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Frederick Law Olmstead and Robert Moses as animated by actors,Charles Gerber and Greg Zerkie. (Photo by Jimmie Cohrssen) |
| The godhead and the devil of American landscape planning, Frederick
Law Olmstead and Robert Moses, were invited from the great beyond
to an event sponsored by the Riverside Park Fund. by Philip Nobel There was little concord when Frederick Law Olmsted and Robert Moses--the godhead and the devil of American landscape planning--met for the first time last April. Moses (1888--1981) ridiculed Olmsted (1822 -1903) for his "spasms of righteousness," and Olmsted replied with haughty disdain for Moses' sometimes piecemeal work: "I reserve the word 'park' only for those places with breadth enough to justify the application." Animated by Broadway actors Charles Gerber (below right) and Greg Zerkle (below left), the two shades were invited back from the great beyond by the Riverside Park Fund in New York, a nonprofit advocacy group, to discuss the development of the 323-acre park on Manhattan's West Side. The event, which was part of an annual series on the history of Riverside Park, came on the eve of one of the most ambitious projects in years--building a continuous Riverside Walk from 72nd Street north to the George Washington Bridge. Construction of the first phase of the project, from 100th Street to 125th Street, funded by a federal transportation grant, will begin this summer. The tense meeting was moderated by Riverside Park administrator Charles McKinney, who mingled nicely with the dead. Beginning in 1875, Olmsted shaped the upper reaches of Riverside Park, draping Riverside Drive over the area's crags and clearing the slope between the drive and the thick line of railroad tracks that hugged the Hudson River below. Fifty-nine years later, Moses focused his considerable earth-moving powers on the same site, doubling its size with landfill and concealing the tracks with a promenade. Then he ran the Henry Hudson Parkway straight through the site, separating Riverside Park from the river once again (damage that the current Riverside Walk project promises to correct). When Olmsted vented his long-pent rage over this desecration, Moses fondled his cigar and answered coolly, "Mr. Olmsted, we have the automobile now." Olmsted also took issue with Moses for littering his once-contemplative shoreside lea with concrete paths, basketball courts, and playgrounds. Moses replied that he just couldn't help himself when he saw "meadows in the woods that seemed made to order for baseball diamonds... places with only a few trees that could be cleared for tennis courts." McKinney took the middle ground: Recreation is fine, he said, but "you don't put ball fields in bird sanctuaries." Moses seemed to enjoy this respite from the hot travails of his posthumous home. He used the moment to mend his public image, shattered by broad knowledge of his racism, his overindulgence of the car, and his heavy-handed manipulation of the Bronx during the 35 years he served as New York City's unelected development czar. Putting on his best face, he reminded the audience that "as long as you are on the side of parks, you are on the side of angels." Still, everyone in the room seemed to know where he was going after the show. |
Keywords: Olmstead, Moses, parks, planning, New York City
