Park construction

The new phase of the Washington Square Park unnecessary (but are all the lawsuits and all the reporting in the Villager really necessary either?) makeover means the playground is wrapped in fencing and then wrapped again in mesh. For some reason it's really disorienting to be inside, the whole place looks different.



But there is something nice about the view of Judson Church through the mesh.




And it's really nice when you put your face right up to it. Mesh-fence moire.


Meanwhile, over on Lafayette there's a new pocket park being built, with lots and lots of chain link and orange caution fencing.

There's something about the construction zone and the green space being one and the same that's sort of nice. And all being overseen by the enormous woman in the left corner.

Good Fences

I just wanted to give a shout out to the Parks Department for the loving care they give to mending their fences.


Look at how many kinds of fence there are in one 3-foot stretch. Wrought iron, chain link and those wooden slats that arrive in big rolls on the back of Parks Department trucks. I can't decide if this is one complex fix or several attempts to correct the problem.


This one is hard to spot, but it's the most exquisite fence-mending. Two thin, hand-twisted wires spanning the gap horizontally.

Rescue Mission in Park Slope!

On Saturday while walking across the park to the bank I suddenly saw this on Garfield Place:


All this clean white styrofoam in the trash! I know the city picks up Christmas trees, but it doesn’t recycle styrofoam. I am actually quite self-conscious about trash picking, but this was too much to let go. Also, way too much to carry in my hands.


So after depositing my checks, I had to do a quick calculation: would buying plastic garbage bags just to carry styrofoam home offset the good done by rescuing it?

But of course, I’m not really saving the planet, I’m saving styrofoam! So I bought recycled plastic bags, but art was always going to win this battle anyway. I would have bought bottled water if that was going to help me get this sweet styrene into my studio!

On the way back to the site, I was so excited my heart was pounding. I was sure someone else would beat me to it, and that my styrofoam would be gone.

Not only was it still there, it seemed to have spawned.


Walking across the park was also a nice little performance piece**. Everyone stared at me, one woman stopped me to ask what it was -- it’s funny that carrying styrofoam turns out to be more provocative than crawling around a subway grate in knee pads.


**Interaction is my preferred word for this kind of piece, actually.