The Library Branch The Parks Library Room 240, The Arsenal, Central Park 64th Street & Fifth Avenue Number 7 March 2002 MARCH LIBRARY EVENTS Discussing Public Space
March 13: Free Screening of William Whyte’s The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces Whyte’s 1979 Film looks at several urban spaces and seeks to discover what elements the successful ones have in common. His humorously simple conclusion is that public spaces are best when they are designed with the needs of people in mind. Nonetheless, in the era of fortress architecture, this hour- long film was pioneering and changed the way planners thought about public space.
March 20: The Design of public open spaces in Barcelona Professor and Landscape Architect Signe Nielsen will discuss how several public spaces in Barcelona demonstrate how to use contemporary design in a richly historical context. Nielsen will illustrate how the collaborative process among landscape architects, planners, and artists made Barcelona’s recent projects particularly successful.
In addition to being an Adjunct Full Professor at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, Nielsen is a founding partner of the firm Mathews Nielsen Landscape Architects PC. The restoration of Duane Park and the renovation of Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village stand out among her recent work in New York City. Her future projects include: the Tuscan Garden at the Staten Island Botanical Garden and the Brooklyn Children’s Museum.
The events begin at 5:30 p.m. Space is limited; please RSVP by calling 212-360-8240 or email [email protected]
THIS MONTH IN PARKS Now in its second month, this column highlights notable events in Parks history that occurred any number of years ago during the current month. 1733 March 12: Bowling Green was designated as New York City’s first park, after being offered for rent at the cost of one peppercorn per year. Lessees John Chambers, Peter Bayard, and Peter Jay were responsible for improving the site with grass, trees, and a wood fence “for the Beauty & Ornament of the Said Street as well as for the Recreation & delight of the Inhabitants of this City.” 1848 March 1: Augustus Saint-Gaudens, the preeminent sculptor of the Gilded Age of American art was born in Dublin, Ireland. Shortly thereafter, his family immigrated to Boston and eventually settled in New York. Saint-Gaudens received his education at Cooper Union, the National Academy of Design, and the École des Beaux Arts. He returned to New York in 1875 where he received commissions for many prominent works including, the Admiral Farragut Monument (1880) in Madison Square Park, General William Tecumseh Sherman in Grand Army Plaza (1892-1903), and the Peter Cooper Monument (1894) in Cooper Square. 1858 March 31: the deadline for submissions to the design competition for Central Park. Fredrick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux handed in their winning Greensward Plan on this last day. The simple genius of their design, which included placing the transverse roads below grade, makes Central Park just as much a wonder now as it was at the time of its creation. 1900 March 24: excavation for the City’s subway system began in City Hall Park. Four years later, Mayor George B. McClellan personally operated the ceremonial first train, which carried a group of New York notables and reporters all the way to the end of the line at 145th Street and Broadway.
Michael R. Bloomberg, Mayor Adrian Benepe, Commissioner
www.nyc.gov/parks BOOKS OF THE MONTH
Landscape Design: A Cultural and Architectural History By Elizabeth Barlow Rogers "Examining famous and lesser-known sites, some now vanished, this comprehensive survey leads the reader from ancient Egyptian royal cemeteries to the magnificent gardens of Renaissance and Baroque Europe, and from great 18th-century English estates and American public gardens to the earthworks and other landscape projects of today.” —New York Times
The Lost Art of Drawing the Line: How Fairness Went Too Far By Philip K. Howard “A stunning catalogue of how the rules we live under, intended for the common good…work palpable harm. With damning lucidity, [Howard] shows the contamination of the legal system. When reason and ethics are systematically flouted, it is not enough to say that social decay is at hand: it has begun; it is installed.” —Professor Jacques Barzun, author of From Dawn to Decadence
Water For Gotham: A History By Gerrard T. Koeppel “Mr. Koeppel has made … an engaging tale of material that could easily have become leaden. His prose is unfalteringly elegant, his eye for enlivening detail is keen, and his thorough research has been splendidly assembled. This is most certainly not just a book for New Yorkers.” —Philip Ball, The New York Observer
Unearthing Gotham: The Archaeology of New York City By Anne-Marie Cantwell and Diana diZerega Wall “A tour de force. Cantwell and Wall offer the reader just the right combination of the mystery of archaeological discovery, insightful cultural explanations, and a holistic view of the past. Anyone with an interest in archaeology, history, anthropology, or a truly unique view of the development of the greatest city in North America will want to own this book.” —Robert L. Schuyler, University of Pennsylvania
The Alienist By Caleb Carr “Tension builds as the detectives race to prevent more deaths. From this improbable brew, historian-novelist Carr (The Devil Soldier, 1991) has fashioned a knockout period mystery, infused with intelligence, vitality, and humor. This novel is a highly unorthodox variant of the Holmes-Watson theme and the best since Julian Symons's delightful A Three-Pipe Solution. It should entice new fans to the genre.” —The Library Journal
FREE LECTURE BY ELIZABETH BARLOW ROGERS March 6: The Riverside Park Fund will be sponsoring a lecture by Elizabeth Barlow Rogers entitled Landscape Design: a cultural and architectural history. The lecture will revolve around the vast wealth of materials she collected for her new book. The event will be held at the Interchurch Center at 475 Riverside Drive (enter at Claremont and West 120th Street) on Wednesday March 6, at 7 p.m. Please call 212-870-3070 to reserve a seat.
ABOUT THE LIBRARY The Parks Library is open to the public Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. If you have any questions or know someone who would also like to receive the Library Branch, please call 212-360-8240 or e-mail us at [email protected].
Michael R. Bloomberg, Mayor Adrian Benepe, Commissioner
www.nyc.gov/parks