Fashion Week began in Lincoln Center’s Damrosch Park today, and Upper West Siders were divided as usual on whether it is a boon for the area, or a boondoggle that sells off public space to the highest bidder.
Friends of Damrosch Park held a protest to the start the day, arguing that the city has effectively turned a public park into a private space, cutting down trees and roping off the area to accommodate Fashion Week, the Big Apple Circus and other private events.
“Fifty-seven trees were destroyed, the famous Dan Kiley Gardens and their azaleas were torn out. So now we have a rubble that’s like the Berlin rubble,” Cleo Dana of Friends of Damrosch Park told WCBS this morning.
“The park has been seized for almost 10 months per year … it’s not even a public park by name anymore,” Geoffrey Croft told the Daily News.
See the before and after photos of the trees in this post.
The city owns the park but has entered into a 10-year agreement allowing Lincoln Center to make contracts with concessionaires. The mayor’s office says the events bring millions of dollars into the city.
“The unfortunate occupation of Damrosch Park by the Lincoln Center concessionaires since July 2010 has resulted in the virtual exclusion of the public from the park during much of the year, as well as the actual destruction of most of the landmark features of the park,” Community Board 7 noted in a resolution last year.
Opponents plan to sue the city, the Daily News says.
Photo of fashion week show by Cheryl Wischhoven. Fashion Week entrance photo by Avi.
Puritans screaming at Dyonisians. How amusing. Both need therapy, desperately.
I have mixed feelings here about park use, but all things considered, I come down on the side of Lincoln Center getting all the revenues it can. There is plenty of lightly used space just on the other side of the Met, near the reflecting pool, for use as an urban park. Also the wonderful new lawn on top of the fancy restaurant, open six months a year. Lincoln Center needs all the funding it can get to keep being the world class cultural center that it is.
i too have kmixed felings, because damrosch park was never as inviting a place to go as the newly reclaimed space by the reflecting pool is (now).
however the park is on the south side and if renovated might become the most alluring part of lincoln centre altogether. it is easy to imagine sloping lawns, cafés, pools and other attractive elements which would be probably eagerly used by fordham students as well.
further, the economic argument (‘the event brings in so much business’) is meaningless becasue it will do that no matter where located.
‘puritans screaming at dionysians’: i am a little of both, and that is a problem forme. spot on, however.
The “park” was never inviting. It was primarily concrete. Lincoln Center needs the funding, and provides a tremendous amount of cultural activities for the community. I wonder if the members of Friends of Damrosch Park ever spent much time there in the past. The “park” is normally available to the public in the summer, and there are plenty of bushes there. Movable potted bushes and flower pots can be quite satisfying too.
Indeed “sue baby sue” should be the new motto of NY City.