Who are these people and what do they call themselves? (names in (x) are
hyperlinks to e-mail)
From NYC's Internet site (only the hypertext markup language has been removed
to protect the xtml in development):
BUILDING THE PAST INTO THE FUTURE IN CITY HALL PARK
With 28,020 acres of parkland in our purview, the capital work of
Parks & Recreation is felt in every borough. But no project is as close to
the heart of New York as the reconstruction of City Hall Park. Regarded as
part of Mayor Rudolph (Eagle) Giuliani's legacy, City Hall Park will be a
park of history, a reclamation of heritage captured in the ambitious design
of Landscape Architect George (Spartan) Vellonakis.
Legally established as a park in 1871, City Hall Park has perhaps the
greatest symbolic significance to this municipality of any of our properties.
Though it was originally a commons in the 1600's, today it is the outer
grounds of a seat of considerable power, but has not received
significant attention in over sixty years. In fact, since City Hall was built
in 1812, many comprehensive plans for the park have been proposed but never
fully implemented, creating a confused space with unrealized potential. The
new park, a composite of the 1870 design by Pilat and Kellogg and a Moses-era
plan, will restore to City Hall Park the prestige it demands, finally
realizing the 19th century elegance, grandeur and historical significance of
the park as it becomes a worthy setting for City Hall. "There's no park in
the city that has had this intensive treatment and attention to detail," said
Commissioner Henry (StarQuest) Stern. "It's a real effort to re-create a
landmark." Within the park, landmarks old and new abound. Nathan Hale's
statue, replete with the motto "I only regret that I have but one life to
lose for my country," will be moved closer to its original site in front of
City Hall, and newspaper publisher and political activist Horace Greeley's
statue will get a little greener, with new plantings all around.
"Footprints," outlines of past buildings marked in the paving by alternating
the texture of the stones, will trace the outlines of old buildings that once
stood in the park, such as the Windmill, Croton Fountain (the first fountain
in New York) and Post Office. A replica of the 1820's perimeter fence,
complete with its cylindrical steel posts topped by finials, will enclose the
park. The original fence, designed by McComb - one of the architects of City
Hall itself - was removed in 1865 to accommodate a Post Office and now guards
a cemetery in upstate Bloomingburg, New York.
Like City Hall Park's history, in its newest design its centerpiece has been
reclaimed. The Jacob Wrey Mould Fountain, originally designed in 1871, was
moved to Crotona Park in the Bronx in 1920. It bears the name of one of the
architects most famously associated with Parks; together with Frederick Law
Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, Mould designed some of the best known structures in
Central Park, of which Bethesda Terrace most prominently survives. Like much
of Mould's work, its design is imaginative and colorful, with gray, green,
and dark pink granite and marble detailing. A new pathway will lead
from the fountain, creating a majestic approach to City Hall. Perhaps most
impressive is the completion schedule. This most ambitious and complex of
projects is to be finished in November of this year, 12 months after it was
begun. Parks' man in City Hall, Deputy Mayor Rudy (Cobra) Washington, is
personally speeding the work along. "I want to have all this done before the
millennium" he said. A fitting priority for this prominent park, a showpiece
in the near future, and new repository of New York City's heritage for all
time.
QUOTATION OF THE DAY "A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of
explanation."
Saki, a.k.a. Hector Hugh Munro (1870-1916), Scottish Author, The Square Egg
End of quote
Remind any one of Norbert Wiener and the "Cobra and the Mongoose"? They
should mention McComb built lighthouses first, including the Montauk Light,
commissioned by President George Washington.
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