To the Battery they came, from the Bronx, Brooklyn, Governors Island, and the middle of Manhattan, for the Battery Conservancy’s annual gala.

The honorees came: the director of the New Museum, Lisa Phillips, and the president and chief executive of Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield, Mark Wagar. The patrons came: Elizabeth Atwood, Frank Bisignano, and William Rudin (the conservancy’s chairman), to name a few.

The designer Charlotte Pinson came. She is the one who made the president of the conservancy, Warrie Price, look so fabulous, by painting her white suit to match the design and colors of the invitation.

The event on Monday for the first time broke the million-dollar fund-raising mark, clearly a sign of the conservancy’s dynamic transformation of the park at the tip of Lower Manhattan.

Respectful of its history, yet demanding the creative best for its future, Mrs. Price, the conservancy’s president, is nearing the completion of the design of the park, a goal she set out to accomplish 14 years ago.

On the way: a Frank Gehry-designed playground and a carousel named SeaGlass, consisting of luminous fish conceived by opera and theater production designer George Tsypin. Riders will get to nestle inside the fish, while artist-designed soundtracks and projections immerse them in an aquatic environment.

With Battery Park City and the Staten Island Ferry Terminal at its borders, the Battery is a work of art and nature. It is wild and tamed, solemn and whimsical. It has chimes one can dance on to make music, a turkey in residence, and the Gardens of Remembrance in honor of those who died and survived on September 11, 2001.

And it has the most amazing bench, facing the Statue of Liberty and made out of the same Stony Creek granite used for the base of the statue. Even a brief rest there can make one fall in love with New York all over again.

agordon@nysun.com