A $16 million redesign of Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village includes some badly needed repairs, such as fixing the leaky fountain and repairing the badly cracked pavement. But many community members feel the plan will take away the character of the park and sanitize it.
Among the points of contention is the plan to put a 4-foot high iron fence around the perimeter of the park with gates that will be locked at night, removing a stage that is used by many different organizations, and moving the fountain so that it is in alignment with the arch.
Two recent articles from the New York Times are now archived: Washington Square Park, Haven for Eccentricity, Is Set to Fall Into Line and Don’t Fence Me In (Too Much).
What are your feelings on the redesign of Washington Square Park? Do you have a favorite place in the park that you’d hate to see go?
No fences!
Fences! Are these going to be like the ones in Tompkins Square Park that are supposed to control people? No doubt the park could use a lift, but the plan looks on the whole overly designed and definitely not in line with the existing uses and activities, whether programmed or spontaneous.
Crossroads
Though not a New Yorker any longer my memories of Washington Square Park is that it is a highly developed crossroads and living room of the city for thousands of residents who pass through the park at all hours of the day or night feeling safe and comfortable largely by reason of the numbers of others who are there simply enjoying the evening, meeting friends,enjoying the ambiance and watching people watching people. Gateing the park and closing it in the evening hours makes it a potential wasteland after dark. This is sure to generate problems as yet not perceived. Social problems do not usually occuras a spectator sport. When you drive out the legitimate user you set a stage (no pun intended) for the neferous and frightening users to take over the space. A four foot fence is not much of a barrier to some. My Bassett Hound can scale such a barrier in a heart beat.
Targeted improvements - not an overhaul, please
First, I think the problem with a fence would be very psychological whether or not it really made the park any more physically closed (I suppose at night it undeniably would in their plan, though). Like Shin-Pei above who mentioned Tompkins, enclosing a park in a fence can make a big difference. Tompkins feels like you’re entering a compound, a completely separate entity from the streetscape where you’re walking. It’s like you have to make a point to “enter” the park - not permeable at all. Not that you would necessarily enter the park except by the normal paved paths anyway, but the fence has that psychological effect.
I have been in WSP a lot lately, and it really does need a face-lift — especially replacing the black asphalt expanses (is even the most CAVE person going to try to argue that the asphalt has some historic character?). And the fuss over that asphalt “sculpture” in the southwest area is ridiculous - that is the ugliest “park” space I have ever seen; it’s serving neither an artistic nor practical purpose.
I guess my point is that Washington Square Park needs some targeted improvements, but not an overhaul, and a perimeter fence is a bad idea.
-Mike
Keep it quirky
I would hope that we can fix what needs fixing without remaking the park so much that it loses its character, identity and history. What makes the park interesting are the people in it (day and night) and the quirkiness of it all. Aligning the fountain with the arch and fencing off the park fly in the face of that.
Villager article
The Village has been concerned about this for a long time. Here’s a great article from just a couple weeks ago, that’s worth reading. http://www.thevillager.com/villager_102/parkplanshaven‘t.html
Fix it up
The park is a haven for pot pushers, ectasy errand boys and sleepless bums. I say clean it up, lock it up, and throw them to the wolves. A fence won’t take away the artists, jugglers, fanatics who appear daily and nightly, it will just clean up the street slime.
Interesting perspective Gunnar…
“The park is a haven for pot pushers, ectasy errand boys and sleepless bums.” - I don’t quite understand what an ‘ecstacy errand boy’ is really!? As for pot pushers, well, they don’t seem to be pushing it on anyone - I’ve walked through the park many many times between 8am and 4am and never been pushed anything by street slime, perhaps casually asked if I ‘like to smoke’ but thats about it! Maybe I can’t tell the difference between fanatics and street slime because I haven’t lived in NYC long enough!?
Not aligned?
Moving the fountain so that it is in “precise alignment” with the arch seems to be a colossal waste of funds. I’ve walked through the park hundreds of times and have never noticed that they are not aligned. This sounds like something a designer thought looked great on paper, but is meaningless to people who are actually in the park. Look at some images of Washington Square Park on PPS’s Great Public Spaces page, it is hard to tell that they do not line up.
Locking up OUR PARKS - A CITY TREND????
It’s great to see that there is money to fix Washington Square Park. It’s sad to hear that the park will be fenced in and community and public will not be allowed to roam and use the park after a certain hour. This trend to lock up our City Parks has been going on throughout the city. Many times decisions concerning parks are made by the Parks Dept. without much input from neighborhood communities.
By closing public parks the City hopes to ultimately save money. From their point of view the closing will prevent public vandalism, homeless occupation and undesirables (drug dealers etc.) from using the park as a platform for business. The sad part is the park will be closed to the general neighborhood and public. So if you live in the neighborhood you can’t hang out with your friends in the park anymore or if you want to take a midnight stroll in the park with your loved ones and sit and watch the stars together you will have to find another place.
Closing of public parks limits its general use as a public space.We pay enough taxes so that these open spaces can be kept clean and maintained without closing the parks at night. This trend only limits how the public can use our parks. We need to all get involved with park planning and ensure that our parks best serve our communities. We cannot leave the decision to the City of NY to decide what is best for our community parks.
The Designer Who Would Change the Village Eden
“George Vellonakis, the landscape architect behind the much-vilified $16 million rejuvenation of Washington Square Park, seems to have reached a positive saturation point.”
http://www.nytimes.com
Don’t fence the heart of downtown.
The “Metro” newsdaily had a good article about the WSP overhaul on Weds. May 18, and asked for readers views.
This is what I sent them. Thanks for all the comments I have read above, on this forum.
Dear Editors and journalist Amy Zimmer,
Thanks for the informative article of May 18.
How silly to “line up the fountain with the arch.” Nonsense! The fountain is already in a fine spot, only a helicopter pilot would think otherwise. Also, the fountain, with its lower elevation, is meant to be experienced with the eyes and body as something you discover experientially, not as an element that rises up to make a nice publicity photo. There is no need to change it.
The park has a nice rambling feeling that co-exists with its obvious symmetry and Square shape. Over-emphasizing the symmetry by moving the fountain could lessen the intrigue of the park.
Just repave the park where it needs it and replace some minor cracked or broken elements while preserving a shape that works.
Hey–no gate? That’s good but how about NO FENCE PLEASE! The park will be completely changed by a fence and I am strongly against a fence. I have been visiting the park in the last week looking for a place to register my concern. Please do not install a fence in one of the true “Commons” of our city. The idea of a fence makes me very sad and I am willing to work to keep a fence from being installed.
Washington Square Park is like a heart among the arteries of downtown, and a fence would be like putting a band of iron around that heart.
A fence would be a step toward making our city more rigid, soulless and unfriendly.
I am still upset about proposed changes to the park, and eliminating the gate does not change that. In fact, the park already has enough barriers in the form of low fences and other landscaped elements.
An open society is in the long run safer than a closed and paranoid society. NYC should be the opposite of a gated community, and we need to stand up for open access
to our public gardens. This park has survived many eras without a fence and it doesn’t need one now.
Thank you for the opportunity to voice my view of this matter.
More green space and more seating also will make park less open.
There are several articles, photos, and a schematic map at:
< < http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?p=49291 >>
The bottom-most article points out that a lot of “green space” and “seating” will be added. That means less free and open walking areas or congregting areas and more planned and likely constrained areas. I like the current mix of openness and curved lines of benches. Too much seating could make the park less unique, and green areas may be cordoned off rather than something you can sit on?
Tompkins has some nice green areas to sit on. Bryant Park has a lot of seating, which works fine and suits its location and sort of business lunch spot. Madison Square Park at 23rd St above the Flat Iron Building, generally had an alienating feeling to me perhaps because of its overly schematic seating surrounded by controlled green lawns, and no sense anywhere of a nook or cranny.
After the 1960’s most big-10 universities, including the University of Texas, redid their mall areas to divide them using planters and medians, in order to reduce and control student protest; this is documented in the professional journals of university physical design and planning. One can’t but wonder if this WSQ revision is a bit of the same kind of thing, among other motives for repackaging downtown.
“This Land Ain’t Your Land…”
Not anymore. We couldn’t demonstrate against the war in Iraq because the privately owned interests of the formerly public central park objected (The Central Park Conservancy). Bryant Park (formerly public) now threatens anyone who feeds it’s (historically domiciled) squirrels, pigeons and sparrows — with fines and/or arrest.
The New York Times has done volumes of reporting on the shrinking of public space and increase of privatization. In order to have a democracy, there must be public spaces. Privatizing Washington Square Park (at least in part because of it’s funding by private interests) is a horrendous development.
Just another one in a corporately held, privately owned city formerly known as Manhattan.
Johanna Clearfield, Director
Urban Wildlife Coalition - NYC
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/urban_wildlife_coalition_NYC/
Court Case re: Art Commission Decision
Attorney Ronald Podolsky has filed an Article 78 petition regarding the City’s and Parks Departments’ refusal to supply documents about the renovation before the Art Commission hearing in January. The intent is to void the Art Commission decision, allow for further presentations against the renovation, and request an injunction to stop construction.
The case will be heard with oral arguments on May 11, 3:30PM at NY County Supreme Court, 60 Centre Street, Fourth Floor, Room 422. 4/5/6 to Brooklyn Bridge, R-W to City Hall, A-C-E to Chambers Street.
Please attend if possible to let the City and the Court know that it’s only over if we let it be over.
http://preservewashingtonsquarepark.com will post any last minute changes, and for information about the renovation and about the Park itself.