Towers in the park are not, today, a highly recommended building type. The drab, lonely open spaces they create are dehumanizing and both these and the buildings themselves, not to mention the people who live in them, have been the victims of unwarranted disregard. Towers in the park destroy street-life, too, de-mapping some roads and leaving no interesting frontage for passersby to enjoy.
Sometimes, though, these projects vilify the modernist architects and planners that so fervently espoused the towers’ ability to cure ailing cities. Striking a balance between site design, visual interest, and outdoor ambiance, a towers in the park development can offer refuge from boisterous city life, but remain humanizing and interesting to the eye.
I found a tower in the park triumph when I did a bit of exploring around NYU my sophomore year. I don’t remember exactly my path there, but a grand approach begins on the corner of Washington Square South and Washington Square East.
Walk south, through Schwartz Plaza. NYU envelopes you in all directions. Behind you lay an array of academic buildings, pouring and absorbing flurries of students throughout the day. The Kaufman Building and NYU Bobst define the edges of the plaza on your left and right, respectively. Bobst, designed by Philip Johnson, provides an earthy backdrop for the school’s native woodland garden and a Gothic-esque monument.
Across West 3rd street is a glimpse of the first building of Washington Square Village, made up of two wide stretched apartment buildings that frame more than they probably should, but most importantly, a lovely public park. As you approach the complex through the plaza, the vertical panel of blue-glazed bricks seems to float above the ground, almost as if the sky has dove downward, cutting the building into smaller and more manageable pieces. Nature’s decree.
Cross West 3rd and walk through the underpass S.J. Kessler and Sons has so thankfully provided for you. (De-mapped? Not completely. Green and Wooster Streets act as driveways here for the underground parking lot, on which the park is built.) Now slow down. The entrance to the park is easy to miss. Find the gate to your left, and walk up the small staircase to emerge into an oasis hidden between the two lumbering giants.
Washington Square Village Park may not be as famous as its sister to the north, but it deserves just as much as the spotlight. What it lacks in terms of monuments it makes up for in delicacies. You’ll notice first the clever 2-in-1 planter-benches; the square, conglomerate seating spots seem like mountains formed from sub-ducting tectonic plates, but instead of lava, pleasant trees sprout from the opening at top (even if they’re still not the perfect trees). These define the northern part of the park, arranged in a pleasing symmetrical formation- an homage to the French.
The southern portion is home to two rustic wooden terraces that are enveloped in vines and embellished with mood lighting. An homage to the English exists in their more uncontrolled nature and the winding, if short, paths that lead you to them. At the center of it all is the fountain that focuses the space. Numerous jets of water aligned in a straight line like Rockette dancers burst into the sky, rivaling the height of the buildings.
More serene than Washington Square Park, WS Village Park is not standalone from the towers. The buildings are defenders, not from people themselves but from the masses that may overtake this small safe-haven if allowed to flood in. And they’re not just boring protectors, either. Numerous vertical panels of color exist, alternating between the primary RBY. More than whimsical, these panels are an eruption of liveliness, an accentuation that saves the space from the deadening effects of plain and boring brick for stories and stories. Brazilian favelas have made their way north.
Washington Square Village Park provides a tranquil home to NYU faculty and graduate students, but the school has planned a desecration of the space in their effort to offer more square footage of academic space to every student over the next 25 years. The towers are safe, but the park between is to be replaced by showy landscaping and two kidney shaped buildings that will abut views and bring forth the deluge of students, professors, and visitors.
What should we put first? NYU2031 has, on the surface, formidable goals. And it is seemingly true that the park does not serve a large number of people. But our oases continue to vanish, and what is a city that has no hidden gems left to find?
[I took a visit to the park again today. To my surprise, there was new signage at the entrances denoting the space as “Sasaki Garden” after its designer, the landscape architect Hideo Sasaki. I have never seen or heard of that before, but I’m glad that I now know!]
Dull, inert cities, it is true, do contain the seeds of their own destruction and little else. But lively, diverse, intense cities contain the seeds of their own regeneration… – Jane Jacobs
New York at its Best 