Tim Tompkins has worked for over three decades to understand and improve cities, with an emphasis on neighborhood-driven economic development, place management, public-private partnerships, and public art.
As a New York University Marron Institute fellow, he leads the Sustaining Places Initiative, which focuses on how place-centered partnerships sustain cities. He also is an adjunct professor of urban planning at NYU’s Wagner School, where he has taught two courses: “Transforming Cities Equitably: Public Space, Partnerships, Politics & the Press” and “Arts, the Artist and Urban Transformation.”
Tompkins was president of the Times Square Alliance, one of the nation’s pre-eminent business improvement districts (BIDs), from 2002 to 2020. The many public realm improvements during his tenure included the building of the iconic red steps on Duffy Square and the creation, in partnership with New York City, of the Broadway pedestrian malls. He oversaw the annual New Year’s Eve celebration and created other initiatives such as the Summer Solstice Yoga celebration and the Times Square Design Lab.
While at the Alliance, Tompkins created the first fully staffed, full-time public art program by a BID in the nation, and with Sherry Dobbin co-founded the Midnight Moment, the world’s largest, longest-running digital art exhibition, synchronized daily on electronic billboards throughout Times Square.
Tompkins is former chair of the International Downtown Association, which represents thousands of BID-like entities worldwide, and former co-chair of the NYC BID Association, which represents the city’s 75 BIDs. He was the founding director of Partnerships for Parks, which won an Innovation in American Government Award from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and the Ford Foundation for its work in revitalizing the Bronx River. Subsequently, he co-led Parks 2001, an advocacy campaign to secure more public funding for parks. At the New York City Economic Development Corporation, he worked on efforts to revive 42nd Street, and before that, he was a reporter and briefly the nationals editor of the Mexico City News.
Tompkins has an undergraduate degree from Yale University, an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and has studied at IESE. He resides in New York and has also lived in Paris, Mexico City, and Barcelona.
Tompkins is a certified yoga teacher and enjoys sailing when not in the midst of the urban jungle.