Walking Tour: Washington Sq Park Past, Present, and Future: A Guide to New York City's Redesign of a Perfect Public Space * Sunday, July 27th, 12 noon

Washington Sq Pk under construction
Washington Sq Pk under construction

Mark your calendars and come out for the second Walking Tour if you missed the first!

Walking Tour: Washington Square Park Past, Present, and Future: A Guide to New York City’s Redesign of a Perfect Public Space * Sunday, July 27th, 12 noon.

Meet up at Washington Square Arch, Fifth Avenue and Washington Square North
* $5 * (Raindate: Sunday, August 3rd)
TRAINS: A,B,C,D,E,F to West 4th Street/Washington Square

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Washington Square Park Blog and Washington Square Community Improvement District(CID) present this unique walking tour of Washington Square Park.

Washington Square Park Blog will offer a guide to the redesign of Washington Square Park combined with history of this wonderful Park.

Some background on the redesign of Washington Square Park :

The pretext: They say they want to align the fountain with the Arch.

In the 1890s, noted architect Stanford White purposefully kept the two unaligned, and that way has worked just fine – thank you very much – for over a century. About this magnificent fountain, Jane Jacobs writes: “In effect, this [fountain] is a circular arena, a theater in the round, and that is how it is used, with complete confusion as to who are spectators and who are the show.”

The reality: They are cutting away public space to control public gatherings and un-permitted performances.

The City is:

• Digging up 18th Century and 19th Century burial grounds

• Ruining the historic nature of the park with much reduction in public space

• Chainsawing 40 to 80-year-old trees (14 cut down thus far. Plans allow for more to be felled.)

• Fencing in the Park

• Removing the famed chess tables (and rebuilding SOME of them)

• Dismantling the large circular Fountain, which also serves as public rallying venue, rebuilding it in a much smaller version eight yards away with vast reduction of the ad-hoc seating

* Renaming the fountain (a plaque on each side) for the billionaire Tisch Family media tycoons … after the Tisch family contributed $2.5 million to the Mayor’s Fund.

• Adding lawn space — more “picture perfect” for NYU’s graduation ceremonies.

• Narrowing the public walkways

* Spending $25-30 Million on this unwanted redesign (the original budget was an already high $16 million; it has now skyrocketed past that).

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Hope to see you — !

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3 thoughts on “Walking Tour: Washington Sq Park Past, Present, and Future: A Guide to New York City's Redesign of a Perfect Public Space * Sunday, July 27th, 12 noon”

  1. sickening, but not unexpected. Welcome to McHattan! Land of the dead, land of the survivors, and all the developers for whom the Biblical verse: “The love of money is the root of all evil” fully applies.

    Reply
  2. Hi Ken,

    Thanks for stopping by! I just went to your site and saw the photo of the Voice billboard “welcome to McHattan” – never heard that expression before you wrote it above.

    What’s happening at Washington Square Park just reflects back what’s happening across the city.

    I appreciate your documentation of it all.

    Take care-

    Cathryn
    WSP Blog

    Reply

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