Greenacre Park: Open Season on Open Space: Landslide 2017 (独家爆料)

Introduction

This small Modernist park in New York City is a rare oasis among the bustle of Midtown Manhattan.聽 Recent changes in zoning would permit construction that could vastly decrease the amount of sunlight the park receives.

Plan of Greenacre Park, New York, NY, drawing courtesy of Sasaki Associates

History

This small park鈥攐nly 60 feet wide by 120 feet deep鈥攊n Midtown Manhattan opened in 1971 and provides an oasis within the city. Designed by , with as lead designer, and with the involvement of and Tom Wirth, is known as a “vest pocket park,” a type of small-scale urban park that usually includes design elements like hard surfaces, moveable furniture, water features (often to drown out the noise of the city), and potted displays of annual plantings. Following the model of nearby (which opened in 1967 and was designed by ) and privately funded and maintained by Abby Rockefeller Mauze’s Greenacre Foundation, this small site conveys an impression of far greater size through a series of well-defined spaces, lush planting, textural variation, and the dramatic use of water.

Section of Greenacre Park, New York, NY, drawing courtesy of Sasaki Associates

In the summer, the canopy of honey locusts provides dappled shade and respite from the midafternoon sun, while in the winter months, their lack of leaves allows the park to trap in sunlight while the park’s three walls and raised entrance provide shelter to visitors from winter winds. Light, throughout the seasons, is integral to the park’s design and success.

Landslide Themes

Detrimental Effects of Shadow

Threat

The New York City Council has rezoned the Greater Midtown East area, which includes Greenacre Park, to allow for taller buildings that would double the number of hours of shadows cast over the park. This would be especially damaging to the light-sensitive honey locusts, which are otherwise very resilient in an urban environment.

Shadows cast by high-rise buildings over parks have been and continue to be a problem for New Yorkers, most notably in Central Park. Indeed, in 2013 the about the subject with the headline: “Developers are turning Central Park into Central Dark with mega-thin towers.”聽 However, the situation at Greenacre Park is more acute because it is a rare piece of parkland in a densely developed area. On average, City Council districts devote about nineteen percent of their acreage to parkland, but in the district that includes Greenacre Park, that number is only two percent.