Gawker
The fourth lawsuit against the Parks Department's plan to DESTROY THE CHARACTER of Washington Square Park was thrown out of court yesterday, so bring on the bulldozers. The city will move the fountain over 23 feet to line it up with the arch, because that's been bugging them for 130 years now. Thankfully community activists saved the weird concrete mounds.
NYU—administration there is terribly excited about the project, BTW, and also coincidentally they own everything surrounding the park—will hold its commencement at a baseball stadium during the renovation and undercover cops posing as drug dealers will be relocated to Tompkins Square.
The renovation "could begin as soon as the end of this month and is projected to last two or three years," according to NYU's Washington Square News. We're pretty sure the reason neighborhood activists lost is because they have the ugliest website we have ever seen.
No word yet on how the renovation will affect the "creepy" southwestern corner of the park that NYU students are afraid to walk through and where a woman was found dead yesterday.
(We'll see you at the tree-lighting tonight!)
Preserve Washington Square Park
Wash. Sq. Park Renovations OK'd [WSN]
Body Found In Washington Square Park [NYDN]
Comments
This whole Parks Department's out of order!
Huh. That's been bugging me for 30 years.
Can't anyone do anything anywhere without some group of malcontents starting an ugly website and engaging in self-righteous protest?
Ugly websites are the new pretty websites.
Times Square has been bugging me for years. Can we move that over a few miles. Perhaps into New Jersey? That would be great.
Thanks god they saved the weird mounds. I am sure the rat colonies living under them are appreciative.
About motherfucking time. WSP is a rat-infested eyesore and those mounds - OMG. They were built in the 70's!!!! Some bums have been living there longer than those mounds! Make it pretty and clean. Downtown deserves it.
Oh, my mom must have designed that website back when she first started using a computer.
They're not replacing the passive aggressive entrepreneurs whispering "Smoke? Chocolate Thai?" to passersby, are they? Is nothing sacred?
As long as I can still score my weed there, they can do whatever they want to the place.
Wow I thought you were exaggerating but that really IS the ugliest web site ever.
To be fair, she was found right before she died.
Also, ugly as WSP may seem, it's one of the most effective public spaces in the city. The reason it's always teeming with people is because they want to be there.
Aren't there a bunch of bodies still buried under there? I mean, literally.
That poor woman, and right by the chess tables. It's just like I always say, "If your opponent opens with the Latvian Gambit, then uses Petrov's defense, he's probably a homicidal maniac."
Definitely a CUNY web design. How many will the NYU dorm in the fountain hold?
@Conbon: Love you!
@gingham: It's teeming with people because NYU lacks an actual campus, and the park is the closest thing to it. So when you factor in the college kids, the drug dealers who are there to serve them, the other people who show up because the drug dealers are there, the pervs who hang out there to ogle/pick up the college kids, and the tourists who want to see all of this, viola, you have a park teeming with people. Thanks NYU!
so.... Lock is coming back?
@gingham: yes. filled with people, but for the wrong reasons. in its current state, a wart on the village. this renovation is overdue.
@eastvillageidiot: Exactly. If they move the chess playing area, I won't know where to score.
@Atelier: I'm not an NYU student or a tourist. But, getting a little weed and looking at co-eds, I have no problem with. And it's fun to watch the freaks when they gather to hoolahoop, too.
@Atelier: agreed. it's a gloried parking lot of wanton rich kids from nyu and the dealers they keep in business.
Not to worry.
In another 130 years, the great-grandchildren of all the "settling" hipsters here will vote to move the fountain BACK to its original spot in order to get some of that retro-retro-retro-retro-retro vibe that'll be the rage at that time. And also to deflect the fallout over the High Line's rusted decline into the risen sea level due to greenhouse effect on the West Side of Manhattan.
If cyrogenics and nanotechnology are worth their salt, we could be around to bash that occasion, too!
By the way, if you dig deeper, they explain why the site is so ugly:
Why is the site in these colors?
Blue for the sky above the park
Green for the trees and grass
Orange for the leaves of fall
Gray for the endangered public paved areas
Red for the state of emergency
Someone's been smokin a little too much of that whacky tabacky they scored in the park.
@eastvillageidiot: It just hit me: "Gray for the endangered public paved areas."
YES! SAVE THE CONCRETE! GRASS IS THE ENEMY!
While they're at it, I always thought Central Park should be moved about 2 blocks north.
@Atelier:
Actually, the park has one of the highest user ("user" hahahahaha) satisfaction rates in the country. People like it just fine, and there's no reason for them to do what they are doing with the fountain. Some handicapped accessibility and fewer haven for rats? Fine. But the money spent on moving the goddamn fountain (and renaming it "Tisch Fountain" could, like, feed the hungry for a hundred years.
This is Robert Moses masquerading as Franklin Law Olmsted. It's crap.
how will this affect NYU students' ability to buy bad pot there?
Why not move the arch to be in line with the fountain?
@NotAndersonCooper:
And move Fifth Ave to be in line with the arch?
I spent many a sleepless high school night in WSP, no where to go but welcome in the park, all the freaks having a good time 'til the sun came up. Curfew in 1986 killed the vibe, turned the whole area firmly over to NYU.
I'd hate to see the park gone, but if they simply bulldoze it I can properly mourn.
By pure chance, my first foray into WSP was during a Smoke-In, but I got a contact paranoia, and did not take advantage of the roving weed/acid/smack whisperers. Still, I thought it a charming city festival.
One body? That's nothing, there are still 5,000 or so bodies under Washington Square. It was the pauper's and cholera burial ground for NYC for years. When they decided to turn it into a square, the dug of about 15,000 of the 20,000 buried there. AND NOW YOU KNOW.
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