Description
The hippies who famously turned up and tuned out in Washington Square Park are still there in spirit, and indeed often in person. In warmer months the park—which was once a potter’s field—is one of the best people-watching spots in the city, hummings with musicians and street artists, while skateboarders clatter near the base of the iconic 1895 Washington Arch (a modest replica of Paris’s Arc de Triomphe). The NYC Parks Department’s plans for a $16 million redesign is causing uproar among community activists; phase one, with a tentative completion date of spring 2009, involves restoration of the 1870s fountain and turning it into an ornamental showpiece—but, according to protestors, with sprays so strong no one could sit in or around it.