Thomas Hoving and New York City Parks

Thomas Hoving died last Thursday, December 10th.

Most obituaries focused on his successful decade-long tenure as the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he enlivened the museum world by treating art exhibitions like movie extravaganzas. His 1969 "Harlem on my Mind" exhibit brought both multimedia pieces and political controversy to the Met unlike any previous exhibit in its history, while the 1975 King Tut tour he organized is still remembered today. How many museum exhibitors can say that 30 years later?

But the New York Times has also been heaping praise on his short reign as New York City park commissioner under Mayor John Lindsay. One Op-Ed even recommends a revival of his "Vest Pocket Park" program.

He was certainly an innovative commissioner. Replacing the dictatorial Robert Moses, Hoving claimed he wanted to take the "No" out of park signs. He created "Hoving Happenings" such as a massive game of capture the flag in Central Park, and a blank 105-foot canvas provided along with free paint for the open expression of children and adults. He lamented the then ubiquitous playgrounds, "the black-topped, link fenced asphalt prison, that standard architecture that has made the W.P.A style the longest art style of the 20th century," and demanded innovative design instead of the typical "swing, slide and sandbox stereotype."

Many of his innovations, however, have not stood the test of time.

Although the Times traced the vest pocket parks back to Jacob Riis, Hoving himself said the program was really an anti-riot and anti-crime measure, created to "keep their [black kids'] fucking minds off getting drugs and shooting each other." Instead of lowering crime, however, there is evidence the vest pocket parks exacerbated it.

It is widely acknowledged today that the money Hoving spent on vest pocket parks and Happenings redirected funds from basic upkeep and led to a rapid deteroration of New York's park system. The hundreds of vest pocket parks he created were too dispersed for supervision or regular maintenence, and within months they began to collect refuse and criminal activities. Alexander Garvin's book American City states that due to his sudden departure to the Met "Hoving never had to face the sad results of his program," which left the city with a dozens of scattered 20 by 100 sized parks that only collected garbage along with a dangerous maintenence backlog.

Yet Hoving's policies were continued and even amplified by his successor, a limousine liberal in the classic mold named August Heckscher. Heckscher actively celebrated the chaos in the park system created by Hoving's lax disciplinary policies and unconcern for upkeep. To the middle class complaining about deteriorating parks he said "If a citizen's priority goes to clean sidewalks, safe streets and polite salesclerks, he should move to a[nother] place that is content to be safe, clean, and polite." He celebrated New York City for having "the most flamboyant street gangs, the most brazen graffiti, and the most sophisticated pimps of any large city." He shockingly claimed that vandalism "was simply a way in which certain elements of my constituency used the parks. It was a form of recreation. Some people liked to sit on benches; other like to tear them up. As commissioner, I would have to accommodate myself to both types." He also said most vandals were merely attempting "to rectify an error in design or conception."

Not surprisingly, with a park commissioner who actively condoned graffiti, crime, filth, and destruction, New York's parks hit a new and terrifying nadir.

In 1971 a New York Times op-ed lamented the suddenly sordid condition of Central Park as it had evolved under Hoving and Heckscher: "In the last few years, vast areas of trodden earth havse spread like mange across the hills and hollows of listless grass...Litter overflows the baskets near the foodstands. Broken glass glints in the rocks where mica once glittered." One writer described the aftermath of a "Hoving Happening" as looking like the bathroom of a commuter train.

The vest pocket park program so celebrated under Hoving and Heckscher was suspended in 1979 after Mayor Koch came to power, and his administration sold many of the now weed-strewn lots to neighboring homeowners for mere pittances. Under Operation Green Thumb about 700 vest pocket parks were leased to become neighborhood gardens. Koch's administration also finally funded much-needed park maintenance and began to put some of those old-fashioned "Nos" back into park signs. Perhaps most importantly, Koch began the gradual transfer of Central Park's upkeep to the non-profit Central Park Conservancy, which now maintains and operates the entire park. It is today a widely admired model of privatization that has kept the park in near sterling condition for almost two decades.

Although Hoving did open up the parks to the public and accelerated some original design policies, it has taken over 20 years to undue most of the damage his short-sighted policies created. It is well to remember that along with all the eulogies.