On Demand
The Space Between Us
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Fred Kent, founder and president of the Project for Public Spaces, takes suggestions from listeners of their favorite and least favorite public spaces to assess.
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Question for Fred: You like to talk about what makes a good public space, yet you are unable to make a place in your own office that is safe for minority employees. This is on record with City Agencies. What is wrong with PPS?
North end of Central Park
Fort Tryon Park as a public space
Maybe take a look at the newish entry to the Brooklyn Museum.
The downtown court area in Brooklyn.
the shakespeare garden in the brooklyn botanical gardens
north end of Central Park
What are your thoughts on Washington Square Park?
I love the Cube at Astor Place. The whole space is such an exception from the crowded feel of NYC. The Cube itself is a great meeting spot, plus has the interactive fun of trying to spin it.
One of my favorite places in New York is Hudson River Park south of 14th street. Despite the west side highway, the piers, greenway, and small green places are great.
madison square park
There are many uses of Union Square and it changes from day to evening to night and side of the square that you're on. It's New York in a nutshell - all type are represented.
I like that walk through waterfall, 48th? between 6th and broadway. and other places similar to that!!
Grand Army Plaza...what a nightmare! Took me about a half hour to find out which way to go, once I left the Park! They need clearer signs for direction.
Why is it that everything Trump builds looks cheap?
The old International Center of Photography was wonderful! The new site at 43rd and sixth is so uninviting!!!
Fred,
Can you please analyze the Queens Botanical Garden. The landscape architecture there is excellent, especially the stream that you cross as you enter. It is also designed to have a low environmental impact.
Finally, the aspect of multiculturalism that the space represents is wonderful. Does this promote multiculturalism and tolerance throughout the city?
bushwick park / maria hernandez park
highland park bushwick ridgewood border (weeknight and saturday / sunday.
What about the pocket park on 53rd St formerly the Stork Club? I used to like to take a brown bag lunch and listen to the waterfalls but I have not been there in years and wonder how it functions now.--Or any of the pocket parks around the City?
I find it interesting that at least twice, when a listener mentioned a space that works for *him*, Fred Kent came back and told him why the space "doesn't" work. Who appointed him the boss of what spaces work and don't work?
The Barttery is so unique in history and views yet something is so off. On Madison Square the local real estae interests Dominate the park management committe and subsequently it is all about money/events/ sponsorships. Not quite a commercial Mall but even further distant from a people's park.
Union Square
amazing church grounds at Barrow and Hudson open to the public. check it out!
There's something wrong with Stuyvesant Square. Aside from being bisected by 3rd avenue and being in a constant state of disrepair, it just doesn't "work" as a park or public space.
Is there an obvious reason for this, or some way that it could be fixed?
125th street
marcus garvey park
highbridge park
ft tryon park + the cloisters
WATERFALL on 51st Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenue.
I would appreciate your comment on the "new" entrance to the Brooklyn Art Museum; also, secondarily, the entrance to BAM.
Thanks so much.
what about the foutain/park at stuyvesant town/peter cooper village?
I commute to midtown through the Port Authority building on Eighth Avenue and find it so dehumanizing and demoralizing. Part of it is having to wait on long lines but the space itself doesn't lend itself to having a good experience, either.
the Time Warner building (I hate it--what do you think?)
Please analyze Bryant Park and comment on why it works and how those ideas could be implemented in other parts of the city.
the little pocket park in cobble hill
the gowanus canal area
grand army plaza
all of forgotten-ny.com
long island city
red hook
nabe surrounding the entrance in
brooklyn to the jackie robinson exp.
city island
alley pond park
forest hills gardens
jackson heights
flushing
jamaica
Echoing what others have said, I'd love to hear what Mr. Kent thinks about the plaza in front of the Brooklyn Museum. Every time I go it strikes me as a remarkable space, but I'm often surprised to find few people actually gathering there.
I'd like Fred to check out Forest Park in Queens, a large and beautiful park in Central Queens. There are parts that are well used, but overall it has potential that needs to be developed.
Investigate bench spikes!
I think somebody should look into those little metal ridges and spikes that many Manhattan apartment buildings put around the low garden walls in front of their buildings. So many impromptu rest spots and small public spaces are destroyed by this incredibly ungenerous treatement of what would otherwise be comfortable stone or concrete seats.
They are pigeon spikes for people. We should publicly disgrace the condo associations and building management companies that chose to treat their streetfronts this way.
I'm thinking especially of the east side in the 30's, but it's a pretty prevalent phenomenon in NYC, it seems to me.
The sidewalks along Broadway between SoHo and NoLita.
Why are all architects, urban planners, landscape architects and traffic engineers visually dullards?
The Brooklyn Botanical Garden, the Brooklyn Museum (empire blvd.) & The new Brooklyn Public Library Plaza.
The way the three spaces work together make a wnderful place to wonnder and get some ofthe best of brooklyn culture.
I love the garden, and i use it as a walkway along flatbush av. After sending my life in the garden I recently found the Native Flora Garden, a wonderful hidden NYC gem empty even durring the cherry festival.
The new steps to nowhere attached to the front of the Brooklyn Museum. They look like temporary bleachers for a minor league baseball stadium.
I think the person who called about Queensboro Plaza was actually referring to the large, bunker-like, concrete building above Queens Plaza. As far as I can tell, there isn't a plaza at either subway stop.
Can he look at Metro Tech Plaza, Atlantic Mall (the Target on Atlantic Ave) the area around the Adam Clayton Powell building at 125th? I find them all really disorienting spaces, i think because it is unclear whether they are public or private space. MetroTech, and i can only assume the new Brooklyn Atlantic Yards, and the site of the Bronx Terminal Market (soon to be Gateway Plaza) are part of this epidemic of "public" space in which highly subsidized private developers offer public space that is inorganic and just violently boring. The mall on 59th St is another one of them.
In terms of great spaces, i think the new Barretto Point Park in Hunts Point is fantastic. So is Bronx Park, particularly the section near 204th St. Bryant Park is great. So is the subway, in general.
My suggestion is: West 181st St. in Manhattan, from the Hudson River to the Harlem River.
Can an elevated park ever be successful no matter how well designed?
How does this bode for the High Line?
To Fred Kent: Washington Square Park
Fred, I was at your WSP Open House on Saturday and was amazed to see that of the 20-25 people in the morning group I was the only one who knew anything about the Parks Dept's plans to totally redesign WSP -- including moving the fountain to align with the arch, removing dozens of trees to widen paths, marginalize dog runs, and fence it all in.
I've read your PPS Report on WSP and I know you support the current design and consider WSP among the top 10 parks in the country. I also know from Cynthia, the group leader on Saturday, that when PPS brought the report to the Parks Dept. they slammed the door in your face.
This NPR project is a perfect opportunity to let New Yorkers know how the Parks Dept., in their quest to commercialize and privatize public parks, is trying to take the heart out of Greenwich Village and the humanity out of all public spaces in NYC.
we need trees, trees and more trees. This is a brutal city getting more and more brutal by the day. We need soft things too rest our weary eyes and assaulted spirits upon, not any more man made anything. Bryant Park as lovely landscaping and feels like Europe (Paris or Vienna) except when its meal ticket (Fashion Week) takes it away from me. (Nice change from its old nickname, needle park) The NY Public Library gives a rest being a "low" structure, so we get a little sky, and the bldgs so far are not all too tall around BP. I used to love rollerblading in Central Park but it's too crowded and when are we going to get rid of cars in the parks? People are made cuckoo there because the cars menace and crowd out their walks and runs and cycles - who ever heard of a park being a source of stress? And esp Central Park, my favorite in the whole world? And Jackie O was right, our light is being taken away. Her body was still warm in her grave when they broke ground for the TW center. (though I like the little island in Columbus circle and wonder why take away the funky Huntington Hartford (?) bldg there? Then the new monster that replaces the Mayflower - is there an end to the greed that shapes our city? is there going to be a tower above Alice Tully Hall? It was Georgia O'Keeffe who said the sky above is the best thing about any landscape. EEEEEEEEEEE it might be time for me to find another city!!!
Cadman Plaza and the area in front of the court house in downtown Brooklyn.
Chelsea Markets in Manhattan.
Shore Road park in Brooklyn.
Hello,
In winter,
when there is no foliage,
from the Prospect Park roadway median,
the Empire State building is visible beneath and
appears to bisect the Sailor's and Soldiers Arch.
Is there a significance to this juxtaposition?
Richard
The only benches in this city seem to be owned either by private businesses or the Parks Department. Other cities have benches scattered around, on regular sidewalks. Sitting down in Paris to eat a sandwich and watch people go by is such a pleasure.
Save Washington Square Park, the PEOPLES' PARK! No gentrification, only restoration.
I think Washington Square Park would be a good location to evaluate as to how it serves the community, not only the local neighborhood but visitors from surrounding boroughs as well as tourists from around the world. Also in this conversation should be an evaluation of the Parks Departments new renovation plans for the park, and as to whether their total renovation of the existing park would serve the same purpose.
union square
The Staten Island Ferry terminals at South Ferry and St George on Staten Island. Why do they need to place fish tanks in the terminal at St George? Appears to take too much space for an already crowded area during the morning and evening commutes.
Washington Square Park
I use the dog run in Washington Square Park. It's a great dog run, one of the best in the city. I heard they are planning to redesign the park and the dog run will be pushed over next to the street in a place without trees for summer shade or sun for cold winters.
And it's dangerous, too. Dogs sometimes jump over the dog-run fence. Now, when they do that, they land in the park, but if they change the location, dogs will land in the street. Dangerous for both dogs and motorists.
What do you think of the dog run in Washington Square Park?
Washington Square Park, to many of us, is a brilliant example of a public space that truly works for the people who use it. It exemplifies Jane Jacobs' idea of a space that nurtures spontaneous community.
Since it is about to be redesigned by the Parks Dept., your examination of it now, and as the PARKS DEPT wants it to be, would be instructive as to what successful public space should be providing to the those who use it.
Washington Square Park. The most effective public gathering space in the city, and probably the country, is scheduled to be radically transformed and turned into a construction zone for at least three years.This plan has no support in our community, yet the city is still trying to bulldoze through public will. PLEASE TALK ABOUT THIS!
The fate of Washington Square Park, as it currently exists, is in its 11th hour.
Any day now, an appellate judge will rule on an environmental lawsuit heard last June. If the decision is not in the community’s favor the Parks Dept. will begin to cut down dozens of old trees and roll in the bulldozers to dismantle the fountain the following week.
Fred, you have long experience with parks across the country. What have other communities done in the 11th hour to stop their cities from destroying a much loved public space against their will?
We’ve been fighting Parks since they first presented their plan to the community in February, 2005. We’ve had rallies and raffles; attended and spoke up at all relevant Community Board, City Council, Landmarks, and Art Commission hearings. We wrote a slew of letters, notified the media at each new turn, amassed 1000’s of signatures on petitions, garnered support from most of our elected officials, and filed FOILs and several lawsuits – some of which we won, only to be overturned on appeal.
So far, our efforts have succeeded in stalling the project. Now, we need to stop it.
What would you advise?
Susan Goren
Edy Selman
Gloria Sylvestro
Members of the Steering Committee of
ECO – Emergency Coalition Organization
To Save Washington Square Park
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