Johanna Kelly-Activity #3

Johanna Kelly
Activity #3- Public vs. Private
For this activity, I decided to visit the Gramercy Park on 18th street between Park and Third Avenue. Even though this park is located on the street where the entire public can see it, the park is actually private. This means that it is private property that can be only owned by certain people. The public is not eligible to go inside Gramercy Park and sit there like other parks allow us to. A tall gate circulates the entire park and is closed with a lock. Thus, only people with a key to the park are allowed to go inside. This indicates that the park is a private place located here in midtown Manhattan. Even though the streets are open to the public, the park is not.
The park appeared to be very elegant and not like every other park you see here in the city. The gates around the park looked very rich and they had a lock on the entrance gate. However, you could see through the gates and observe what was going inside the park. This park reminded me more of a garden because it had a lot of open plant spaces. I could imagine how much flowers there must be in the summer. There were benches in the park but they were empty. Because it was a cold day, there were not so many people hanging out in the park. However, you could tell that the people that were in the park were of a high middle class. I spotted two elderly ladies sitting on the benches and they were dressed in long coats with fur collars. They were talking amongst themselves; however their volume was very low. Thus, I interpreted that they were of a higher class just because they were so proper and how they were interacting with each other. They were sitting on the bench with great posture. Therefore, I knew that those ladies were of a higher class and could be able to afford going to a private park.
It was very interesting to me how something like a park could be even considered a private spot. Usually, when I think of walking on the street, I perceive everything as public because everyone is entitled to walking where they wish. However, everybody does not have access to Gramercy Park. In the book, The Geography of Nowhere, James Howard Kunstler states, “But it only made sense as something that ordered the relationship between the yard and the sidewalk. The wooden prickets had meaning only in the relation to the spaces between them, which allowed a person on the street to see through the fence and yet still be informed that the private yard beyond it was a separate place from the public street” (Kunstler, 250). This quote evidently connects back to the separation of Gramercy Park and the public sidewalk/streets. Even though it is titled as park, it could also be considered as a private yard that is separated from the “public street.” In suburban areas, the people’s homes and yards are considered private spaces. However, right over the fence/gate, is a street/sidewalk and that is already considered to be public. As I was looking at the park through the gate, I felt as if I was watching someone sitting in his/her yard. This activity was very interesting to see how private areas do exist in city streets and sidewalks.