Who named the gates of Central Park? | Ephemeral New York The “Undesirables” sent back from Ellis Island » Who named the gates of Central Park? When Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux were just about done building Central Park in the early 1860s, there was one more thing to consider: the entrances. While rich New Yorkers desired grand, ornate gates like in the urban parks in London and Paris, Olmsted and Vaux opted for low sandstone openings—symbolizing an accessible city refuge that would be open to all. They chose names for the 20 planned entrances that referenced who would use the park, reports an 1864 Harper’s article: “The first broad generalization will be something like this: Artisan, Artist, Merchant, Scholar. Descending to subdivision of these heads we shall have Cultivator or Agriculturalist, Hunter, Fisherman, Woodman, Minor, Mariner, Warrior, Engineer, Inventor, Explorer.” Actually almost all did end up as official names, though most weren’t carved into the sandstone entrances until the 1990s.

Women’s Gate is at 72nd Street and Central Park West; Scholars’ Gate at Fifth Avenue and 60th Street. A complete list is here. Share this: Like Loading... Related Tags: Artists' Gate , building Central Park , Calvert Vaux , central park , Central Park entrances , Frederick Law Olmstead , gates to Central Park , New York in the 1860s , Scholars Gate , Strangers' Gate , Women's Gate This entry was posted on May 15, 2010 at 3:07 am and is filed under central park , Random signage . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response , or trackback from your own site. 26 Responses to “Who named the gates of Central Park?” May 15, 2010 at 3:47 am | Reply Having put quite a bit of study into this there are some interesting misunderstandings about the Gates out there.

The Greensward Map, published and sold by the Greensward Foundation, has a few of the gates misplaced or misnamed, calling the Gate of All Saints the Prophets Gate, and adding the entirely fictitious Students Gate. Several places online list the entrance to the Conservatory Garden as the Vanderbilt Gate, though there is no sign for it, and I can find no evidence of it ever being called that. A commemorative booklet quoting Olmstead’s reasoning behind each occupation, published and distributed in 1926 by the Central Park Association calls the Warriors Gate the Army and Navy Gate. My personal favorite is the press release for Christo’s “Gates” instillation refers to the gates and names an Emigrants Gate and an Explorers Gate, neither of which exist.

wildnewyork May 15, 2010 at 1:42 pm | Reply Olmstead: “The city, although metropolitan by position, is cosmopolitan in its associations and sympathies, and is ever ready to extend a courteous welcome to all peaceably disposed “Strangers” or “Foreigners” who may be led by inclination or business to spend their time within its boundaries; this welcome being offered, however, not merely a matter or courtesy but as a recognition of that fact that it is highly important, both to the general and particular interests of the whole nation, that its cities should be visited, and its institutions studied and comprehended by intelligent and industrious travelers from other countries, for by such means only can unworthy prejudices be removed, and incorrect estimates rectified.” Quoted in the 1926 pamphlet I mentioned above, originally taken from the 1866 Annual Report of the Board of Commissioners of the Central Park. The pamphlet erroneously places the Strangers Gate at 110 and Eighth Ave.

wildnewyork […] Ephemeral New York spots “subway mosaics that supply a little history” and answers the question, “Who named the gates of Central Park?” […] Michael Miscione July 23, 2010 at 5:46 am | Reply First of all, Olmsted and Vaux were nowhere “just about done building Central Park in the early 1860s.” Secondly, Frederick Law Olmsted did not — I repeat, DID NOT — name the gates of the park. This article and the worshipful comments that follow are yet another example of how people blindly attribute everything in the park to Olmsted. The names were chosen by a committee, consisting of three members of the Central Park Commission: H.G. Stebbins, C.H. Russell, and Andrew H. Green. They also authored the quote that Cully wrongly attributes to Olmsted (you will find it in the 1861 — not 1866 — Central Park Annual Report, on page 132). Once again, Andrew H.

Green, the real driving force behind the creation of the park, gets forgotten by the “Cult of Olmsted.” ~ Michael Miscione, the Manhattan Borough Historian Michael Miscione July 23, 2010 at 7:17 pm | Reply A clarification to a cite in my above post is in order. The quote came from the Fifth Annual Report of the Board of Commissioners of the Central Park. It mostly concerned the work that took place in 1861, but it was published in 1862. Altair On the subject of the gates, when was the Hunter’s Gate and the transverse road relocated from 79th Street to 81st street? (and when was Naturalist’s Gate named?) Kevin C June 10, 2013 at 9:11 pm | Reply I found a partial answer to my question: the entrance to the drive at 77th and the diversion of the transverse road to 81st Streets was completed in October and November 1882, as part of the development of the Museum of Natural History and Manhattan Square.

Prior to 1882, the #2 transverse road came out at 79th. [the New York Times reported the completion 1 October 1882]. Richard September 8, 2015 at 1:38 pm Actually, the transverse road #2 (79th St) entrance on Central Park West was not aligned with 81st Street until sometime after 1954. You can clearly see the entrance is south of 81st by a short way on the 1954 USGS 1954/1956/1959 Central Park Quadrangle map. When I was very young I remember them finishing up on the north wall, sidewalk of the transverse. Kevin C. September 9, 2015 at 4:06 pm Richard – Thanks for your ground-truth! I had in the past looked at the USGS maps of 1947 and 1956, both of which show the traverse drive intersecting CPW about 200′ south of 81st Street entrance to the West Drive. I should not have questioned the accuracy of those maps.

Richard September 10, 2015 at 11:08 am I’ve been trying to hammer down the date for the re-routing of transverse #2 from south of 81st to alignment with 81st. I found one of Norman Garbush’s maps of Manhattan that shows the transverse south and also shows the Polo Grounds, which were demolished in mid-1964, so it’s likely that the change was made sometime between 1963 and 1965. I was born in 1959 so my memory of seeing the tail-end of the construction is accurate. BTW – There was an additional un-named gate on Central Park West between 87th & 88th that was removed 10 or 15 years ago when they added an entrance on the north side of transverse number 3. I’ve been looking for photos of it and have found nothing. Kevin C. September 10, 2015 at 12:35 pm I imagine that finding the precise date for the mid-century work might be done in the Municipal Archives’ records.

But your earlier note sent me to the USGS aerial photos (single photo series) for more evidence; those are on-line. Unfortunately the single frame series is only episodic, and from the late 1930s into the early 1960s. The 1954 image shows #2 intersecting CPW south of 81st, as you’ve already noted. There are obvious alterations in the fabric of the wall along CPW. Dating those changes is another matter, of course. March 16, 2015 at 6:52 pm | Reply BTW – not listed in my list is the East 76th Street Gate that was added at the behest of Robert Moses. Omitted or missing from the list provided in the New York Times article by my friend Doug Martin is the “Inventor’s Gate” misspelled as “Inventers” on the Hingich’s map. It was undoubtedly designated such as nearby is the statue of Samuel Finley Breese Morse, a painter of modest talent who gained wide fame for his invention of the code language that gained popular usage on the telegraph.

The Hingrich map, also omits the possessive apostrophe for “Childrens” gate. My instinctive editing typed it in as “Children’s.” edlaing When was the ‘Naturalist’s Gate’ on Central Park West named? —- A committee* of the Commissioners reported on ‘the nomenclature of the gates of the park’ in the Fifth Annual Report: “A list of twenty names is thus obtained that seems to be somewhat appropriate for the object in view. We have the Artizan, the Artist, the Merchant, the Scholar, the Cultivator, the Warrior, the Mariner, the . Engineer, the Hunter, the Fisherman, the Woodman, the Miner, the Explorer, the Inventor, the Foreigner, the Boys, the Girls, the Women, the Children, and All Saints” that was April 1862. Obviously, not the last word.

[Stebbins, Russell & Green] March 17, 2015 at 12:59 am The Naturalist’s Gate seems to be the same location as the “Hunter’s Gate” in front of the New York Museum of Natural History, and I am going to guess that this was a decision that Henry Stern had some durm to strang in, as Teddy Roosevelt would have been the hunter who helped fill the museum, but others would have looked for a gentler description of the activity that provided the carcases for taxidermy to to the capable artistry or Carl Akeley and others. As for the “twenty” gates . . . show me the “twenty” without using the extra gate cut by Robert Moses at E.76th St. I get 19 from the 1875 map. I really don’t feel any personal stake in this question. I’m just observing from the records I have at my disposal, with all due respect to any data others are able to uncover. edlaing March 17, 2015 at 2:36 am Got it. The last word is whatever the current Parks Commissioner and Conservancy decides to declare. Agreed.

The notion of reviving the names of the gates was a point of interest to Henry Stern and perhaps less so since he retired. There were a lot of interesting personalities who were advocating the names being suggested to the various committees that formed leading up to and including the implementation of the final designs upon Central Park. There was the evolving matter of differentiating between the gates for pedestrians and transportation, certainly. And no one envisioned the world of competing pedestrians, walkers, runners, skaters, skate boarders, bikers, horses, bicycles, cars, motorcycles, Segways, etc. There were the devotees of Shakespeare, the nut who let the starlings loose in America, the champions of Emerson, Thomas Cole, Thoreau, Teddy Roosevelt, Henry George. They all were in some way at the opposite end of the spectrum of another. Then there was Boss Tweed and Tammany v. the reformers and the like of Charles Patrick Daly who championed Olmsted & Vaux. Rather remarkable it all got done. I’m just wondering what that 20th gate might have been. edlaing NEW YORK OBSERVED; Portals to the 19th Century - The New York Times The New York Times N.Y.

/ Region |NEW YORK OBSERVED; Portals to the 19th Century Search N.Y. / Region | NEW YORK OBSERVED NEW YORK OBSERVED; Portals to the 19th Century By BY REBECCA CHACE Continue reading the main story THERE are 20 gates to Central Park, but most people don't even know they exist. Probably not even the artist Christo, who late last month received permission from the city to swathe the park in 23 miles of billowing saffron-colored fabric for two weeks in February 2005. The project is called ''The Gates, Central Park, New York, 1979-2005.'' But what of Central Park's original gates? There is no charge for entering the park, and no turnstiles or gatehouses are visible as you walk through the openings in the low stone wall along its borders. But if you look closely, you will see that some entrances have names carved into the sandstone: Scholars' Gate, Hunters' Gate, Explorers' Gate.

The gates of Central Park represent one of the last battles fought by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, the park's designers, to realize their vision of a pastoral escape from the chaos of a rapidly growing metropolis. By the early 1860's, the nearly completed park was recognized as a masterpiece of landscape architecture. But some people thought the exemplars of high society who frequented the old park drives in their open carriages should be able to pass through tall, European-style gates, gates that reflected their place in the world. Olmsted, for his part, declared that ''an iron railing always means thieves outside or bedlam inside,'' and he was outraged by this attempt to go against the park's original design. As with so many New York stories, this one has to do with whom you know, or whom you are married to. The proposal for ornate, French urbanist-style gates at the park's southern entrance had been put forward by Richard M. Hunt, an eminent American architect trained in Paris who was, not insignificantly, the brother-in-law of a wealthy member of the commission that ran the park.

Hunt's proposal included an enormous plaza with a decorative fountain, curving stairways and a 50-foot-high Classical-style column. He also envisioned the park as housing many more buildings than originally planned. Continue reading the main story Olmsted and Vaux saw this as nothing less than an attack on everything their design was meant to accomplish. The European style symbolized the European monarchy, while the low walls and simplicity of the wilderness inside the park represented democracy and the American republic. Advertisement Continue reading the main story The park's two designers battled Hunt, ultimately blocking approval of his plans. Whether it was an ethical victory or one that was due to Park Comptroller Andrew H. Green's notoriously tightfisted decision-making is an open question. After all, it is a lot cheaper to carve some names into a wall than to build a plaza with a fountain. But what names! Warriors' Gate and Farmers' Gate at the north end of the park; Artists' Gate and Artisans' Gate at the south end. The names were chosen in 1862 by the park's commissioners to try to represent the people who might be using the park and their professions. Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address.

Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up Privacy Policy They represent a bygone era, and read almost like the chapter headings in a 19th-century primer. Yet while some seem abstractly poetic, others still resonate with the life inside the walls. Enter at the Children's Gate on Fifth Avenue near 76th Street: there is a playground, and if you wander between this gate and Inventors' Gate at West 72nd Street you will see the statues of Alice in Wonderland and Hans Christian Andersen. There is the model boat pond to conquer if you can ship aboard a vessel heading out to sea. For the space of one's childhood, perhaps, it is possible to believe in growing up to become an inventor. Opposite Merchants' Gate at Columbus Circle, it is eerily appropriate to see the new AOL Time Warner Center towering higher every day as a testament to the power of the American corporation. Strangers' Gate at 106th Street and Central Park West marks an entrance opposite the building we thought was a haunted castle when I was growing up in the neighborhood.

In fact, it was a hospital, then a nursing home, and now, after years of neglect, it is being turned into condominiums. But the construction isn't complete, and with pigeons roosting in its four turrets, it still looks like an abandoned castle. A black slate stairway leads into the park at Strangers' Gate, and to enter the park there is to enter a fairy tale: a wilderness welcoming all strangers, as Olmsted and Vaux intended. Though all the gates were named in the 19th century, most of them didn't receive their lettering until a few years ago. The former parks commissioner, Henry J. Stern, and the Central Park administrator, Doug Blonsky, took on finishing the carving of the names as part of the park's restoration, and the final inscription was completed in December 1999. Mr. Stern felt that since the names were a reminder of the city of nearly 150 years ago, they should not be changed. Of course, the naming was as imperfect as any democratic endeavor. There is no Clerks' Gate, a common profession at the time.

But there is also no Lawyers' Gate, Therapists' Gate or Computer Programmers' Gate. In fact, the gates exist only in the names. That moment of walking through them is as simple and significant as the moment a performer walks from the wings to the stage. An invisible line is crossed, and in that moment is the metamorphosis. A century and a half later there is no architecture, only poetry: Woodman's Gate, Mariners' Gate. The gates are there and not there. As Vaux put it at the time: ''How fine it would be to have no gates.'' 20 gates to Central Park [Archive] - Wired New York Forum Portals to the 19th Century By REBECCA CHACE THERE are 20 gates to Central Park, but most people don't even know they exist. Probably not even the artist Christo, who late last month received permission from the city to swathe the park in 23 miles of billowing saffron-colored fabric for two weeks in February 2005. The project is called "The Gates, Central Park, New York, 1979-2005." But what of Central Park's original gates?

There is no charge for entering the park, and no turnstiles or gatehouses are visible as you walk through the openings in the low stone wall along its borders. But if you look closely, you will see that some entrances have names carved into the sandstone: Scholars' Gate, Hunters' Gate, Explorers' Gate. The gates of Central Park represent one of the last battles fought by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, the park's designers, to realize their vision of a pastoral escape from the chaos of a rapidly growing metropolis. By the early 1860's, the nearly completed park was recognized as a masterpiece of landscape architecture. But some people thought the exemplars of high society who frequented the old park drives in their open carriages should be able to pass through tall, European-style gates, gates that reflected their place in the world. Olmsted, for his part, declared that "an iron railing always means thieves outside or bedlam inside," and he was outraged by this attempt to go against the park's original design. As with so many New York stories, this one has to do with whom you know, or whom you are married to.

The proposal for ornate, French urbanist-style gates at the park's southern entrance had been put forward by Richard M. Hunt, an eminent American architect trained in Paris who was, not insignificantly, the brother-in-law of a wealthy member of the commission that ran the park. Hunt's proposal included an enormous plaza with a decorative fountain, curving stairways and a 50-foot-high Classical-style column. He also envisioned the park as housing many more buildings than originally planned. Olmsted and Vaux saw this as nothing less than an attack on everything their design was meant to accomplish. The European style symbolized the European monarchy, while the low walls and simplicity of the wilderness inside the park represented democracy and the American republic. The park's two designers battled Hunt, ultimately blocking approval of his plans. Whether it was an ethical victory or one that was due to Park Comptroller Andrew H. Green's notoriously tightfisted decision-making is an open question. After all, it is a lot cheaper to carve some names into a wall than to build a plaza with a fountain. But what names! Warriors' Gate and Farmers' Gate at the north end of the park; Artists' Gate and Artisans' Gate at the south end.

The names were chosen in 1862 by the park's commissioners to try to represent the people who might be using the park and their professions. They represent a bygone era, and read almost like the chapter headings in a 19th-century primer. Yet while some seem abstractly poetic, others still resonate with the life inside the walls. Enter at the Children's Gate on Fifth Avenue near 76th Street: there is a playground, and if you wander between this gate and Inventors' Gate at West 72nd Street you will see the statues of Alice in Wonderland and Hans Christian Andersen. There is the model boat pond to conquer if you can ship aboard a vessel heading out to sea. For the space of one's childhood, perhaps, it is possible to believe in growing up to become an inventor. Opposite Merchants' Gate at Columbus Circle, it is eerily appropriate to see the new AOL Time Warner Center towering higher every day as a testament to the power of the American corporation. Strangers' Gate at 106th Street and Central Park West marks an entrance opposite the building we thought was a haunted castle when I was growing up in the neighborhood.

In fact, it was a hospital, then a nursing home, and now, after years of neglect, it is being turned into condominiums. But the construction isn't complete, and with pigeons roosting in its four turrets, it still looks like an abandoned castle. A black slate stairway leads into the park at Strangers' Gate, and to enter the park there is to enter a fairy tale: a wilderness welcoming all strangers, as Olmsted and Vaux intended. Though all the gates were named in the 19th century, most of them didn't receive their lettering until a few years ago. The former parks commissioner, Henry J. Stern, and the Central Park administrator, Doug Blonsky, took on finishing the carving of the names as part of the park's restoration, and the final inscription was completed in December 1999. Mr. Stern felt that since the names were a reminder of the city of nearly 150 years ago, they should not be changed. Of course, the naming was as imperfect as any democratic endeavor. There is no Clerks' Gate, a common profession at the time.

But there is also no Lawyers' Gate, Therapists' Gate or Computer Programmers' Gate. In fact, the gates exist only in the names. That moment of walking through them is as simple and significant as the moment a performer walks from the wings to the stage. An invisible line is crossed, and in that moment is the metamorphosis. A century and a half later there is no architecture, only poetry: Woodman's Gate, Mariners' Gate. The gates are there and not there. As Vaux put it at the time: "How fine it would be to have no gates." Rebecca Chace is completing her second novel, ï¿½Leaving Rock Harbor.ï¿½ NYatKNIGHT February 8th, 2003, 04:59 PM Olmsted and Vaux never cease to amaze.

RandySavage January 15th, 2008, 01:00 PM Merchants' Gate: Columbus Circle Artist's Gate in Central Park Artist's Gate Artist's Gate by PVE Statues of Jose San Martin, Simon Bolivar, and Jose Julian Marti stand guard at Artist's Gate, one of the original twenty gates leading into Central Park. Facing out onto Avenue of the Americas, Artist's Gate can be found at 59th street. Artist's Gate and others, such as Emigrant's Gate, Inventor's Gate, and more, were part of Olmsted and Vaux's original design plan. Sponsored Links Rejecting the opinion of architect Richard M. Hunt, who wanted large, ornate gates to mark Park entrances, the designers opted for a more natural looking style. Though these "gates" do not open and close like traditional gates, the simplicity of engraving each gate's name on the short wall surrounding the Park falls perfectly in line with the more humble and nature-central theme of the original design plan.

Share or Bookmark 1 of 29 By Kristin Conard A well-designed park is more than green space in the midst of a concrete jungle—it makes a city lovable and livable. The most beautiful combine meadows, woodlands, ponds, lakes, and streams with museums and other man-made attractions. At San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, as Catherine Nagel, executive director of the City Parks Alliance, describes it: “You can go from the entrance, with a lot of cultural institutions and a great botanical garden, and move through the park, and at the end, you find yourself at the ocean. The park connects a natural space to a built environment.” Parks also frequently bring world-class art out into the open. Park Güell, designed by Antoni Gaudí, overlooks Barcelona and is famous for a whimsical design and vibrant mosaics. Or consider the contemporary Civic Space Park in Phoenix, which opened in 2009 with a multimillion-dollar art installation by Janet Echelman. Her sinuous, weblike sculpture in the sky moves in the wind, and at night, lights up in a changing array of colors; it has helped invigorate the downtown area.

For city dwellers and tourists alike, an urban park becomes a shared backyard. “It’s a place to meet friends; it’s a place to have celebrations with families if you’re in small apartments, say in New York,” says Setha Low, director of the Public Space Research Group and author of Rethinking Urban Parks: Public Space and Cultural Diversity. While New York has plenty of award-winning parks, Central Park remains the biggest crowd-pleaser, with a staggering 40 million annual visitors. “There are thousands upon thousands of people who have special memories of the park,” says Low. “It accommodates this incredible range of humanity.” In Paris, a visit to the hillside Parc des Buttes-Chaumont, a locals’ favorite in the 19th Arrondissement, is a chance to escape the tourist crowds among a haven of winding, tree-lined pathways, waterfalls, and ponds. Indeed, for Alain de Botton, author of The Architecture of Happiness, an urban park’s ultimate importance is in allowing us to step away from the rush.

“In the midst of a busy city, a park becomes quite literally an oasis and a tree can bring about an epiphany no less intense than a beautiful painting.” Sponsored Content Central Park Entrances in a Return to the Past - The New York Times The New York Times N.Y. / Region |Central Park Entrances in a Return to the Past Search Continue reading the main story In 1862, the Board of Commissioners of Central Park, then still under construction, decided to name the park's 18 entrances after some of the diverse characteristics of the city's citizens. So it came to be that the entryways were given names like Artisans', Engineers', Farmers', Hunters' and Mariners'. But the entrances were never labeled. While official maps dutifully took note of the names, New Yorkers would eventually come to refer to the entrances by the adjacent streets. Today, that will officially change, when the city and the Central Park Conservancy, the private group that manages the park, unveil letters chiseled tastefully into the stone walls. Unlike all the other recent physical restorations in the park, this one revives an idea that was never carried out, although the names are in many cases decidedly anachronistic now.

''It will add new historic charm,'' said Sara Cedar Miller, the park's official historian. Elizabeth Barlow Rogers -- who, as the first administrator of Central Park, led the rescue of a park that had badly deteriorated by the early 1980's -- said naming things was a passion of the Victorians who created the park. She also noted that signs had grown in importance in today's world. Continue reading the main story ''We're a very sign-driven culture,'' she said. The idea was hatched last summer during a meeting between Parks Commissioner Henry J. Stern and Doug Blonsky, the current Central Park administrator. They were looking at a map of the park the city sells for $4. It contained the gate names. Advertisement They immediately decided signs were a critical need. ''This has to be done,'' Mr. Blonsky remembers thinking. ''This is important.

This is a major historical thing.'' He noted, ''It was really interesting that it never happened.'' There are 18 original names in all: Artisans', Artists', Boys', Children's, Engineers', Farmers', Girls', The Gate of All Saints, Hunters', Mariners', Merchants', Miners', Pioneers', Scholars', Strangers', Warriors', Women's and Woodmen's. Only a few of the entrances already have signs, either as a result of improvements by Parks Commissioner Robert Moses in the 1950's, or more recent refurbishments by the conservancy. Those already labeled are Scholars' Gate at 60th Street and Fifth Avenue; Engineers' Gate at 90th Street and Fifth Avenue; Mariners' Gate at 85th Street and Central Park West; Inventors' Gate at 72nd Street and Fifth Avenue; Children's Gate at 64th Street and Fifth Avenue and the 76th Street Gate at Fifth Avenue. Mr. Moses added the 76th Street gate to the park, in the process violating an explicit proviso of the 1862 report by the park's commissioners. The commissioners believed that the entrances deserved more glory than just numerical street names.

''The monotonous numerical system used to distinguish the thoroughfares of New York is at once felt to be unsuitable for park use,'' the document said. Mr. Moses also changed the name of Children's Gate to Inventors' Gate. Just beyond this gate, a statue of Samuel F. B. Morse, the inventor of the telegraph, was added. A new Children's Gate was added near the park's zoo. Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up Privacy Policy Mr. Stern is known as a man who enjoys naming things. He has put up 300 historic signs in city parks explaining park names, as well as innumerable signs of the sycamore maple leaf, the Park Department emblem. He also makes frequent and involved ceremonies of presenting people with special park nicknames, with the total 6,300 and growing daily. ''Naming makes everything more important,'' Mr. Stern said. ''If a place has a name, you know what it is and you can refer to it.

A name is a signature.'' The names are being chiseled by hand into the existing stone walls by the sculptor Shi-Jia Chen. Most of the walls are of sandstone, but other stone is also used, such as the Tennessee pink marble at Merchant's Gate. Mr. Chen is being assisted by Blaine Maley, a conservancy employee who will then apply the skills to other restoration tasks. Advertisement Continue reading the main story The $45,000 cost of the project is being paid by the conservancy. As such, it fulfills the original idea of the commissioners in 1862, who explicitly said the city should not foot the bill for gate signs. ''It can scarcely be considered within the proper scope of the commissioners to provide out of the park funds, artistic decoration of a really high character, at all the various entrances,'' the report said. ''An outlet may be readily left open for future effort in this direction by private subscription.'' The Landmarks Preservation Commission had to approve the project, an unusual process considering that when the agency gave the park landmark status in 1974, it required that the park be preserved exactly as it was then.

To grant approval, it had to reach back into the minds of the park's designers. The commission concluded that the proposal ''carries out what appears to have been the policy of the park's designers and early administrators.'' What is not known is the extent to which the park's original designers, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, figured in the naming of the gates. Ms. Cedar Miller found a citation in an 1864 book, ''The Central Park'' by Frederick B. Perkins, that referred to ''Mr. Vaux's artist's gate.'' Also, both designers were still employed as the park's architects at the time the original names were chosen. Ms. Cedar Miller thinks it unlikely the names would have been chosen if either man had objected. The old-fashioned nomenclature certainly sits well with today's park officials. ''Your gut just tells you this is important,'' Mr. Blonsky said. ''This is neat.'' 20 gates to Central Park New York City Guide For New Yorkers 20 gates to Central Park If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above.

You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. Results 1 to 3 of 3 20 gates to Central Park NEW YORK TIMES Portals to the 19th Century By REBECCA CHACE THERE are 20 gates to Central Park, but most people don't even know they exist. Probably not even the artist Christo, who late last month received permission from the city to swathe the park in 23 miles of billowing saffron-colored fabric for two weeks in February 2005. The project is called "The Gates, Central Park, New York, 1979-2005." But what of Central Park's original gates? There is no charge for entering the park, and no turnstiles or gatehouses are visible as you walk through the openings in the low stone wall along its borders. But if you look closely, you will see that some entrances have names carved into the sandstone: Scholars' Gate, Hunters' Gate, Explorers' Gate.

The gates of Central Park represent one of the last battles fought by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, the park's designers, to realize their vision of a pastoral escape from the chaos of a rapidly growing metropolis. By the early 1860's, the nearly completed park was recognized as a masterpiece of landscape architecture. But some people thought the exemplars of high society who frequented the old park drives in their open carriages should be able to pass through tall, European-style gates, gates that reflected their place in the world. Olmsted, for his part, declared that "an iron railing always means thieves outside or bedlam inside," and he was outraged by this attempt to go against the park's original design. As with so many New York stories, this one has to do with whom you know, or whom you are married to. The proposal for ornate, French urbanist-style gates at the park's southern entrance had been put forward by Richard M. Hunt, an eminent American architect trained in Paris who was, not insignificantly, the brother-in-law of a wealthy member of the commission that ran the park.

Hunt's proposal included an enormous plaza with a decorative fountain, curving stairways and a 50-foot-high Classical-style column. He also envisioned the park as housing many more buildings than originally planned. Olmsted and Vaux saw this as nothing less than an attack on everything their design was meant to accomplish. The European style symbolized the European monarchy, while the low walls and simplicity of the wilderness inside the park represented democracy and the American republic. The park's two designers battled Hunt, ultimately blocking approval of his plans. Whether it was an ethical victory or one that was due to Park Comptroller Andrew H. Green's notoriously tightfisted decision-making is an open question. After all, it is a lot cheaper to carve some names into a wall than to build a plaza with a fountain. But what names! Warriors' Gate and Farmers' Gate at the north end of the park; Artists' Gate and Artisans' Gate at the south end. The names were chosen in 1862 by the park's commissioners to try to represent the people who might be using the park and their professions. They represent a bygone era, and read almost like the chapter headings in a 19th-century primer.

Yet while some seem abstractly poetic, others still resonate with the life inside the walls. Enter at the Children's Gate on Fifth Avenue near 76th Street: there is a playground, and if you wander between this gate and Inventors' Gate at West 72nd Street you will see the statues of Alice in Wonderland and Hans Christian Andersen. There is the model boat pond to conquer if you can ship aboard a vessel heading out to sea. For the space of one's childhood, perhaps, it is possible to believe in growing up to become an inventor. Opposite Merchants' Gate at Columbus Circle, it is eerily appropriate to see the new AOL Time Warner Center towering higher every day as a testament to the power of the American corporation. Strangers' Gate at 106th Street and Central Park West marks an entrance opposite the building we thought was a haunted castle when I was growing up in the neighborhood. In fact, it was a hospital, then a nursing home, and now, after years of neglect, it is being turned into condominiums. But the construction isn't complete, and with pigeons roosting in its four turrets, it still looks like an abandoned castle.

A black slate stairway leads into the park at Strangers' Gate, and to enter the park there is to enter a fairy tale: a wilderness welcoming all strangers, as Olmsted and Vaux intended. Though all the gates were named in the 19th century, most of them didn't receive their lettering until a few years ago. The former parks commissioner, Henry J. Stern, and the Central Park administrator, Doug Blonsky, took on finishing the carving of the names as part of the park's restoration, and the final inscription was completed in December 1999. Mr. Stern felt that since the names were a reminder of the city of nearly 150 years ago, they should not be changed. Of course, the naming was as imperfect as any democratic endeavor. There is no Clerks' Gate, a common profession at the time. But there is also no Lawyers' Gate, Therapists' Gate or Computer Programmers' Gate. In fact, the gates exist only in the names. That moment of walking through them is as simple and significant as the moment a performer walks from the wings to the stage. An invisible line is crossed, and in that moment is the metamorphosis.

A century and a half later there is no architecture, only poetry: Woodman's Gate, Mariners' Gate. The gates are there and not there. As Vaux put it at the time: "How fine it would be to have no gates." Rebecca Chace is completing her second novel, ï¿½Leaving Rock Harbor.ï¿½ Women's Gate: Central Park West at West 72nd Street Explorers' Gate: CPW at West 77th Street Hunters' Gate: CPW at West 81st Street Mariners' Gate: CPW at West 85th Street All Saints' Gate: CPW at West 97th Street Boys' Gate: CPW at West 100th Street Strangers' Gate: CPW at West 106th Street Warriors' Gate: Central Park North at Adam Clayton Powell Blvd. (7th Avenue) Farmers' Gate: CPN at Malcolm X Blvd. (Lenox Ave.) Pioneers' Gate: Duke Ellington/James Frawley Circle at 5th Avenue Vanderbilt Gate (only gate named for a person): 5th Ave.

at East 106th Street Girls' Gate: 5th Avenue at East 102nd Street Woodmen's Gate: 5th Avenue at East 96th Street Engineers' Gate: 5th Avenue at East 90th Street Inventors' Gate: 5th Avenue at East 72nd Street Scholars' Gate: 5th Avenue at East 60th Street Artists' Gate: Central Park South at 6th Avenue Artisans' Gate: CPS at 7th Avenue

Question: Stranger’s Gate is an entrance to which world-famous park?
Answer: Central Park New York