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Washington Square Park Designer Nabs Dual Role

By Geoffrey Croft
The irony.
George Vellonakis, the controversial NYC Department of Parks & Recreation (NYC Parks) landscape architect behind the much-vilified $30 million renovation of Washington Square Park, has recently been appointed to head the historic park.
On May 15th, Vellonakis became the Washington Square Park Administrator, a City job, as well as the Executive Director of the private Washington Square Park Conservancy. He replaces Sarah Neilson (who left in 2016)—the former Chief of Staff for Jonna Carmona-Graf, who is the Chief of Capital Program Management at NYC Parks.
With these developments, Mr. Vellonakis has stepped down as a landscape architect for NYC Parks after more than 35 years. His appointments will certainly ruffle a few feathers.
Vellonakis, the then-unlicensed landscape architect—and licensed real estate salesperson for Brown Harris Stevens—was responsible for the controversial re-design of Washington Square Park during the Bloomberg administration (he subsequently received his landscape license after his lack of licensure became widely known).
The renovation plan drew considerable public opposition. Controversial elements included: (1) moving the fountain to align with the arch (it had been in the center of the park since 1870), (2) reducing the size of the fountain, (3) eliminating the park’s popular mounds, (4) installing a wrought iron fence to close the park at night, and (5) removing numerous trees. The City was forced to make several concessions after community backlash; the park’s infamous nine-year renovation was completed in 2014.
The formation of a conservancy for the park also raised the ire of the public; it was established behind the scenes with the help of actor John Leguizamo’s wife, Justine, and socialite Veronica Bulgari. The role of a City employee simultaneously holding a park administrator job while serving as the head of a nonprofit affiliated with the same park has raised serious conflict of interest issues.

2 thoughts on “Washington Square Park Designer Nabs Dual Role

    • Author gravatar

      As a community resident and parent who spent several years fighting for the survival of the “mounds” in Washington Sq. Park I must agree with Geoffrey Croft and lament that George Vellonakis has now been appointed administrator of Washington Square Park.

      Contrary to the contrary claims by Barry Benepe (who should have been identified in his piece as the father of Adrian, head of the Parks dept. under Bloomberg and worked in tandem with Vellonakis), supporters of keeping the mounds always wanted them to be covered with a green material as originally designed, and refurbished so that children could play on them once again.

      Yet the Parks Department in cahoots with Vellonakis let them deteriorate for years, refusing to maintain or refurbish them and allowing them to become more and more unsightly in hopes that the community would give up and let them remove them. As quoted in the NYTimes: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/13/nyregion/the-designer-who-would-change-the-village-eden.html?_r=0

      The silver-topped Mr. Vellonakis, 46, trim, single and accessorized by Gucci, hasn’t been bitten, but he has been barked at by dog owners who don’t want their turf relocated. … And by preservationist fans of the three asphalt mounds, the remains of a playground, now used as condominiums by neighborhood rats. He wants to replace them with a new playground. A large plaza would be replaced by a lawn. A fence and gates would go up along the perimeter.

      “I’m surprised I haven’t yet been approached by a Save the Washington Square Park Rats coalition,” he jokes. Partly. Mr. Vellonakis really dislikes those mounds. “Not pretty! Doesn’t it make you want to come out here with a bulldozer?”
      Year after year, parent would hold rallies, play-ins, gather signatures on petitions and meet with elected officials, followed by the Park Department promising to renovate the mounds – only for them to go back on their word and draw up plans for their elimination.

      It is rather outrageous that now Barry Benepe in praising Vellonakis describes how “the popular, but unsightly, black asphalt mounds were replaced with even more popular green grass mounds where adults and children can roll and lie as well as run up and down” when Vellonakis did everything he could to make sure this would never happen.

      This is not even to mention the evident conflict of interest in having Vellonakis head WSP and the “Friends of WSP” organization. Or the execrable plans of Benepe and Vellonakis to put a high fence with locked gates around the park.

      As quoted in the NY Times, “Parks Commissioner Benepe explained, “You can’t have a landscaped park without a perimeter fence, or else people will walk through the landscape and soon there is no landscape.” Luckily the outrage was so intense and the idea so absurd that even the NY Post editorialized against it and Benepe and Vellonakis gave up.

      But do NOT let Vellonakis or his fans now take credit for retaining and renovating the very popular mounds when for years, he did everything in his power to raze them to the ground.

      Sincerely yours,

      Leonie Haimson
      124 Waverly Pl.
      New York, NY 10011

    • Author gravatar

      I’m surprised if you won’t admit now that those mounds have survived and now thrive under many scampering children?

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