A former United States Senator for New York, Daniel Patrick Moynihan has pushed the boundaries of policy through his strong advocacy for public spaces. "He has tirelessly raised funds and championed many important urban projects, including Pennsylvania Station and Grand Central Terminal, thus becoming an advocate for excellence in design as civic leader," said Toshiko Mori, Toshiko Mori Architects.

Currently a professor at Syracuse University and a senior scholar at the Woodrow International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., Moynihan served in the Cabinet or sub-Cabinet of four successive Presidents: Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford. While serving in the Kennedy administration in 1962 he drafted the "Guiding Principles for Federal Architecture," still observed today, and began a 40-year effort to redevelop Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House to the Capitol.

His 24-year Congressional record includes saving Walt Whitman's Long Island birthplace, renovating Union Station in Washington, D.C., and restoring New York City's Grand Central Terminal (1987-1999). In 1994, he helped to establish the General Services Administration's Design Excellence Program, which engages many of the finest architects, designers, engineers and artists in the United States to design significant public architecture around the country.

Moynihan's great passion has been New York's Pennsylvania Station. The original masterpiece by McKim, Mead & White was torn down in 1963, and he forged a plan to transform the James A. Farley Post Office Building (1914) -- which was designed by the same architects -- into a new Pennsylvania Station.

Moynihan has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Arthur S. Flemming Award, the Thomas Jefferson Award for Public Architecture from the AIA (1992), the Thomas Jefferson Medal in Architecture from the University of Virginia (2000), and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civil honor (2000). He was the recipient in October 2001 of the second annual Urban Land Institute/J.C. Nichols Prize for Visionary Urban Development in recognition of his lifelong dedication to excellence in urban design, public building architecture and community revitalization issues.

Moynihan lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife, Elizabeth Brennan Moynihan, an architectural historian.