Letters to the Editor
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‘Maintaining Beauty With Barbed Wire’
It is evident that James Gardner has no recollection of how bad things were for Central Park in the 1970s, before a group of civic-minded New Yorkers banded together to begin the process of restoring and maintaining this city’s great urban oasis [Arts, “Maintaining Beauty With Barbed Wire,” July 3, 2007].
That so few remember that dark time in the park’s history is a testament to the expert, innovative care and successful management practices exhibited by the Central Park Conservancy. In his praise of Prospect Park, Mr. Gardner neglects to cite the renaissance each park has undergone, in no small part due to private funds intended to augment existing operating budgets, thus allowing for transformative capital projects and increased maintenance.
What defines Central Park as a model for other urban parks across the nation is that it is more than the sum of its lawns. The park is a cultural institution brimming with theater, music, and architectural delights such as monuments and Minton Tiles.
Frederick Law Olmsted proclaimed that Central Park “should present an aspect of spaciousness and tranquility thereby affording the most agreeable contrast to the confinement, bustle, and monotonous street-division of the city.”
The Conservancy must employ a level of pragmatism to reconcile the heavy public usage of the park — everything from athletics and playgrounds filled with families to dogs wandering off leashes — with the conservation needs of this 843-acre landscape.
To ensure healthy lawns, woodlands, and gardens, fencing is used intermittently throughout the year. Fencing also provides wildlife corridors and safe habitats for the numerous species that thrive there. Eliminating fencing runs the risk of allowing the public to love the park to death.
The practices that Mr. Gardner criticizes are in fact practices that have made the park so accessible. Some 25 million annual visitors make Central Park the most used public park in the world.
Douglas Blonsky
President
Central Park Conservancy
New York, N.Y.
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