Henri Claude Shostal was born near Paris in 1940 and began life as a wartime refugee, escaping as an infant with his family from Nazi Europe with adventures straight out of Casablanca and Sophie's Choice. Arriving penniless and in debt, his parents managed to carve out a successful life in America, allowing Shostal to attend Harvard College, obtain a graduate degree in Public Administration from NYU, and kick-start his career by joining the staff of Governor Nelson Rockefeller in 1967. From that unique vantage point, he witnessed the drama of the urban unrest of the time, the dire political events of 1968, the Woodstock Festival, the Attica uprising, and more. He then spent almost ten years in senior positions in state and city government, culminating in being picked as New York City's first commissioner of cultural affairs in 1976. Shostal moved on to work in the private sector on transformational commercial projects during the1980s, including the Colgate Project in Jersey City, New Jersey. He capped his career in the nonprofit world, heading the country's most prestigious metropolitan planning organization, Regional Plan Association.
Shostal has also found time to hike among many of the world's highest mountain regions, summiting Kilimanjaro and two peaks in the Himalayas over 20,000 feet. He lives in the West Village in Manhattan with his wife, Amy.
