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February 16, 2005

Because There Are Not Enough 'Gates' Pictures Out There...

I thought "The Gates" was close to being completely horrible. It's only not completely horrible because it did bring all these people to NYC and to Central Park and that's a good thing. I wonder if Central Park has ever had this many visitors. Maybe during one of those massive free concerts, but then the crowd would be concentrated in one area. There were people everywhere for this. On a weekday afternoon in February. Every square inch of the park was crawling with people taking pictures.

But aesthetically, I find it difficult to consider it a positive addition to the park even on a temporary basis. Wandering around the park today, when I finally hit a patch of park that did not have the installation, it was like a breath of fresh air. The construction-site/Home-Depot-orange gates did not lift me, they ended up oppressing me.

I have many problems with the gates themselves. Frankly, they are pretty ugly. Not only do I think the choice of color is wrong (from afar it looks like Central Park is being sectioned off for construction), the frames and fabric of the gates are too low-grade. I like the industrial look as much as the next person, but I think it's wrong here. I also had a major problem with the spacing of the gates. It's way too monotonous. It actually managed to make wandering around Central Park a near tedious experience.

Anyway, to see how gates could look transcendentally beautiful, see my pictures of the torii (gates) of Fushimi Inari Taisha just outside Kyoto.

Filed Under: Architecture & Design, Photos
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