Sunbathers relaxed on the elevated pavilion at Wagner Park, as locals and tourists walked along the tree-lined paths, catching views of the Statue of Liberty or pausing to catch a musical performance at the new event terrace. This updated layout of the waterfront was due in no small part to landscape architect and City College alum, Ruth Nervig and her team at SiteWorks.
Nervig, who is also an adjunct professor at the Spitzer School, received her masters of landscape architecture from City College in 2017. After working as a landscape designer, gardener and other adjacent fields, Nervig landed a position as a designer and now Partner at SiteWorks, a landscape architecture firm known for actualizing the construction of complex designs.
Unlike other firms that are primarily tasked with concept design, SiteWorks’ role is to ensure that those project plans are buildable and maintainable.
“A lot of what I do is talking to other designers, understanding what their concept is, having a lot of meetings with other consultants on a design team, like the engineers… and the architects to come together and solve the problems of the project,” Nervig said.
Nervig was part of the team redesigning the coastal area of Battery Park City for the South Battery Park City Resiliency Project. The intended goal of the project was to architecturally prepare the neighborhood in lower Manhattan against future storms and rising sea levels. The new space which reopened to the public in July 2025 featured elevated greenspaces that disguise floodwalls, as well as glass floodwalls that blend in with the nearby Museum of Jewish Heritage.
“Wagner Park is one that I’m proud of,” Nervig said. “There’s a beautiful view out to the Statue of Liberty, there’s event terrace seating and they have so many programs at that spot… it’s just a really well-used park.”
Nervig’s passion for landscape architecture first emerged while volunteering in her twenties. When she was in AmeriCorps, she worked in a teen center where she helped kids build a space where they could bike and skateboard.
“I helped them organize to shut down a street and turn it into a permanent skate park and get funding,” Nervig said. “There I had my first introduction to landscape architecture.”
As a volunteer in the agricultural sector of the Peace Corps, Nervig went to Senegal where she worked with women’s groups and farmers to plant gardens and build wells. These experiences inspired her to eventually go back to school.
While she was a graduate student receiving her master’s degree at City College, Nervig was the president of the American Society of Landscape Architecture student chapter. She also started the annual Rising Urbanists Conference, where professional and novice landscape architects could connect to discuss social and environmental issues in the field. It was through her former professor Andrew Lavallee, a partner at SiteWorks, that Nervig joined SiteWorks. She encourages students to likewise take advantage of the bonds forged at CCNY.
“You need to get out and talk to as many people in the field as possible, however you can,” Nervig said. “People come from all over the world to work at the architecture studios in New York and we have them right there and it’s just a huge asset.”
Yadira Gonzalez is a graduate of Baruch College where she studied journalism and minored in film. She was an editor-in-chief of Baruch’s award-winning magazine Dollars and Sense. Her writing has also been published in Documented, The New York Review of Books and AdAge.