The Alliance for Downtown New York, the city’s largest Business Improvement District, today announced that Elizabeth H. Berger, a member of the organization’s Board of Directors since 1998, has been named its new president.

Ms. Berger brings to the Downtown Alliance more than 20 years experience in federal, state and local government. She is currently the Senior Government Relations Advisor for the Law Offices of Claudia Wagner, where she has been advising private, cultural, educational and other non-profits clients for the past five and a half years. Her current and former clients include Viacom International, American Museum of Natural History, American Airlines, the Asia Society, Jazz at Lincoln Center, the New York Public Library and the Apollo Theater Foundation.

"We are tremendously pleased to have Elizabeth Berger assume the helm of the Downtown Alliance," says Robert R. Douglass, chairman of the Downtown Alliance. "Liz has lived and worked in Lower Manhattan for more than 25 years and knows the territory better than anyone I know. Her vast knowledge of the issues and her unique experience and perspective will be of critical value to the Downtown Alliance as Lower Manhattan further transforms into a more complex, 24/7 community. I know Liz very well, and she has the passion and perseverance to help make Lower Manhattan the most modern, efficient and attractive business district in the world."

Ms. Berger will join the Downtown Alliance in early November. She replaces former president Eric Deutsch, who entered the private sector in June of this year.

"I am deeply connected to the issues in Lower Manhattan and I am passionately committed to bringing the public and private sectors together to further advance this dynamic neighborhood for residents, businesses and visitors," says Ms. Berger. "The Downtown Alliance has been a powerful advocate for the downtown business community, and I look forward to working with government, business and community leaders to help continue Downtown’s remarkable resurgence."

A graduate of Yale College, where she pioneered a major in urban studies, Ms. Berger was a Coro Foundation Leadership New York Fellow, a New York City Urban Fellow, and a Lyndon Baines Johnson Congressional Intern.

An active board director of several New York City non-profit cultural and civic groups, including the Municipal Art Society, Second Stage Theater and the Alliance for Downtown New York, she is a mayoral appointee to the Governors Island Education and Preservation Corporation and has also served on Manhattan Community Boards 1 and 5, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation Residents Advisory Council and as President of the Danspace Project. She is a co-author of Everything That Lives, Eats, an art photography book published by Aperture (US) and Knesebeck (Germany) in 1996.

In 2004, she received a New York Dance and Performance "Bessie" Award citation for government arts advocacy.

Ms. Berger is married to the writer Frederick Kaufman, an Associate Professor of English at the City University of New York. They live in Lower Manhattan with their two school-age children.