Event-Walking Tour * Washington Square Park: Past, Present and Future - A Guide to New York City’s Redesign of a Perfect Public Space. Saturday, June 28th

WALKING TOUR: WASHINGTON SQUARE PARK: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE:
A Guide to New York City’s Redesign of a Perfect Public Space
Saturday, June 28th, 12 noon

(Raindate Saturday, July 12th, 12 noon)

Meet Up at Washington Square Arch, Washington Square North @ Fifth Avenue ; $5

Washington Square Park Blog and Washington Square Community Improvement District (CID) present a walking tour: “Washington Square Park Past, Present, and Future: A Guide to New York City’s Redesign of a Perfect Public Space” on Saturday, June 28th at 12 noon.

Community Improvement Districts(CID) are a new model organizing to protect, preserve and promote the well being of our community. The needs of people are our primary concern, distinguishing us from the better known and financed groups referred to as Business Improvement Districts(BIDS), whose sole interest is promoting better business and an environment conducive to shopping. At Washington Square Park, the neighborhood BIDS, along with NYU, the Tisch Family, and Mayor Bloomberg have played a role in a redesign plan that is destroying the very heart of Washington Square Park.

This will be a unique Walking Tour of Washington Square Park Past, Present and Future. It will include a Guide to New York City government’s redesign of Washington Square Park - a controversial project that will alter the historic nature and structure of this successful public space. Pushed through with a non-transparent process by the New York City Parks Department, the redesign of this park is largely unwelcome by the community and was done without listening to community input.

The tour will also include history of the Park (Past) and what’s being done right now(Present).

Trains: A,B,C,D,E,F to West 4th Street/Washington Square

More about Community Improvement Districts (CID) here.

What are New York City’s plans? Click here.

Actually, Mr. Vellonakis, the Washington Square Park Fountain is already aligned. As is, Fountain is Park’s “midpoint”

Watching the screening of the documentary “Washington Square SQUARED” last night at the Bowery Poetry Club, there was some key footage featuring Parks Department designer George Vellonakis. It is his plan that cuts up and moves all the pieces in this successful park into configurations and contortions that few prefer - and yet the plan proceeds.

One moment that stands out (among many) illustrates his empathy. Who does Mr. Vellonakis have empathy for? The community who likes the park the way it is? No. The trees that have stood in the park for 80 years that he wants chopped down? Not quite. His empathy is reserved for the “poor tourists” who (he believes) can’t take good pictures of themselves with the famous Arch behind them — because there is a tree in the way!

Well, luckily, those tourists have Mr. Vellonakis, NYC Parks Commissioner Benepe, and Mayor Bloomberg on their side because that obstructionist tree (along with 13 others) is no longer there!

There is much discussion of the “aligning” of the fountain in the film — the Parks Department plan is to move it 23 feet east so that it aligns with the Arch at Fifth Avenue. There’s much appreciation by users of the Park of the un-alignment of the fountain and the Arch. Something about the fountain not being connected to Fifth Avenue works when you enter Washington Square Park: you escape the city - yet you meld with your neighbors within it in unimaginable and unique ways. It’s a great public space. Mr. Vellonakis’s design aspires to destroy that.

But a little known fact that is somewhat key is that the fountain actually IS aligned. It’s not a mistake that it was in that specific location.

In Emily Kies Folpe’s book, It happened on Washington Square, she writes at length about the installation of the fountain. She states that the fountain was “placed at the midpoint of the park’s east-west axis, the fountain gave the Square a definitive central focus.” The fountain was installed in 1870 and “dominates its center.” When the park was redesigned in 1871, retaining that focal point was a key part of the design plan. Folpe writes in her 2002 book, “Despite later changes, the legacy of the 1871 design lingers on in today’s Washington Square.”

Until Mayor Bloomberg and the New York City Parks Department get their way, and move the famous fountain to align with the Arch, and that’s the end of something that’s worked quite successfully for 137 years.

** The above is a schematic of the new redesign. Don’t let all the greenery fool you.**

The Soul of Washington Square Park: What the NYC Parks Department Left Out of their Redesign Plans

While looking up articles on Washington Square Park earlier this year, I came across a research paper by a student at SUNY(State University of New York) Syracuse College of Environmental Science and Forestry entitled: “Searching for the Soul of Washington Square Park: Employing Narrative, Photo-Voice and Mapping to Discover and Combine Pragmatic Issues of Urban Park Design with a Community’s Emotional Needs” (May 2007). It was written by Yamila Fournier as a senior project.

Spending time at Washington Square Park working on her research, Ms. Fournier interviewed Park users as well as Parks Department “officials.” She investigated people’s routines at the Park and what they loved about it as a public space. She explored what the Parks Department procedures are for redesign of a park (the answer: there are no protocols in place).

As she delves into the history and process of the redesign of Washington Square Park and the interactions between government agencies and the community, she ties together themes in ways that have not been fully explored elsewhere. I have excerpted parts of it here.

Excerpts from “Searching for the Soul of Washington Square Park” (note: the formatting is all mine. It’s a 52 page+ paper so this is condensed.):

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When the idea to renovate Washington Square Park was first introduced, the general consensus was that the park is in need of much repair.

That is where all agreement ended. Since the plans for the redesign were unveiled in 2001, there has been no harmony.

The proposed redesign specifies:

*a closable 4′ fence around the perimeter;
*bringing the central fountain up to grade with the road;
*moving the central fountain 22′ to the east to create an axial relationship with the newly renovated arch;
*relocating dog runs;
*enlarging playgrounds;
*adding an adventure playground to replace the highly contentious mounds;
*creating a new building for Parks Department offices and equipment;
*relocating statuary;
*eliminating seating areas;
*adding light fixtures; and
*renovating bathrooms, among other changes.

Every portion of the design has its critics. One thing that almost all the critics can agree on is that the community felt left out of the design process.

Washington Square Park Fountain “Aligned” - Its New Location

Note the Alignment! This photo illustrates the circle (in center) of where New York City intends to place the newly aligned fountain.

One of the contentious issues of the “renovation” of Washington Square Park is the movement of the fountain 22-23 feet east to be “aligned” with the Arch at Fifth Avenue.

I imagine Mayor Bloomberg, Parks Commissioner Benepe and “Architect” George Vellonakis sipping champagne somewhere ecstatic that, with the realization of their “vision,” the famous Washington Square Park Fountain and the historic Arch will AT LAST be aligned.

No matter that it worked just fine for over a century as it was. The redesign of Washington Square Park is about taking apart the pieces of this great public space that functioned incredibly well for years and years and tampering with them. In a business model - which CEO Mayor Bloomberg knows - if something works well, you try to make it better, but you don’t change it dramatically. Of course, it’s not about that. It’s about creating a new business model - for Washington Square Park.

Imagine sitting at the Fountain (well, if you can, once it has a 45 foot plume spouting up from it) and think how glad you will be to view so clearly the traffic careening down Fifth Avenue.

New York City government’s attempt to create symmetrical spaces (4 “plazas” at each corner, lush manicured lawns and planters in the proper places) in a public space that’s always been about not being symmetrical misses the whole point (purposefully).

Note: Since this photo was taken, there is a big hole now dug in this center spot. It’s a bit sad. The thing is … they may get their Tisch fountain aligned with the Arch, but — as far as the entire redesign plan being replicated — let’s see what transpires. As they say, it’s not over til it’s over.

Washington Square Arch: Exitus Acta Probat

On each side of the famous Arch at Washington Square Park stands George Washington in two distinct poses: Washington At War on the East side of the pedestal of the Arch and Washington At Peace on the West.

The Arch was designed by by noted period architect Stanford White(1853-1906). Originally built in wood (and standing half a block away from its current location) for the Centennial of Washington’s inauguration in 1889, it was then commissioned in marble and completed in its current location in the early 1890’s.

About the figure of Washington At War, in her book, “It Happened on Washington Square,” Emily Kies Folpe writes that the sculptor Herman A. Mac Neil “intended the figure” “to appear alert and intent, as if watching the maneuvers of his army.” Behind Washington are the “allegorical” figures of Fame and Valor.

Pictured in this photo (above) is Washington At Peace (A. Stirling Calder). Behind Washington are figures representing Wisdom and Justice.

Wisdom stands there as “the modern Athena” (Greek goddess of wisdom). And then we come to the figure of Justice. Folpe writes, “Justice, draped and crowned, holding a balanced set of scales with one hand and an open book in the other. The pages of the book are inscribed with the words ‘Exitus acta probat.’ ” Exitus acta probat, I’ve learned, is taken from the George Washington Family Coat of Arms.

So what does “exitus acta probat” mean exactly?

It’s Latin and I’ve come across various ways of interpreting it, all similar but slight variations.

The basic translation is: the outcome justifies the deed.

It’s the pairing of that statement with the figure of Justice that puzzles me. I like to think at Washington Square Park that ultimately there will be some kind of ‘Justice’ in what transpires in the design and outcome of the Park. The scales have been unbalanced to date. And I can’t help wondering if there is some message there for those of us who’d like to see a different outcome at Washington Square Park (other than the city’s “vision” for it). Is there some missing deed?

Of course, Stanford White’s “outcome” was a little bit jarring. He was shot on the roof of the Madison Square Garden building (the second incarnation - no longer there) by the husband of an ex-lover. Madison Square Garden also being a building he designed.