Greenwich Village is starved for public open space. Indeed, Community Board 2 — from 14th St. to Canal St. west of Bowery/Fourth Ave. — ranks among the lowest in green space per capita of all the city’s community board districts.
That’s why when the opportunity arises to create a new park, it’s special.
Such a moment is now upon us. Rudin Management, as part of its redevelopment of the former St. Vincent’s Hospital eastern campus into 450 new luxury condo units, has pledged to provide a park on the open-space triangle across the street.
At the same time, the Queer History Alliance has come forward, saying the triangle presents a unique chance to create an AIDS Memorial Park with a learning center. The Village was an epicenter of the 1980s AIDS crisis and St. Vincent’s was where the disease was first confronted and treated in a humane way, Q.H.A. rightly says.
The Alliance strongly feels that the basement below the triangle should be used as a learning center that could pay tribute to local healthcare providers — such as St. Vincent’s and others — that met the challenge of the disease.
An AIDS Memorial Park is certainly a very worthy project. But many community members who actually live around the location are concerned — and justifiedly so — that such a memorial could well turn into a tourist and tour bus destination.
Already tour buses pause at the 9/11 Tiles for America memorial just across Mulry Square from the triangle so their tourist passengers can snap photos. Were an AIDS Memorial added kitty-corner across the square, it’s easy to imagine this becoming a point where tour buses would actually stop and drop their passengers off for a while so they could walk around and check out both the 9/11 tiles and the AIDS memorial.
But this sort of memorial nexus isn’t what local residents want at all, and it doesn’t seem to be what Community Board 2 — as a reflection of the community’s will — is calling for, either.
C.B. 2 will be making its final recommendation for the triangle next Thursday. That recommendation will, in turn, be added to the board’s input on the city’s ULURP review for the entire Rudin project.
We agree that, above all, what is needed here is a true community park — unencumbered by major memorials or features that would detract from its being a place to relax and enjoy a respite of natural beauty and tranquility amid the world’s most hectic city. Memorials to St. Vincent’s history and AIDS could be incorporated somehow — but certainly not dominating the park.
Whether the triangle’s basement can or should be used as a learning center, or would interfere with the park, remains to be seen. Better yet — why not find an airy and uplifting space, with some windows?
Plus, the Village does, in fact, already have an AIDS memorial. Dedicated three years ago at Bank St. in Hudson River Park, it was the first AIDS memorial on public property in the entire state. The AIDS Memorial Committee spent 14 years working to create this tasteful monument, at a cost of $88,000. A long, bench-like structure of Canadian black granite, it overlooks the former Pier 49’s wooden pilings — which are “sort of a metaphor for lives cut short,” as the committee’s Lawrence Swehla put it.
In addition, the park that Rudin creates at Greenwich and Seventh Aves. should not be privately owned. Rather, when done, it should be turned over to the Parks Department. Again, this is in line with keeping this welcome new green space as open and publicly accessible as possible.
