Quite Frankly Maam I Just Dont Give a Damn Wall Art
Arlene Harrison is the Mayor and Enforcer of Gramercy Park, so it stands to reason that anyone who has beefiness with the garden's raft of strict rules — including that non-keyholders shall not enter — take it up with her. Following a NY1 story on Harrison, the Village Voice had some quibbles with those rules, and though Harrison didn't respond in time to comment on our original post, she was more than happy to chat for a follow-up.
Harrison is very nice. She spent 33 years as a teacher setting upwardly programs for children in the city's psychiatric hospitals, and only stopped when a traumatic head injury forced her to retire from the profession in 1997. Ensuring that operations in the park and its environs run smoothly is now her full-time chore, and she spoke with the Voice about what, exactly, that means to her.
Gramercy Park has a reputation for being excessively sectional and exclusionary. Do you agree with that assessment?
The problem with the piece on telly — I got a lot of reviews that I look beautiful. But I didn't desire that. I was told most the interview a month ago. What I did is I really, really prepared because my whole job now is setting up the future of the park and the residential neighborhood around information technology. I'm the steward of [Samuel] Ruggles' legacy, this gift that he gave usa. I immersed myself in the history, merely so that I could requite a very focused view of the work we exercise here.
[NY1 Reporter Michael Scotto] followed me around for two days. I knew it was going to be two minutes and then I wasn't nether any illusion, but I didn't desire it to exist about some blonde girl walking effectually with a clipboard. Nosotros do 10 charity events every single year. He didn't have one of our projects. Not one! All he did was testify the park and me walking effectually.
I wonder if the involvement of the story was reinforcing the idea that the park is kind of snotty, and that the public isn't immune inside of it?
Here's the deal. This guy Ruggles, in 1831, set bated ii acres of his private property to gear up this green infinite. This was the first thought of zoning, which didn't brainstorm until 1926, that was approved by the Supreme Courtroom. So what happened with the Industrial Revolution is in that location was an increment in traffic and racket and pollution, and the commercial, the industrial and the residential had no separate areas at all. This is the guy who did the first separation. He took his own private property, which he purchased, and he set an open dark-green infinite. Simply he didn't just put a dark-green infinite in the heart of the Southward Bronx. He fix lots that environment the green infinite, and he said that…land around the park shall remain residential.
The courts through the years have backed that thought that the customs surrounding this acreage would pay an cess that would pay for the operations, preservation and maintenance of the park. The people, the lot owners, who surround the park, those buildings pay an assessment. The trustees work with the block association to manage that slice of property. The people and the lot owners elect the trustees.
By the way, the fence surrounding the park is not to go along people out. It would have been a wall. We would take put shrubbery that would go along people out. He put a contend only in 1844, to protect the plantings. And we have kept up that idea, to make the park visibly accessible. That's a term that the Japanese accept, called 'borrowed landscape.' That means if yous accept a house out in Colorado, and you accept a view of mountains, fifty-fifty though you don't ain the mountains, that's borrowing from God or from nature or any. And that park, we have made certain that people from all over enjoy it. I always give the analogy, if I get to Florida, I want to meet the ocean. I would never become in the ocean, only I don't want to wait at the parking lot. It visually enhances your life.
I would argue that generally people are complimentary to go walk in the mountains or swim in the ocean.
Well that'southward what makes this different. He prepare this up equally a front yard, which is private holding, for the lot owner buildings that are residential surrounding the park. They don't really own information technology, but they pay for its maintenance and preservation. I've lived in New York all my life — I've gone into Central Park perchance once. But every time I go by I'thousand very happy to expect on this green plot of land. I don't have to get in it, yous know? It is people's private holding, it is a front yard, it's the simply ane similar information technology in the world, quite frankly.
Only allow me tell yous, effectually the rim of that park is a place to sit all around. Nosotros plant shrubbery all the time, and we brand sure that information technology'due south visibly attainable to people, and so they can look in. We could have put shrubbery and then y'all couldn't see a damn affair. Nosotros purposefully didn't wall it off. Hundreds of people sit in that location. And they come across it, and they relish it, and they honey it. And they don't have to go in it. Simply they tin can run across it also every bit you can see information technology from inside.
To your analogy about the ocean, y'all said yous don't want to go in, but a lot of people practise. So what would be the harm in opening it for, say, an hour a week?
Nosotros open the park Christmas Eve, nosotros have thousands of people come up for that. I do a fall upshot, merely I purposefully don't do a Halloween thing because it attracts all these crazies. I don't want a bunch of crazies with scary costumes scaring the little ones.
I do open the park from time to time. We do invite people. We have a Menorah lighting.
So how many times per year is it open to the public?
Nosotros're saying officially, that park is open Christmas Eve from 6 to vii p.thou. It's the lot owners' individual property, so when information technology's something that is a tradition for many many years, we honor that tradition.
Patently the park is famous for having a lot of rules, and you lot're there most days. What is the most egregious dominion-breaking you lot've seen?
People jumping over the fence in the middle of the night.
How oft does that happen?
I tin can't say how ofttimes, but it used to happen in the summertime when these younger kids were home from college, or effectually. There has been vandalism.
People who have weekend houses, or people who have any house that is private property — this is private property. The lot owners make the rules. I'm just sort of the enforcer of the rules.
As the person who peradventure cares more about the park than anyone else, what makes it different from the other open spaces in the city?
It's an ornamental park. It'southward not made for recreation. It's just for tranquility relaxation, meditation, read a book, get a loving cup of coffee, sit out at that place. And it does something for the soul and for your spirit. We've had hundreds of very well known people, and they say that it'southward such a special surroundings that it makes people feel spiritual and want to do practiced.
Very few people who alive hither, by the way, actually purchase keys. Just 236 people have personal keys, considering wouldn't you much rather look at a garden when you lot go out your apartment than look at highrises? It does something for how you experience.
You lot mentioned coffee — I thought no food or drinks were allowed?
No alcohol. Quiet pursuits. People love to walk. The children love to merely play quietly, and they brand lifetime friends instead of being on a swing that goes back and forth. They interact with each other. Their friends get permanent friends. They course relationships like we did in the erstwhile days when we played on the cake. That makes it quite special.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Source: https://www.villagevoice.com/2016/10/12/they-can-look-in-an-interview-with-the-warden-of-gramercy-park/
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