America's Billionaires Are Turning Public Parks Into Playgrounds

for the Wealthy

newrepublic.com/article/120909/barry-dillers-pier-55-park-how-money-changing-city-parks

2/1/2015

Pier55, inc./Heatherwick Studio

By Inga Saron

February 2, 2015

Its no picnic to run a public park these days. Look at Manhattans Pier 54. Once the launching point for ocean liners,
the pier was incorporated into Hudson River Park in the late 80s and turned into an event space. But its underwater
pilings were rotting, and four years ago it had to be shut down. The Hudson River Park Trust, the public agency that
oversees a four-mile stretch of waterfront, had no money for repairs; it receives no public funding for its operations,
even though its collection of ballelds, athletic facilities, and footpaths are the go-to recreation space for residents of
Manhattans West Side. Madelyn Wils, the Trusts president and CEO, had kept the parks assortment of piers open
largely with private contributions, but she knew Pier 54s pilings would require a big donation. I couldnt get any
interest from the state or city, she lamented. And there are not a lot of philanthropists out there willing to repair the
pilings.

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Wils approached the billionaire Barry Diller, the chairman of IAC. He was an obvious choice: His companys Frank
Gehry-designed headquarters in Chelsea overlooked Hudson River Park, and he and his wife, the fashion designer
Diane von Furstenberg, were the largest private benefactors of New Yorks much-celebrated High Line, just a
couple blocks away. But instead of handing Wils a check, Diller counteroered: Let him build a completely new park.
What was initially a plan for a modest events space ballooned, and pretty soon Diller was oering to bankroll a
miniature Central Park on an oshore platform called Pier 55. Designed by a top British architect, Thomas

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Heatherwick, the $130-million manmade island would be studded with groves of mature trees, walking paths, and
three performance spaces. Not only did Diller agree to donate over $100 million for Pier 55s construction, he
promised to fund the maintenance for 20 years and handle all the event bookings.

Barry Diller, the chairman of IAC, is donating $100 million to build Pier 55a 2.7-acre park on a
manmade island in the Hudson River. Pier55, inc./Heatherwick Studio

Given the spectacular green oasis that Heatherwick has conjured up, it may seem petty to look this particular gift
horse in the mouth. But the billionaires island, as some New Yorkers have called the project, is the latest, most
extreme example of how big money and business elites are warping the way Americas urban parks are funded,
widening the amenities gap between rich and poor neighborhoods. Until the 1980s, upkeep of Americas urban
parks was mainly the responsibility of city parks departments. But as the crises of the 1960s and 1970s hollowed out
municipal budgets, public spaces were increasingly neglected. Elegant limestone balustrades crumbled, and grati
ran wild as kudzu. Urban parks became scary, unsafe places. The deterioration of those public spaces was a big
factor in driving people out of American cities.

There is no doubt that the urban comeback that weve witnessed over the last decade, especially in cities like
Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Dallas, and New York, has been fueled by the work of independent park managers
private-public partnerships that invite civic and business interests to help manage public spaces. New Yorks
Central Park Conservancy was the rst to demonstrate how an independent manager could transform a no-go zone
back into a civilized greensward. The turnaround, which started in 1980, was dramatic, and now cities all over the
country are copying the Central Park model. These independent managers, which are seen as more eet-footed
and entrepreneurial than sclerotic city bureaucracies, and more adept at courting wealthy donors, take a multitude
of forms. Some are purely citizen-driven, like friends groups and conservancies. Others are run by big institutions
and real-estate interests, usually business improvement districts and nonprot development corporations. Whatever

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theyre called, independent park managers are now a major economic development force remaking and gentrifying
cities. The arrangement almost feels like were getting something for nothing. Cities no longer have to dip into their
tax revenues for upkeep, yet they retain ownership of the land.

New Yorkers are generally blas about billionaires showering money on their city, yet many were astonished when
Diller and the Trust rolled out a fully formed plan for Pier 55 in November. Public parks, of course, have always
relied on the kindness of wealthy patrons. Central Park was originally championed by New Yorks nineteenth-
century nance barons, whose descendants moved into palatial residences overlooking the treetops. Donors paid
for nearly half the cost of building the $490 million Millennium Park in Chicago. Three years ago, a hedge fund
manager gave $100 million to Central Park. The dierence between that donation and Dillers is that Central Park is
an existing city park, used by millions. Dillers latest gift underwrites a new park that New York hadnt intended to
build, at least not in so sumptuous a form.

Pier55, inc./Heatherwick Studio

The ip side of such philanthropy has been the starvation of the public sector, which nds it ever harder to raise
taxes for urban amenities. Its nice that we have all these well-to-do people who want to provide resources. But lets
not forget they have all this extra money because theyre not being taxed as they should, says Deborah J. Glick,
who represents the Chelsea neighborhood in the state assembly, and has been Pier 55s most vocal critic. Jerold
Kayden, a Harvard urban planning professor who studies privately owned public spaces, says weve reached a
point where philanthropists can sculpt the city for themselves.

Meanwhile, New York struggles to maintain hundreds of small, neighborhood parks where kids scramble on
playground equipment or shoot hoops on the basketball court. Just a month before the Diller announcement, Mayor
Bill de Blasio traveled to one such asphalt playground in Queens to trumpet a new initiative to repair 35 aging parks
in New Yorks poorest neighborhoods. The total allocation? One hundred-thirty million dollars, the same amount
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being spent on Dillers island. Many feel de Blasios infusion isnt nearly enough. A new report by the Trust for Public
Land notes that independent managers arent an option for poor neighborhoods. They have no rich donors to tap.
Hence, the enormous gap in quality between rich and poor city neighborhoods.

Hudson River Parks funding challenges will be familiar to many cities. Public spending on municipal parks has been
stagnant for decades. The operating budget for Philadelphias parks system has increased only marginally over the
last 30 years. So when Philadelphia wanted to renovate the park right on the doorstep of its magnicent Beaux Arts
city hall, it handed over management to a downtown business group. The 70s-era Dilworth Plaza had gone decades
without maintenance. Reeking of urine and carpeted with bird droppings, its largest constituency was unemployed
men. The only time it realized its true potential as a town square was when the Phillies won the World Seriesand
when it became the site of the Occupy protests in 2011. The city was only too happy to outsource the problem to the
Center City District, funded by Philadelphias corporate elite.

The group gave Dilworth an extravagant $55 million makeover (using signicant public funds). Now it is so regularly
programmed with corporate-sponsored activities and money-making concessions that there is almost no space to
hold a demonstration. When Philadelphians gathered last November to protest the grand jury decision in Ferguson,
Missouri, they were funneled into a wedge of space between the new skating rink and the lawn. Chanting was
drowned out by a Zamboni that continued to circle the rink. It was almost as if it were designed to forestall another
Occupy-style takeover. Yet, except for grumbling from a few pesky design critics, most have raved about the
changes, especially the cleanliness and the programmed events.

Still, you cant deny that these groups have accomplished extraordinary things. Dallass popular new Klyde Warren
Park, which was built over a freeway canyon separating downtown from a key residential area, has dramatically knit
the city back together. The project was conceived and executed by the citys real estate community, which raised
nearly half of the $112 million budget. Because of concerns that it would be seen as a private park, city planners
insisted that the design process should engage a cross-section of residents in a meaningful way. The city was
constantly reminding us that this had to be a public park, and not a park built by elites for elites, said Linda Owen,
who helped get the project started and later became president of the Klyde Warren Foundation.

When I happened upon the park at lunchtime on a gorgeous November day, after slogging through Dallass eerily
empty downtown, I felt as if I had stumbled into a desert oasis. The place was packed with twentysomethings
playing volleyball, toddlers grouped around a pop-up library, and art patrons sipping wine at a sleek restaurant
pavilion. But the users were overwhelmingly auent, a mix of oce workers and stay-at-home moms, and by 2 p.m.
the place had emptied out. It seems to be more of a destination than a neighborhood park.

Kathy Blaha, a parks advocate who advises nonprots, believes there is a way for cities to avoid a two-tier system of
have-and-have-not parks. Instead of creating conservancies for individual parks, its time to create citywide
conservancies that can raise large sums and distribute them more equitably around the city. These conservancies
would act like a centralized clearinghouse and make funding decisions based on need. Just like our parks
departments used to do.

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