Why does Washington Square Park need a conservancy? How does the park benefit? Or the rest of us for that matter? I met one sunny weekday morning with the Executive Director of the Washington Square Park Conservancy, Sarah Neilson, and two members, Betsey Ely and Gwen Evans. Sarah wears two hats. She is a full time administrator in the NYC Parks Department, but also serves as a director of the Conservancy, which has been in existence for only two years. She thus enables the volunteer conservancy, a 501(c) (3) non -profit to channel privately raised funds to the Parks Department to hire a seasonal gardener in addition to the only one serving all of District Two and a playground associate during July and August. The Conservancy has pledged to donate over $100,000 from over 200 donors and many friends of the park. All money raised supports the group’s efforts for the park. As a result, plants and flowers are better maintained and the park is kept cleaner. Its mission is “working with NYC Parks and neighborhood groups to ensure that [the park] continues as a diverse and historical urban green space through engaging volunteers and raising funds to keep the park clean, safe and beautiful. We want as much color as you can fit. People tell us that they come here to relax. One woman told me that her father-in-law used to come down here just to ‘watch the show’.”
Conservancy members visited other park conservancies in such parks as Madison Square, Carl Schurz, Riverside and Fort Tryon Parks to learn from those groups before initiating their own volunteer efforts two years ago. While the group supplements Park’s basic programs and maintenance, it has no authority to initiate improvements, approve programs or pass and enforce regulations. All licensed activities such as organized events, cafes, vending and food concessions are under the sole control of the Department of Parks. The Conservancy Board of Directors meets three times a year. Board
members include representatives of the Parks Department, City Council, Community
Board Two and the public.
The group respects the extraordinarily beautiful restoration design prepared by George Vellonakis of the Parks Department (See West View June 2012). “I love the restoration,” said Betsey Ely. “Now what can we do to help maintain its beauty?” “ We work together as a team,” added Gwen. “The park is a glorious mosaic of activities and people. There is something for everyone.”
Washington Square Park was first laid out over a burial ground and Minetta Brook in 1829. Its first plan was similar to Gramercy Park today and later modified in 1836 with diagonal pathways and a large central fountain similar to what we see today; however, when the Tweed Ring took over city government in 1870, the bosses decided that a wide carriage and wagon road through the park was necessary “to relieve the crowded thoroughfares from Canal Street to 23rd Street.” They extended Fifth Avenue south through the park in a three-pronged pitchfork whose tines poked into Sullivan Street, Thompson Street and West Broadway. Many felt that the changes were made primarily to benefit Boss Tweed and his associates who had substantial real estate holdings south of the park. This was 50 years before the motor car and 90 years before a similar proposal by Robert Moses. While vehicular traffic was finally banned in the mid 50’s, the road remained in place until this new plan by Vellonakis began to return the park to its original form. The park has finally become the sylvan paradise it once was, exclusively for those on foot. It now has an abundant rich planted texture with broad green lawns, arching trees and banks of shrubs and flowering plants. The curvilinear paths provide a relaxing stroll toward the central fountain which still attracts a wide range of activities.
A new handsome comfort station and administration center has replaced the former ordinary brick maintenance building. The controversial blacktopped play mounds have been replaced by a green turfed hill and dale design, which is a village of pure delight for the many children who run up and down its slopes while caretakers relax on the grass, like those with the morning dappled sunlight spilling over their heads that we have seen in the paintings by the French Impressionist, Georges Seurat. The Conservancy caretakers have much to be proud of in their sustained efforts to protect the park’s fabric. Their efforts for years to come will ensure a beautiful park for all, a focal point at the foot of Fifth Avenue where the grand arch designed by McKim, Mead and White and built in 1890 focuses on the great fountain in the virtual center of the Square. It continues to remain one of the earliest formal parks in the city, an attraction for visitors throughout the world as well as a refuge for thousands of residents who walk in from the surrounding Greenwich Village.
