City Hall Park

The Daily Plant : Thursday, November 2, 2000

TIME STARTS AT MILLENIUM PARK

Photo by Malcolm (Cinema) Pinckney

TIME STARTS AT MILLENIUM PARK

At 11:40 A.M. Wednesday morning, a new clock, cast in a 19th century mold, was dedicated to philanthropist David Rockefeller at Millenium Park, a green space at the southern tip of City Hall Park. Present at the ceremony were Mayor Rudy (Eagle) Giuliani, Commissioner Henry J. (StarQuest) Stern, honored guest, David Rockefeller, and Robert Douglas, Chairman of the Downtown Alliance.

Though not millenial in size, the park, located at the threshold of New York's historic Financial District and City Hall Park, is a frontier. It was therefore deemed an appropriate site for a symbol that will broadcast the quick-ticking rhythm of Downtown Manhattan and underscore it's bustling forward motion. It is a fitting place to dedicate "Millenium Clock" to David Rockefeller, who was head of the Chase and the Downtown Lower Manhattan Association for 35 years. Mr. Rockefeller, like the second hand of a timepiece, has been unceasing in his efforts to improve the neighborhood.

It was once the case in the city that never sleeps that the financial district turned out the lights at 6:30 p.m. In recent years, the City, Parks, and the Downtown Alliance have worked to bring new energy to the neighborhood; they've helped ensure that the pulse doesn't pause when the workday ends. Today workers stick around to see the small hand reach the nine. They stay later at work and move into residences in the neighborhood. As the geographic boundaries between workplace and living space blur, City Hall Park and Millenium Park within it are poised to serve as recreation center, and timekeeper to the district.

StarQuest expressed warm wishes for the clock's future: "Cities are known by their clocks. London has Big Ben and now New York has the Millenium Clock. May it run peacefully for at least 1,000 years."

THIRTEEN YEARS AGO IN THE PLANT
(Thursday, November 5, 1987)

FIVE X FIVE' UPDATE: BROOKLYN'S FORT GREENE PARK LEFT SPIC AND SPAN

Over 60 Parks workers recently mobilized for a massive 5x5 Clean-Up of 30.2-acre Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn. The two week project began on Tuesday, October 13, as workers pruned trees and shrubs, repaved blacktop, concrete and brick surfaces, rebuilt broken walls and stairs and used state-of-the-art sandblasting equipment to remove graffiti from monuments and stone walls. In addition, Parkies removed 100 cubic yards of debris, as they weeded and swept over $230,000 square feet of paved surfaces and used 170 gallons of paint to spruce up over 52,000 square feet of benches, lamposts and fences.

"Autumn is especially beautiful this year at Fort Greene Park," said Brooklyn Parks Commissioner Julius Spiegel. "Thanks to the outstanding efforts of our work crews, under the direction of Brooklyn Deputy Chief of Operations Walter Mead and APRM David Jacobowitz the park looks 100% better.

GREAT 20TH CENTURY THINKERS' REFLECTIONS ON TIME

A proliferation of perspectives "Time is the substance from which I am made.
Time is a river which carries me along, but
I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but
I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me,
but I am the fire.

Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986)

"We must use time as a tool, not as a couch."

John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)

"For tribal man space was the uncontrollable mystery.
For technological man it is time that occupies the same role."

Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980)