Updated
Washington Square Park Blog exclusively publishes License Agreement between the City of New York and Private Washington Square Park Conservancy
Washington Square Park Blog obtained the previously private License Agreement between NYC and this private group and I am sharing it with you, readers of Washington Square Park Blog.
Stay tuned for more on this private entity, Washington Square Park Conservancy, being handed a license agreement with the NYC Parks Department after the local Community Board 2 passed a resolution against doing exactly this based on input from the public and then they just… forgot.
This ‘agreement’ should have come under some scrutiny, a public hearing, vote, a discussion of what the License Agreement ‘agrees’ to but none of that transpired. (The Community Board had held a hearing on this private organization’s “formation” alone.)
Information about the ‘agreement’ was just revealed at the CB2 Parks Committee meeting in June although the License Agreement had been put into place ‘earlier’ this year and announced months later. (What?)
The City’s other private park conservancies – all come with issues at the larger parks – were put into place 40-50 years ago at a much different time.
Washington Square Park has managed quite fine, not perfect, of course, but very well under the city’s Parks Department.
The idea that now after all this time it’s decided a private Conservancy is needed is truly suspect. It’s about money, it’s social capital, it’s backroom deals, all that is antithetical to what Washington Square Park has been and is about.
If people care about this issue and this park and recognize what it means …
Read more of the history at this blog here:
Everything about WSP Private Conservancy here.
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Photos: Cathryn