LW! e-newsletter
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March 26, 2010
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PRESERVATION ALERT:
Central Park under siege
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Central Park belongs to all of us: resident or visitor ... all 25 million people who use the park each year. Its 843 acres were designed by landscape
architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux for what Olmsted called
"democratic recreation," a park accessible to everyone.
So, what's democratic about taking
public tennis courts, enclosing them with 35-foot-tall vinyl bubbles, and
privatizing them at up to $100 per hour?
Nothing. Still, that's the Department
of Parks and Recreation's (DPR) plan for tennis courts between 94th and 96th Streets in Central Park--and it's environmentally unsound and just
plain ugly to boot.
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Who can stop this?
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WE CAN stop this.
By signing the petition, your voice adds volume to the chorus of opposition declaring with all its might: Central
Park, the city's first
Scenic Landmark, is not for sale.
LANDMARK WEST! will deliver the petition to the administrators of Central Park and the City agencies charged with the
park's protection:
Douglas Blonsky, President of the
Central Park Conservancy
and Central Park Administrator
Adrian Benepe, Commissioner of the
Department of Parks and Recreation
Robert Tierney, Chair of the
Landmarks Preservation Commission
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For information on how you can contact these individuals and agencies directly, contact LANDMARK WEST! by emailing landmarkwest@landmarkwest.org or calling (212) 496-8110. |
What's at stake?
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Central Park--the People's Park--is a protected Scenic Landmark. The NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) needs to step up and defend this historic naturalistic landscape, one of our city's most beloved
places and a worldwide tourist destination.
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The concept ...
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At 35 feet
tall--the equivalent of a 3.5 story building--the tennis bubbles would be among
the most visible non-historic structures in the park.- The bubbles would
take over and enclose outdoor recreational space, totally antithetical to
Olmsted and collaborator Calvert Vaux's design intent, of which Barry Benepe, architect, founder of the Union Square Greenmarket, and urban planner, wrote in 1996*: "the basic purpose of Central Park
is to escape the city: its buildings, events and schedule. It is to experience nature in the form of a
living landscape, a landscape artfully manipulated to encourage wonder and
surprise, such as the sudden view on the northwest drive over a meadow and
crest of trees where no building interrupts the skyline." In Central
Park, people were intended to pursue their leisures in the open
air, in full interaction with nature.
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The bubbles would privatize public space and transform an
accessible recreational facility into an elitist "club".
- Today,
an hour of tennis in Central Park is affordable. Under the bubbles, an hour of play would cost up to $100, depending on time and on day of the week.
- This
arrangement undermines the democratic character of Central Park. Roy Rosenzweig and Elizabeth Blackmar, authors of The Park and the People:
A History of Central Park, write of this ideal: "To exclude poor New Yorkers from
public spaces, to rely solely on private agencies to support and manage public
institutions, to fail to ensure that all New Yorkers have access to adequate
public spaces and recreational facilities, to settle for cultural democracy
without political and economic democracy--all jeopardize the democratic public
possibilities." (page 530, published 1992)
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The bubbles would degrade Central Park
while in no way benefiting it.
- All
income generated by the indoor tennis facilities would go to the NYC General
Fund, not back to Central Park or even the DPR.
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The bubbles pose an environmental threat to an urban oasis.
- This
proposal is anything but "green." Four
(4) diesel fuel tanks, each with a volume of 2,300 gallons (total of 9,200
gallons of diesel fuel) are proposed to power operational generators. Imagine trying to enjoy a peaceful refuge in
the park ... with the constant whir of a generator and stench of diesel fumes. Park land will be further compromised by the constant
trucking-in of fuel.
- "Invaluable,
as they define or punctuate the landscape, shade trees are probably the most
important element in the park" (Central Park Designation Report, Landmarks
Preservation Commission, 1974). The
trees surrounding the courts would be subjected to manhandling during the
installation of cement footing for the bubbles. Yet, the DPR does not plan to conduct any
kind of formal review on the impact the project would have on the environment of Central Park.
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And that's just the beginning.
Throw into the mix talk of golf carts scooting around as transportation
between the courts and the Upper East Side, and the precedent the project sets
for enclosing other outdoor recreational spaces in Central
Park. The tennis courts could be just an air conditioning unit away from year-round use.
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* In a letter (dated Dec. 4, 1996) to Nicholas Quennell, then-President
of the Art Commission (now Public Design Commission) in regards to a proposal by the Central Park Conservancy to install 136
seven-foot-tall signs in Central Park.
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