Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Goodbye, Union Square Greenmarket as we knew it
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
It has actually happened. As of Saturday, April 5, 2008 the three decades old Greenmarket on Union Square’s North Park, an institution that helped rehabilitate the drug and prostitution- ridden Union Square Park and served as model for farmer markets throughout the nation, attracting visitors from all over the world, is no more. The Parks Department and Union Square Partnership may maintain that closing the North Plaza for rehabilitation, and the dissipating the market all over the Union Square area will not deprive any farmers of their space, but we have our doubts. The unity, the coherence and the value of the Greenmarket destination as a farmers’ market is lost, as the farm stands become spread out along the entire Union Square periphery, interspersed with t-shirt vendors, longhaired artists, poster sellers, bookstands, costume jewelry makers and political propagandists distributing literature. The aura of health and freshness associated with the fruit, vegetables, food and flowers that is part of the country pleasure that, brings us subway-bounds to take detours through the market, is lost when the farm stands are blended in with the other park elements.
Meanwhile, the North Plaza of the Union Square Park has bee wired around, with eight-foot freestanding cyclone fence, to inhibit traffic, leaving a narrow path in the middle for east-west crossing pedestrians. Construction wagons have been drawn up along the interior north periphery, the Abraham Lincoln statue by Henry Kirke Brown of 1869 is blocked off, and the Pavillion is in process of being stripped and cleaned up. The farm stands displaced from the North Plaza are spread out in a double row along the west periphery, aka Union Square West, turning around the south end of the park, and then ranging a part of the way up the east exterior pathway. This disposition was shown on the new Relocation Map for Wednesday, April 9th, 2007. A new map will be drawn and posted at the Manager’s table, northwest corner, every day.
As to the actual plans and time tables, the city’s Greenmarket director Michael Hurwitz and his associate Steve Hughes at the Council on Environment of New York City did not return my several calls. Eventually I walked over, to Union Square, and met the local director of the operations, Matt Igoe, tall personable young man busy directing truck traffic out of the Greenmarket area. He assured me that all vendors will be guaranteed space, regardless of difficulty. Checking with the vendors at the south end, people at the Stokes Farm and Van Houten stands assured me that they were satisfied with their locations and had not lost their customers, a compliment to the market management and the faithfulness of greenmarket enthusiasts.
Apparently the members of the Union Square Community Coalition, leaders of the opposition against the turning of the Pavillion into a restaurant and the recasting of the North Plaza, have not lost their fighting spirits. Several were busy on Sunday, April 13, at their street fair, on Broadway between 17th and 23rd Streets, telling their story to passersby and visiting members of the press. The North Plaza, New York’s traditional place of public assembly and protest, our Hyde Park, a National Historic landmark where the first Labor Day parade took place in 1882, is slated to be shrunk, with a tree barrier to separate it from 17th Street. If memory serves, a prior attempt of tree planting, financed by the Armenian community of the city, failed some 30 years ago, when the trees died.
.
Looking at the Pavillion surroundings, the proposed restorations of the children’s playgrounds immediately south of it, on three levels, still does not make good sense. The amount of money and effort spent by the Union Square Partnership and the Department of Parks and Recreation on architects and lawyers to plan rehabilitating the park and set it up for commercial self-sustaining use is staggering, with a good portion of the $1.9M of city funds and of the $5M anonymous donation apparently gone. The overall cost estimate for the effort is in the $20M range, and the end results, a camelback playground, a restaurant in the Pavillion, a fragmented Greenmarket and a shrunken North Plaza, do not appear to meet the needs and desires of the public. There is an unconfirmed rumor around that the USCC, heartened by the support of local residents and politicians, is raising some scarce funds and hiring a public-minded lawyer to fight the USP and Parks effort. Whether the public juggernaut can be stopped is debatable, but the USCC will continue to try.
Next week, more on the Diane Arbus photographs, a treasure hunters’ story that has several readers intrigued – unless unforeseen breaking news of major local significance should interfere. The e-mail is wally@ix.netcom.com, and keep your mind clear and conscience clean, and happy April 15th. We don’t eat any No. 9 sandwiches here, we feel sorry when brilliant minds get overwhelmed with self-importance, and family futures are ruined.
It has actually happened. As of Saturday, April 5, 2008 the three decades old Greenmarket on Union Square’s North Park, an institution that helped rehabilitate the drug and prostitution- ridden Union Square Park and served as model for farmer markets throughout the nation, attracting visitors from all over the world, is no more. The Parks Department and Union Square Partnership may maintain that closing the North Plaza for rehabilitation, and the dissipating the market all over the Union Square area will not deprive any farmers of their space, but we have our doubts. The unity, the coherence and the value of the Greenmarket destination as a farmers’ market is lost, as the farm stands become spread out along the entire Union Square periphery, interspersed with t-shirt vendors, longhaired artists, poster sellers, bookstands, costume jewelry makers and political propagandists distributing literature. The aura of health and freshness associated with the fruit, vegetables, food and flowers that is part of the country pleasure that, brings us subway-bounds to take detours through the market, is lost when the farm stands are blended in with the other park elements.
Meanwhile, the North Plaza of the Union Square Park has bee wired around, with eight-foot freestanding cyclone fence, to inhibit traffic, leaving a narrow path in the middle for east-west crossing pedestrians. Construction wagons have been drawn up along the interior north periphery, the Abraham Lincoln statue by Henry Kirke Brown of 1869 is blocked off, and the Pavillion is in process of being stripped and cleaned up. The farm stands displaced from the North Plaza are spread out in a double row along the west periphery, aka Union Square West, turning around the south end of the park, and then ranging a part of the way up the east exterior pathway. This disposition was shown on the new Relocation Map for Wednesday, April 9th, 2007. A new map will be drawn and posted at the Manager’s table, northwest corner, every day.
As to the actual plans and time tables, the city’s Greenmarket director Michael Hurwitz and his associate Steve Hughes at the Council on Environment of New York City did not return my several calls. Eventually I walked over, to Union Square, and met the local director of the operations, Matt Igoe, tall personable young man busy directing truck traffic out of the Greenmarket area. He assured me that all vendors will be guaranteed space, regardless of difficulty. Checking with the vendors at the south end, people at the Stokes Farm and Van Houten stands assured me that they were satisfied with their locations and had not lost their customers, a compliment to the market management and the faithfulness of greenmarket enthusiasts.
Apparently the members of the Union Square Community Coalition, leaders of the opposition against the turning of the Pavillion into a restaurant and the recasting of the North Plaza, have not lost their fighting spirits. Several were busy on Sunday, April 13, at their street fair, on Broadway between 17th and 23rd Streets, telling their story to passersby and visiting members of the press. The North Plaza, New York’s traditional place of public assembly and protest, our Hyde Park, a National Historic landmark where the first Labor Day parade took place in 1882, is slated to be shrunk, with a tree barrier to separate it from 17th Street. If memory serves, a prior attempt of tree planting, financed by the Armenian community of the city, failed some 30 years ago, when the trees died.
.
Looking at the Pavillion surroundings, the proposed restorations of the children’s playgrounds immediately south of it, on three levels, still does not make good sense. The amount of money and effort spent by the Union Square Partnership and the Department of Parks and Recreation on architects and lawyers to plan rehabilitating the park and set it up for commercial self-sustaining use is staggering, with a good portion of the $1.9M of city funds and of the $5M anonymous donation apparently gone. The overall cost estimate for the effort is in the $20M range, and the end results, a camelback playground, a restaurant in the Pavillion, a fragmented Greenmarket and a shrunken North Plaza, do not appear to meet the needs and desires of the public. There is an unconfirmed rumor around that the USCC, heartened by the support of local residents and politicians, is raising some scarce funds and hiring a public-minded lawyer to fight the USP and Parks effort. Whether the public juggernaut can be stopped is debatable, but the USCC will continue to try.
Next week, more on the Diane Arbus photographs, a treasure hunters’ story that has several readers intrigued – unless unforeseen breaking news of major local significance should interfere. The e-mail is wally@ix.netcom.com, and keep your mind clear and conscience clean, and happy April 15th. We don’t eat any No. 9 sandwiches here, we feel sorry when brilliant minds get overwhelmed with self-importance, and family futures are ruined.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 8:08 AM 
