Bryant Park

Bryant Park is a 9.603 acre (39,000 m²) privately-managed public park located in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is bounded by Fifth Avenue, Sixth Avenue, 40th Street and 42nd Street in Midtown Manhattan. [ [http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_your_park/park_info_pages/park_info.php?propID=M008 Bryant Park] , New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. Accessed October 15, 2007.] The central building of the New York Public Library is in the park. Although part of the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, Bryant Park is managed by a private not-for-profit corporation, the Bryant Park Corporation.

History

In 1686 when the area was still a wilderness, New York's colonial governor Thomas Dongan designated the area now known as Bryant Park as a public space. George Washington's troops crossed the area while retreating from the Battle of Long Island in 1776. Bryant Park was a potter's field (a graveyard for the poor) from 1823 to 1840, when thousands of bodies were moved to Ward's Island. [http://www.bryantpark.org/history/reservoir-square.php History: Reservoir Square] , Bryant Park. Accessed October 15, 2007.]

The first park at this site opened in 1847 as Reservoir Square. It was named after its neighbor, the Croton Distributing Reservoir. In 1853, the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations with the New York Crystal Palace, with thousands of exhibitors, took place in the park.

The square was used for military drills during the American Civil War, and was the site of some of the New York Draft Riots of July 1863, when the Colored Orphan Asylum at Fifth Avenue and 43rd Street was burned down.

In 1884, Reservoir Square was renamed Bryant Park, to honor the "New York Evening Post" editor and abolitionist William Cullen Bryant. In 1899, the Reservoir building was removed and construction of the New York Public Library building began. Terraces public facilities, and kiosks were added to the park.

However the construction of the Sixth Avenue Elevated railway in 1878 had cast a literal and metaphorical shadow over the park, and by the 1930s the park had suffered neglect and was considered disreputable. The park was re-designed in 1933-1934 as a Great Depression public works project under the leadership of Robert Moses. The new park featured a great lawn, and added hedges and later an iron fence to separate the park from the surrounding city streets. The park was temporarily degraded in the late 1930s by the tearing down of the El and the construction of the IND Sixth Avenue Line subway.

By the 1970s, Bryant Park had been taken over by drug dealers, prostitutes and the homeless. It was nicknamed "Needle Park" by some, due to its brisk heroin trade, and was considered a "no-go zone" by ordinary citizens and visitors. From 1979 to 1983, a coordinated program of amenities, including a bookmarket, a flower market, cafes, landscape improvements, and entertainment activities, was initiated by a parks advocacy group called the Parks Council and immediately brought new life to the park -- an effort continued over the succeeding years by The Bryant Park Restoration Corporation, which had been founded in 1980 by a group of prominent New Yorkers, including members of the Rockefeller family, to improve conditions in the park. In 1988, a privately funded re-design and restoration was begun by the Bryant Park Restoration Corporation under the leadership of Dan Biederman, with the goal of opening up the park to the streets and encouraging activity within it.

Bryant Park Corporation

Bryant Park Restoration Corporation (changed to Bryant Park Corporation in 2006)was co-founded in 1980 by Dan Biederman and Andrew Heiskell, Chairman of Time, Inc. and the New York Public Library. Initially supported by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, BPC is now funded by assessments on property and businesses adjacent to the park, and by revenue generated from events held at the park. BPC is the largest U.S. effort to provide private management, with private funding, to a public park.

By the 1970’s Bryant Park had become a dangerous haven for drug dealers and was widely seen as a symbol of New York City’s decline. BPC immediately brought significant changes that made the park once again a place that people wanted to visit. Biederman, a proponent of the "Broken Windows Theory" expounded by James Q. Wilson and George Kelling in a seminal 1982 article in "Atlantic Monthly", instituted a rigorous program to clean the park, remove graffiti and repair the broken physical plant. BPC also created a private security staff to confront unlawful behavior immediately. After initial successes, BPC closed the park in 1988 to undertake a four-year project to build new park entrances with increased visibility from the street, to enhance the formal French garden design (with a lush redesign by Lynden Miller), and to improve and repair paths and lighting. BPC’s plan also included restoring of the park’s monuments, and renovating its long-closed restrooms, and building two restaurant pavilions and four concession kiosks.

Biederman worked with William H. Whyte, the American sociologist and distinguished observer of public space. Whyte’s influence led Biederman to implement two decisions essential to making the park the successful public space that it us. First, Biederman insisted on placing movable chairs in the park. Whyte had long believed that movable chairs give people a sense of empowerment, allowing them to sit wherever and in whatever orientation they desire. The second decision was to lower the park itself. Until 1988, Bryant Park had been elevated from the street and further isolated by tall hedges, a layout tailor-made to foster illegal activity. The 1988 renovation lowered the park to nearly street level and tore out the hedges.

After a four-year effort, the park reopened in 1992 to widespread acclaim. Deemed “a triumph for many” by NY Times architectural critic Paul Goldberger, ["Bryant Park: An out-of-town experience", New York Times, May 3, 1992. ] the renovation was lauded not only for its architectural excellence, but also for adhering to Whyte’s vision. “He understood that the problem of Bryant Park was its perception as an enclosure cut off from the city; he knew that, paradoxically, people feel safer when not cut off from the city, and that they feel safer in the kind of public space they think they have some control over.” The renovation was lauded as "The Best Example of Urban Renewal" by New York Magazine ["Best Example of Urban Renewal" New York Magazine December 20, 1993] , and was described Time Magazine as a “small miracle”. ["Best Design of 1992" Time Magazine January 4, 1993.] Many awards followed, including a Design Merit Award from Landscape Architecture Magazine, [Landscape Architecture November, 1994] which noted that the park was "colorful and comfortable....and safe". In 1996, the Urban Land Institute honored BPC with a ULI Award For Excellence. ULI remarked that the renovation "turned a disaster into an asset, dramatically improved the neighborhood, and pushed up office rents and occupancy rates." [UrbanLand December, 1996]

The park’s restrooms have won lavish praise and provide New Yorkers with a rare commodity: luxurious public facilities open to everyone. A second renovation solidified their status as, in the words of NYC Parks commissioner Adrian Benepe, "the gold standard for park comfort stations." ["A Resplendent Park Respite, Mosaic Tiles Included" NY Times April 4, 2006.]

Bryant Park Today

Bryant Park is one of the signature examples of New York City’s revival in the 1990’s. Essentially crime-free, the park is filled with office workers on sunny weekdays, city visitors on the weekends, and revelers during the holidays. Daily attendance counts often exceed 800 people per acre, making it the most densely occupied urban park in the world. In 1995, an article about midtown office workers who had found the newly reopened park a good place to go to after work bore the headline “Town Square of Midtown” and the moniker has stuck. ["Town Square of NY; Drug Dealers’ Turf is Now an Office Oasis”; NY Times, August 25, 1995.] In the early 2000's, BPC added a custom-built carousel revived the tradition of an open-air library, The Reading Room, which also hosts literary events. The Bryant Park Grill and Bryant Park C afe have become popular after-work spots, and 'wichcraft, the high-quality sandwich chain owned by Tom Collicchio, operates four kiosks on the park's west end.

In the summer of 2002, the park launched the free Bryant Park Wireless Network, making the park the first in NYC to offer free Wi-Fi access to visitors. Improvements in 2008 significantly increased the number of users who could log-on at a given time.

Programming at the Park

A widely varied program of musical performances entertains crowds during the warm weather months. The HBO/Bryant Park Summer Film Festival, begun in the early nineties, became an instant favorite for New Yorkers and is now a much-beloved tradition. The park offers a varied selection of music as well, including the "GMA Summer Concert Series", broadcast over ABC-TV from the park on Friday mornings; "Broadway in Bryant Park", featuring performers from current Broadway musicals, the popular "Music at 5" series, and, new in 2008, "Bank of America Presents New York Now", a series featuring concerts by five of NYC's most prestigious classical music organizations. Participating in 2008 are the New York Philharmonic, New York City Opera, Orchestra of St. Luke's, The Metropolitan Opera Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, and The New York Pops. All concerts are free to the public.

Since 2005, Bryant Park has hosted "Pinstripes in the Park", an event featuring a live broadcast of a NY Yankee game, stadium concessions, and former Yankee greats greeting the crowd and signing autographs.

The park has a chess concession at the west end that offers chess boards and lessons. There is also a court for practitioners of "Pétanque", the French game of "boules". Also popular are free classes in yoga, tai chi and knitting.

The Pond and The Holiday Shops

In 2005 made Bryant Park a year-round destination by introducing The Pond, presented by Citi, a free-admission ice skating rink that instantly became a fixture in the Manhattan holiday scene and that the NY Times has dubbed "NYC's best". [“My New York”; NY Times, December 29, 2006.] The Pond is a complement to The Holiday Shops, a holiday market modeled on Europe's "Christkindlmarkts".

Public Park, Privately Operated

Although Bryant Park is a public park, BPC accepts no public funds, and operates the park on assessments on surrounding property within the BID, fees from concessionaires, and revenues generated by public events. The number of events at the park has grown significantly, and this has caused some consternation by people who fear that the park will be dominated by private entities and will thus be inaccessible to the public. Biederman and BPC feel strongly that a crowded park is a successful one, and that a full slate of events is essential in drawing people to the park. They also believe that the revenue paid by sponsors of events is necessary to keep the park well-maintained. To address fears of the park being lost to the public, BPC insists that all events are free and open to the public, the lone exceptions being the fashion shows that take over the park in the winter and late summer. Biederman has often publicly expressed his frustration that the fashion shows, which are not under BPC's control, take over the park for two weeks twice yearly. "They pay us a million dollars. It's a million dollars I would happily do without", he told the Los Angeles Times. ["Public Parks Landing Private Owners" LA Times February 11, 2007 ] BPC is particularly frustrated that the fashion shows dominate the park during two crucial times: in late summer, when the weather is perfect for park visitors; and in early February, necessitating the early closure of BP's popular free-admission ice-skating rink. ["Fashion Shows Leave Bryant Park Skaters in the Cold" NY Daily News October 13, 2006.]

Bryant Park Lawn

The park has the largest expanse of green lawn in midtown Manhattan, and is therefore important to office workers seeking a green space at which to spend their lunch hour. The park's operators install a new lawn each year after the February fashion shows, and the lawn is usually open to the public on non-rainy days through mid-autumn. The only exceptions are for short periods after large-scale events such as the HBO/Bryant Park Summer Film Festival, and for regular maintenance. The lawn is covered by the fashion show tents for three weeks in early September, and new sod is quickly installed immediately after the fashion apparatus is taken away, remaining until construction of The Pond begins.

Bryant Park Summer Lawn Cummulative Opening Days

Of course, the number of opening days would be higher but for the 23 days of forced closure caused by Fashion Week in September.

Bryant Park on Film and TV

Since its restoration, Bryant Park has become a favored setting for film and television productions. The final scene of the Howard Stern film Private Parts featuring the band AC/DC performing in the park was shot in July 1996. At the beginning of Ghostbusters, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis come running out of the library building.
Chris Rock used the park to watch women in I Love My Wife and perhaps most famously, the Sex and the City film staged multiple scenes at front of the NY Public Library (which is officially part of Bryant Park) and at the park's carousel. Law & Order is among the television series using the park for scenes.

Bank of America Tower at Bryant Park One

On 42nd Street and Sixth Avenue, just opposite of the park, construction is reaching completion on the massive Bank of America Tower, the expected New York headquarters for Bank of America. Expected to be completed in 2008, it will be the second tallest building in New York City and a dominating structure overlooking Bryant Park. The building has the distinction of being the largest in NYC to belong to two Business Improvement Districts (Bryant Park Corporation and the Times Square Alliance) and is further distinguished by its "green" architecture and interior design. Bank of America has already signalled its intention to become involved in the neighborhood by sponsoring the "New York Now" classical music series at Bryant Park.

References

External links

* [http://www.bryantpark.org/ Bryant Park Restoration Corporation]
* [http://www.nypl.org New York Public Library]
* [http://www.thepondatbryantpark.com The Pond at Bryant Park - Skating Rink]
* [http://www.fetesdenoel.com Fetes de Noel - The Holiday Shops at Bryant Park]
* [http://www.mises.org/story/1091 Private Oasis in Manhattan]
* [http://www.aviewoncities.com/nyc/bryantpark.htm Another park history]
* [http://www.nycaddict.com/parks/bryant_park_side_view.php Bryant Park Pictures]
* [http://www.forgotten-ny.com/STREET%20SCENES/bryantpark/bryant.html Secrets of Bryant Park]
* [http://www.poopreport.com/BMnewswire/nycs_greatest_public_bathroom.html An appreciation of Bryant Park's public amenities]