Good morning It's Monday. Today we will look at the transformation of the northernmost part of Central Park.
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Last month, the 160 million dollar -Davis -Center in the Harlem Meerner opened -a new swimming pool, an ice rink and the community hub on six Remade Acres at the northern end of Central Park. Michael Kimmelman, the architectural critic of the Times, says that it is a significant change for the park, a barometer for the postponement of New York. I asked him to explain it.
You have described this huge project as the “act of bourgeois reparation”. How come?
It is in Harlem at the northern end of the park, which was very Abnerveit and criminal in the later decades of the last century. Therefore, Davis represents the last step in a long -term effort to restore dignity, beauty and order in this area.
And it is also an attempt to restore something from Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux 'original vision from the middle of the 19th century, which presented the northern park as a Bukolian retreat. Davis doesn't quite do that. Times are changing. The park now has to meet many purposes.
However, there is a way to return part of the pastoral ambition of the original plan and also meet the needs of a population that depends on having a pool and an ice rink. It is a great example of how landscape architecture has to adapt and reflect a changing city and society, which is why it is also connected to Harlem. These are all inseparable problems when talking about critical public spaces like Central Park in a city like New York.
You are looking for a decisive year in 1989. Why?
In mid -April of this year, on the same night in which a black woman was raped and thrown in Brooklyn by a roof, a woman who jogged near the sea was raped and brutally beaten. Five black and Latin American teenagers were arrested, convicted and imprisoned for crime that they had not committed.
The northern part of the park became a synonym for the racist unrest in the city. This year was a Nadir. After that, the attempts to turn this part of the park, clean the sea, repeat playgrounds and integrate them into the original landscape.
The last step that has just been completed was to replace the Lasker pool, a Hulking pool that was able to convert into an ice rink with Davis in winter that not only comprises a new pool and a pavilion, but also a reform scaping of several morning. The pavilion is hidden into a hill, so that it feels much less like an urban penetration than Lasker, rather part of nature.
They spoke to Yusef Salaam, one of the teenagers who were condemned in the 1989 attack. He is now a member of the city council and represents the district that includes the northern end of the park. What did he say about how Davis differs from what was there in the past?
Salaam pointed out that changes are often considered gentridy – the word he used was “excluding”. But he suggested that something new and good like Davis comes, people should “get the kindness, because if they give themselves the opportunity to take part in something good, give themselves permission to live a full life – to find a way forward.”
I think that's what a project like Davis means in a bigger sense. It is an opportunity for people who use it and for all New York to see a way forward.
That was certainly not what LASKEN was. Lasker was not maintained.
There were many things that caused the park's decline, and everyone worked together as it happened when cities are in free fall.
With the financial crisis of the 1970s, this northern part of the park was practically abandoned by the city. As a result, it also became a center of crime.
It is easy to ruin things quickly. It takes forever to repair them. These efforts have taken more than one generation.
How different is it from what Olmsted and Vaux originally had in mind for this part of the park?
Their idea was that this area would be a complex landscape of meandering paths, hills, forests and waterways – a diverse and apparently natural creation, although everything is built and designed in Central Park.
Many people don't notice that now. They believe that the park or Bukolian parts of it like the northern end with its lake and its forest are the remains of untouched Mannahatta from pre -colonial days. But each of these streams, forests and meadows and lakes was created. It was part of a democratic vision of Olmsted and Vaux to make it appear naturalistic. Central Park was a retreat from the difficulties of the urban network. It was a place for everyone.
And they planned the northern end of the park as rustic.
Right. They designed it for the Harlem Sea, which was connected to a hole and a gorge that they constructed through the north forest, which they planted. All of this was a sequence of nature that sewed the adirondacks or a rural section of the Hudson Valley.
But when the city grew, the pressure on the park increased to serve more people and purposes. And when Robert Moses became the head of the parking department in the 1930s, the push was added to add leisure rooms, so that the pastoral idea was replaced by a variety of playgrounds, ball fields and hardscaping. The lake was surrounded by a specific border. This end of the park became increasingly urban.
The highlight in the 1960s was the Lasker pool building, a giant that was stowed in the gorge and had connected the waterway. It was very popular in the neighborhood because children could go there and cool down or learned to skate in winter. But Lasker was not well built. It runs.
The result was that it was always a place that was repaired, run down and poorly maintained. It was important for the community in Harlem, but not really worthy and forbidden, which was made cheap and sent a message about how the city feels about the people who are dependent on it. Davis is an attempt to send an opposite message.
Can the city of Davis maintain?
Architectural works are always subject to the moods of fate and politics. We will see how the economic situation for the city will be in the coming years. Lasker was not built in the 1960s to anticipate the almost 1970s.
This means that it makes a difference when something is well done and people who use it are respected and dignified by the association. These places are more well -kept. It is not a guarantee. But investing the type of money and care that went in Davis often leads to citizenship and property.
This is an important message today when the city needs signs of progress and hope. And for the soul of New York there is no more central place than Central Park.
Weather
Expect a rainy Monday with the possibility of a thunderstorm and a high temperature by 64 years. The rain continues this evening when the low is about 58.
Alternatives parking
Indeed until May 26 (Memorial Day).
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