Fountains, Seating, and a New View of Columbus

An interesting urban experiment is about to take place in Manhattan, and chances are that you will be participating.The renovation of the island at Columbus Circle, a stone’s throw from the new Time Warner Building, is fast approaching completion. It will have fountains, an abundance of seating, and a fine view of that noble statue of Columbus that gazes imperiously down Eighth Avenue.Yet, with Central Park only 100 feet farther on, will anyone ever venture inside?We will know soon enough. For the time being, let me say that the renovated space, while not especially interesting in its design, will surely be the best thing ever to happen to this crucial crossroads, where Midtown pivots into the Upper West Side. It will be accessed from three dedicated intersections that, despite what one might have thought, appear to strike just the right balance between the needs of cars and of pedestrians. Most importantly, it does not appear, as of now, that users will feel marooned on a desert island in a hostile sea of traffic.Despite several calls to the Parks Department, I was not able to learn the name of the designer of the site – though a search on the web turned up the Olin Partnership, in conjunction with Machado Silvetti. It will apparently consist of three granite tiers rising concentrically around the statue of Columbus. Between them and the statue will be a basin filled with gently splashing water to block out the noise of surrounding traffic. The one serious cosmetic lapse, and it is entirely visual rather than functional, is that despite the presumptive classicism of the granite that emphatically defines the entire space, the three entrances, hemmed by oddly parabolic walls, have the feel of leftover 1970s design-think.As a native Upper West Sider, I have been well aware of this island my entire life, and I have memories of its being inhabited (by the non-homeless) as late as the early 1980s. Once or twice I have even ventured into it over the years, overcoming mounds of refuse and fences and barricades in the Parks Department’s well-stocked arsenal of such things. But I have never known it to be an especially welcoming place, especially since, for fully 50 years, it has been tainted by association with the truly atrocious Coliseum.Soon, however, it will have splashing water, trees, and actual human beings, most of whom, I suspect, will come from the Time Warner Building rather than from Central Park. There might even be something special about the experience: The sense of inhabiting an oasis of nature, of calm amid a sea of traffic, could, if done right, become an emblematic urban experience.***Speaking of renovations to our urban parks, I had hoped that the sundry anarcho-nihilistic potheads of Washington Square Park would be made of sterner stuff. What kind of self-respecting counterculture are they if they fear the demise of their fragile ecosystem simply through the placement of a wrought-iron fence around the park, the leveling of the large concrete mounds in the southwest quadrant of the park and the realigning of the fountain along the axis of Fifth Avenue?But New Yorkers are a famously querulous group, and nowhere is the “mind-set” of community activism stronger than in the Village. (There is even a group calling itself “Save the Mounds.”) After reviewing the proposals of the planned $16.2 million renovation of the 9.75 acre park, the dog owners are up in arms about a proposed threat to their cherished dog runs, while the parents are upset about the absence of playgrounds. Everyone, including the New York Times, is afraid that the implicit genteelism of the gentrification of the park will ruin that ethereal quality (marijuana?) thought to make the park so special.Surely no one, with the exception of the Parks Department, New York University (which is putting up some money), and sundry other suits have anything kind to say about the proposed renovation. Why? Not because there is anything especially bad about the proposed renovation, but because, according to the regnant humbug of the age, we are required to “speak truth to power,” which in practice means contradicting anything said by anyone wearing a tie.The new plan, designed by George Vellonakis, appears to appreciate the rigorous logic inherent in the French Garden design that is already in place, but is thus far only implicitly and imperfectly illustrated. Mr. Vellonakis’s plan will eliminate the drab remnants of Robert Moses’s legacy from the 1950s (when he almost got away with driving a highway right down the center of the park) and the insipid 1970s. In 2000 Mr. Vellonakis, who works for the Parks Department, received the Arthur Ross Award from Classical America, which suggests not only the style in which he will work but also the skill with which he will proceed – a skill not evident, for example, at Columbus Center.The renovation is to proceed in two phases. At the end of this summer, a one-year project will renovate and reorient the fountain, expand the central plaza, and cover it with grass. The northwest quadrant of the park will get new landscaping, paving, benches, and lighting. Upon its completion, phase two will begin, entailing the paving and lighting of the rest of the park. This is supposed to take from one to two years.It all sounds very good, but I am immediately suspicious of any timetable published by the Parks Department. Remember the Bandshell in Central Park? Exactly two years ago, scaffolding went up to repair the roof, a process we were told would take four months. Two years later, the scaffolding is still there.

Fountains, Seating, and a New View of Columbus

Fountains, Seating, and a New View of Columbus

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