Central Park

The Daily Plant : Thursday, October 26, 2000

CITY COLLEGE HONORS ALUMNUS HENRY J. STERN FOR HIS OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTION TO NEW YORK CITY

Photo by Malcolm (Cinema) Pinckney

CITY COLLEGE HONORS ALUMNUS HENRY J. STERN FOR HIS OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTION TO NEW YORK CITY

It is the charge of city parks to be free and open to all New Yorkers, and it is their unique ability to shrink the city, to create a sense of belonging and familiarity. That is also the responsibility of City College, to unite diverse individuals and energize them with knowledge. Recognizing this link in missions, City College awarded Commissioner Henry J. (StarQuest) Stern the Finley Award yesterday for the outstanding contribution he has made to New York City. The evening afforded the Commissioner a chance to reflect on past accomplishments and his relationship to the city of New York-his birthplace and his workplace.

StarQuest has served as Parks Commissioner under Edward I. Koch and Rudy W. Giuliani, endeavoring with them to keep Parks healthy and growing now and into the future. In his 14 years as Commissioner, Parks has acquired 2,698.84 acres of parkland. In order to maximize the attention each of those acres receives, Parks has incorporated private entities to care for and improve them, the largest and most prominent of the park conservancies is the Central Park Conservancy. One of the parks that has received reviving attention is City College's neighbor, St. Nicholas Park. Since 1995, Parks and City College have partnered in organizing weeklong clean-up Green Up events in the park, and also staged a Historic Harlem concert series there.

To see the city through the lens of public institutions like Parks and City College, is to see a city that welcomes all people and unites them with a sense of geographic belonging, of intellectual or social community. The Commissioner affirmed the importance of Parks and public institutions of learn as he gratefully accepted his award.

THIRTEEN YEARS AGO IN THE PLANT
(Thursday, October 29, 1987)

WISTERIA PERGOLA IN CENTRAL PARK DEDICATED

Imagine this scene: As you sit beneath the shade provided by vines with such wistful names as wisteria and honeysuckle, you watch the world go by. Families promenade on a formal mall and musicians serenade passersby. That was Olmsted and Vaux's 1863 vision when they designed Central Park's Wisteria Pergola, located mid-park at 72nd Street: and the Parks designers who have just completed a $185,000 rehabilitation of the formerly dilapidated and sagging Pergola have remained true to that vision.

QUOTATION FOR THE DAY

Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of American had better learn baseball, the rules and realities of the game.

Jacques Barzun (b.1907)