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The Gates is a site-specific art installation by Christo and Jeanne-Claude. The artists installed 7,503 metal "gates" along 23 miles (37 km) of pathways in Central Park in New York City. From each gate hung a flag-shaped piece of deep saffron-colored nylon fabric. The exhibit ran from February 12, 2005 through February 27, 2005.
The books and other memorabilia distributed by Christo and Jeanne-Claude refer to the project as The Gates, Central Park, New York, 1979-2005 in reference to the time that passed from the artists' initial proposal until they were able to go ahead with it.
The Gates were greeted with mixed reactions. Some people loved them for brightening the bleak winter landscape; others hated them, accusing them of defacing the landscape. Some cyclists saw them as an obstruction which could cause accidents, although cycling is not legal on those paths. They received a great deal of their nationwide fame as a frequent object of ridicule by David Letterman as well as Keith Olbermann, whose apartment was nearby.
Construction and cost
The total materials used according to the artists were 5,390 tons of steel, 315,491 feet (96 km) of vinyl tubing, 99,155 square metres of fabric, and 15,000 sets of brackets and hardware. The gates were assembled in a 25,000 square foot (2,300 m²) Long Island facility, then shipped to Central Park. The textiles were produced in Germany.
As one of the conditions for use of the park space, the bases rested upon, but remained unattached to, the walkways, so that no holes were drilled and no permanent changes were made to the park.
The artists sold pieces of their own artwork, including designs for The Gates, to finance the project.
They offered a cost of $21 million, but have refused to explain the figure. Greg Allen and the New York Times attempted to itemize the costs and could account for about $5-10 million, given reasonable estimates for parts, labor, and costs related to the staffing of the installation.
Installation
On January 3, 2005, work began on the installation of the project.
During the week of January 17, the park filled with workers using forklift vehicles to move the rectangular metal plates into position all over Central Park.
There were small signs placed on every walkway in the park with alphanumeric codes which the workers used to place the metal plates onto the designated spots.
By January 27, most of the rectangular metal plates were positioned. Many had small orange plastic markers sticking up a foot or two (around half a meter) from each end, possibly intended to help people find the base plates if they were covered with snow. A major snow storm on January 22 and extreme cold hampered progress.
As of February 7, many teams of workers, wearing silver grey smocks, moved the vertical parts of the gates, and attached them to the base plates. The documentation describes the color as saffron but many local observers described it as orange.
The attached vertical pieces were 16 feet (4.877 m) high, with a crossbar at the top from which the flag pieces were unfurled. The most common width seems to have been 11 feet (3.35 m) although the width varied, depending on the width of the path, from 5 feet 6 inches to 18 feet.
Address
The Central Park Conservancy
14 East 60th Street
New York, NY 10022
212-310-6600
Central Park Posters
Directions
The Park can be reached by subway on the East Side on the number 4, 5, 6 trains and the 1, 2, 3, 4 buses on 5th Ave. On the West Side you can take the A, B, C,and D trains and the M10 bus.
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