In Central Park on Tuesday, "the Gates" looks more like a New Deal program than anything else. Seventy-three teams are out there erecting posts and tightening down bolts, with strict instructions to make way for pedestrians who happen by. That was part of the deal Christo and Jeanne-Claude made with the city.
"If an old woman comes by with her poodle, they must stop work," Jeanne-Claude explains.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude, his wife and collaborator, will unfurl their latest fabric-based artwork, "The Gates: Central Park, New York, 1979-2005," on Saturday.
(Wolfgang Volz - The City Of New York Via AP)
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At the head of this army of workers is Vince Davenport, a general contractor from Washington state who has overseen several other Christo projects. "The Gates" was feasible only after Davenport figured out how to avoid digging 15,000 holes in Central Park, which was the original idea and which Davenport knew would never fly with the keepers of the park. He also designed the orange gates, which would have been potentially lethal weapons if made out of steel. After visiting a horse farm near his home, and noting the sturdy vinyl fence around the perimeter, he'd found his material.
"I thought that fence must be made out of strong stuff, and it was five or six feet high," says Davenport, who is sitting in what looks like command central, a trailer near the Central Park boathouse. "So I called the company that made the fence and asked what would happen if you built something 16 feet high. And they said, 'We've never tried it.' "
Davenport ordered some of the material and started to tinker. His design is a minor engineering marvel -- strong enough to withstand the wind, easy to assemble. All the while, he had to negotiate the constraints presented by the park itself.
"It's a logistical nightmare," he says. "No truck can go in or out of this place without a park employee. And we had 260 semi-trucks delivering material here."
Inevitably, there have been glitches. A team on the west side didn't get enough parts; there were distribution issues with nuts and bolts; the other night, someone vandalized some posts.
"That upset the Christos greatly," Davenport says. "I had to spend my whole morning putting out fires, trying to find security people. All the buzz I should have had that day was gone."
When it's all over, he says, the gates will be recycled. Nothing is for sale. Those are the wishes of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Davenport says. They think it's crass to sell off their work once it's been displayed. Together the gates are a work of art, goes the theory; separately they're nothing more than souvenirs.
About a half-mile away, a media trailer is set up, ready for the onslaught of journalists. There's not much in there except two tables, a water cooler, a few employees and some laptop computers. But it gets a lot more crowded when, without warning, a chauffeured silver Maybach pulls up and out pop none other than Christo and Jeanne-Claude.
It's a pit stop during a trip to check on progress. They sweep into the trailer, looking ecstatic.
"I'm very excited," Christo reports, grinning like a kid.
Then Jeanne-Claude looks around the room and gets serious.
"I don't think I like the layout," she says.
You can't help but notice that her hair is colored almost exactly the same shade as "the Gates." She thinks the trailer would seem more spacious if the tables were in different positions. Soon everyone in the room is lifting and pulling and heaving and unplugging. Christo grabs one end of a table and tugs. He wants the water cooler moved, too.
In two frenetic minutes, the place has been transformed. "I think it's more room now, right?" says Jeanne-Claude. Everyone nods. It actually is an improvement.
It seems a little odd that these two are here rearranging the furniture, while hundreds of workers are outside renovating the entire park. But if it takes demonic energy to pull off an event like "the Gates," this little episode of "Trading Spaces" proves that Christo and Jeanne-Claude have it. In spades.
Five minutes later, they jump into the Maybach and drive away, leaving only the smell of garlic in their wake.
