Radical Redesign
of
Talking Points or Letter to the Villager
By Jonathan Greenberg
Re “Anti-Matters,” Scoopy’s Notebook, March 23):
While I appreciate your mention of my appearance at the City
Council Parks Committee to speak against the unfunded radical redesign plan and
unnecessary closure of much of
I’m afraid this term comes from the headline that the Villager attached to a
Talking Points Op Ed that I wrote on January 26. I had titled it,
“
I have worked as a professional investigative journalist
(for magazines like Forbes and
Our preferred term for what the Villager subjectively prefers to call the “Quick Fix” plan is the “Rejuvenate, Don’t Excavate” plan. This alternative scenario, which our Coalition for An Open Washington Square Park is advocating, is actually the responsible and responsive plan for our beloved park. It uses the $6.8 million already available to address the park’s actual problems (repaving, bathroom renovation, dog run drainage), while also budgeting the repair of the fountain and expansion of two additional playground areas. All without requiring any significant closing of any area of the park. All without reliance on private funding or delays because of underfunded initiatives.
In sharp contrast, the Parks Department plan is to spend $16 million, far less than half of it on hand, to shove down our community’s throat a radical redesign that was developed in secret. It contains an unwanted fence, destroys the unique sunken plaza that is the heart of our unique Town Square, unnecessarily moves the dog runs to less hospitable areas, and creates a permanent reliance on private funding (i.e.: NYU) by squandering millions of dollars excavating and transforming the layout of our park, to “improve site lines.”
Ironically, this is the very park in which a hideous fence was put around our beautiful arch for ten years for an underfunded renovation that could have been completed in two years if the funds were there. Nobody can answer how long it might take to complete the financing of this radical plan, or what happens to the construction zone that our park is slated to become in the interim, or even what control strings over our public space the park’s private funders might insist on.
It is the height of irresponsibility and irresponsiveness for elected and appointed city officials, as well as our wonderful community paper, to support the ground-breaking of this huge project without the money to do it.
It is equally irresponsible to suggest that this plan has the support of our community. The more that we villagers learn of this, the angrier we will become about this misguided, radical redesign of our precious park.
The only “Quick Fix” that I see happening here is the fix to bulldoze through this plan, despite community resistance, that the Mayor and Parks Commissioners are forcing upon us.
Jonathan Greenberg is Coordinator of the Coalition for an