lived in several communities and worked in the Graphics Department at the College of Staten Island. Hagenhofer became active in environmentalism in the 1950s when Robert Moses proposed to build a highway through the Staten Island Greenbelt. Hagenhofer helped form the Staten Island Citizens Planning Committee, a group of citizens who, through activism, managed to stop construction of the highway even though the local and state governments, as well as construction industries, were in support of it. He also attempted to improve quality of life by calling for urban renewal for some Staten Island communities, as well as for the improvement of educational facilities such as Sailor’s Snug Harbor. He continued his activism when he moved to New Jersey, and remained active until he passed away in 2007, at 84 years of age.