Pioneer Information
Born in Philadelphia, Fleisher attended the William Penn Charter School and then earned a B.S. from Dartmouth College in 1909. After attending the Philadelphia Textile School (now Philadelphia University) in 1909-1910, he went to work with his brother at the Notaseme Hosiery Company, becoming a director and secretary and filing various patents. By 1924 Fleisher was in charge of the company, then known as Fleisher Hosiery. He returned to school in 1926, earning an M.L.A. from Harvard University in 1931. In 1936 he partnered with his wife, Elizabeth Fleisher, and D. Owen Stephens to form the Philadelphia architecture firm Fleisher, Stephens & Fleisher, which specialized in housing projects. Fleisher’s landscape-related projects in Philadelphia include the picnic area and playground at the Zoological Garden of Philadelphia in 1938; a landscape plan for the Northeast Sewage Treatment Works in 1950-1951; the landscape of the Youth Study Center in 1952; McPherson Square Playground, Northwood Park Playground, and Wissahickon Playground, all in 1953; Capitolo Playground in 1954; Harrowgate Park in 1957-1958; and the redesign of Dickinson Square Park in the late 1950s, as well as Disston Park and the Alfred R. Simpson Memorial Playground (now the Simpson Recreation Center). Fleisher was also the landscape architect for various Philadelphia housing projects in the 1950s and 1960s, including Harrison Plaza, Haverford Homes, and Mantua Hall. In addition to being a member of the American Society of Landscape Architects, he was a trustee of the National Farm School, designing a formal show garden for the school in the 1930s. He published articles, including "The Gardens of Pedregal: Contemporary Design in a Land Subdivision in Mexico" (1953) and "Current Work in Progress: Some New Approaches to Philadelphia Playground Design" (1955), both in Landscape Architecture. Fleisher died at the age of 77 in Philadelphia and is buried in Mount Sinai Cemetery.
