The Gates

Central Park, New York City -- February 12-27 2005

We were spending the weekend in Washington DC when we impulsively decided to fly to New York City for a day to see the Christo installation of the Gates of Central Park. For 16 days in February, Christo and his wife, Jeanne-Claude, had decorated Central Park with "saffron gates". By contract with the City the gates would begin coming down Monday morning ... if we wanted to see them, we had to go on Sunday.

On our way to New York City, there was saffron everywhere we looked! Some wannabe Christos had decorated the airport and had draped the construction site!

We taxied to 96th Street and Central Park East. It was a beautiful Sunday morning with an intense blue sky, bright sun and below-freezing temperatures. A few inches of snow covered the ground. We walked south to 59th Street.

Christo is famous for wrapping the Reichstag--the German Parliament building--in red fabric and surrounding an entire island in cellophane. The Gates Project began in 1979, but their request for permission to place the gates in the park was denied several times.

There were 7503 gates. Christo and Jeanne-Claude call the color "saffron," but it looked a lot more orange to us. (Pumpkin?)

The gates were made of rip-stop nylon, pleated. The poles were made of vinyl and the bases were steel. All of the materials will be recycled. The gates were as wide as needed to bridge the path.

The gates covered 23 miles of paths in the park. Walking under them reminded us of Fushimi Inari, Japan.

The wind constantly changed the look of the fabric.

We were surprised at how quiet and happy the visitors were walking through the gates. Very un-New York! The woman in the center of this picture is Jeanne-Claude, enjoying the final day of the installation.

Before the installation, people asked many silly questions such as "Will the moving fabric scare animals away?" What animals? The bronze ones.

The Gates were spectacular! They changed our perspective. Rather than looking down or at others walking by, we looked up at the gates and across through the bare trees at other paths that we wouldn't be aware of. We were bathed in a golden glow and part of the art.

And now they're gone!