March 9, 2007

Parks & Recreation received a green light yesterday when the Appellate Division, the state's intermediate appeals court, unanimously overturned an injunction against continuing work on renovations in Washington Square Park that had been granted last summer by Justice Emily Jane Goodman in State Supreme Court.  You can link to the court's opinion here.
 
Parks has been trying for over three years to renovate the historic park.  Its plans were approved two years ago by Community Board 2, an official group that advises city agencies.  Opponents of the renovation charged that Parks had modified the plans, and that resubmission to the Community Board was required.  They also said Parks had failed to inform other city agencies of the design with sufficient specifity..  The Corporation Counsel, who is the city's lawyer,  argued in response that Parks had made adequate disclosure, did not need to go back to the Board  for every modification of the design, and that in any event the Community Board's decisions were, under the City Charter, purely advisory.
 
The principal objections to the plan revolved about the relocation of the fountain so that it would be viewable through Washington Arch just south of Fifth Avenue.  The new fountain would have a 45-foot jet spray.  The court ruled that Parks was sufficiently forthcoming with both the Art Commission and the Landmarks Preservation Commission, the city agencies with relevant jurisdiction.
 
Without judging the merits of the plan, it appears clear to us that Parks had a right to do as it did.   The Mayor and the City Council had funded the project, and the plans had been widely displayed. Greenwich Village is a contentious community, and dozens of decent and honorable people who care deeply about the park were satisfied with the way it was and saw no need for change.  Other Villagers took the opposite point of view.  The physical condition of the park had deteriorated during the past thirty-odd years.
 
Washington Square Park has deep emotional significance to many people, dating back to the 1950's, when Villagers led by the late Shirley Hayes fought off a plan by Robert Moses to run buses through the park to West Broadway, which he wished to rename Fifth Avenue South.  That plan was defeated at a time when Moses was still a powerful figure.  The opposition had a powerful supporter in the local Democratic district leader, Carmine G. DeSapio.
 
The Villagers later succeeded in removing buses from the park entirely.  The area around the arch had been used for years as a bus turnaround, an inappropriate invasion of public parkland.  Local efforts to protect and improve the park continued in the 1960's, aided by the new Democratic district leader, Edward I. Koch.  BTW, former Mayor Koch waded into the current controversy with an article in the Villager, titled  "How's the park doin'?  Awful.  It needs renovation."  .

Twenty years later, when I was Parks Commissioner under then-Mayor Koch, who had advanced from District Leader to the City Council and then to Congress before he was elected Mayor, there was another effort to renovate the park.  A dispute arose between those who wanted the park to be improved modestly - no major changes - and those who wanted things just as they were.   My judgment was that there were many neighborhoods in the city anxious for park improvements.  Why spend tax dollars to upgrade Washington Square Park, where all you would get was an argument.
 
As a result of Greenwich Village's experiences over fifty years, with Moses' proposed Lower Manhattan Expressway, an attempted invasion for middle-income housing, the mapped but unbuilt Verrazano Street, the widening of other streets, the designation and delineation of a historic district, the future of Jefferson Market Courthouse, built from 1873 to 1877, and adjacent to the Women's House of Detention which faced Greenwich Avenue, and many other issues, the flame of controversy burned brightly in a community known as a haven for artists of all kinds.
 
The Bloomberg administration was more persistent than we were in their effort to add green space to the park and make it more attractive, in their judgment.  Commissioner Adrian Benepe chose Village architect George Vellonakis, who had designed many small parks along the Avenue of the Americas, to oversee the project.
 
In situations like this, there is often the tendency in government, regardless of the merits of the issue, to say 'why bother?'   This is not a sewage treatment plant or a waste transfer station, which can be regarded as public health necessities, even though no one wants them in their own neighborhood.   A park is an amenity which people should welcome. If some like it and others don't, one should feel free to do what one thinks is right.

There is, however, an anti-government mentality , starting with Watergate, which opposes any action by the state, whether it is right or wrong.  Almost all our Village park projects encountered opposition, sometimes from people who lived across the street, occasionally from critics of the design.   We wanted to move a World War I memorial statue in Abingdon Square Park twenty feet southwest so it would be far more visible to the public and not veiled by trees, and the naysayers generated letters from aging veterans who said it would be an insult to those who gave their lives for their  country for the statue to be moved an inch..   We persevered, the statue was moved, and now people know it is there..
 
In a simple view of government, the people are supreme. Every four years they elect the mayor, and he appoints commissioners.  The ultimate remedy for those dissatisfied with decisions by commissioners is to throw out the mayor, and elect a mayor who will appoint commissioners who are more to their liking.
 
What plagues local government today is the plethora of small groups, pressing their own particular likes and dislikes.  Local elected officials are pusillanimous in their fear of any assembly of  ten or more people who visit them to complain.  They have no problem attacking officials above them in the food chain, but they become jelly when groups of voters approach them with a demand for action.   Sometimes, these issues are Nimby (Not in my backyard)..  Other times they reach the level of Banana (Build absolutely nothing anywhere near anybody).
 
On some of these disputes, the local people are absolutely right, and they deserve credit for their protestations.  . Just because someone holds public office, he/she  is not automatically gifted with superior wisdom.  Arrogance, whether expressed or not, is too common a trait in politics.  This is not a broadsheet against public involvement, it should be welcomed with courtesy and given a fair hearing.  What is irritating, however, are the quivering local officials who take sides without regard to the merits simply because they believe it to be in their own interest not to alienate any voter. . They have a higher responsibility than pleasing any crowd that appears before them.  They should try to meet it.  Of course, he said, this does not apply to every local elected official, it's not you, buddy, it's the others.  We all know that.
 
I was surprised at the intensity of feeling on the park issue.  One fine, intelligent woman who I have known since she was a small child, said to me publicly, "You've gone over to the Dark Side".  In case you don't know, that was a Star Wars reference. I could only respond, "I am not Darth Vader."
 
I believe that if the Washington Square renovation goes ahead and the work is completed, the great majority of Villagers will be well satisfied, the fountain, like the Abingdon Square statue, will be brought into the light, there will be more grass to lie on, and the park, now about 150 years old, will be more attractive for the next thirty years, at which time the controversy will undoubtedly be renewed by our successors.


 
#358  3.09.07   1322wds