"They exist in memory."

"Perhaps another color would have been better."

Vera said this about Christo's "Gates" in Central Park. Also, that maybe she would like looking at the pictures of them more than actually walking amongst them.

David said that he loved the Christo's other projects, but that this one he was disappointed in. Too much clunky "gate" and not enough billowing fabric. Also, he was disappointed because he took one incredible picture of the Gates, "the best picture of them all", with his new digital phone, only to discover later that each new picture he took was overwriting the last one.

Gail drew over the second photo and called it "The Skirts". I am very disappointed that Gail is not going to see the Gates for herself. She has a list, and they're not on it, she said. She has her own ideas about things.



My Dad suggested they could recycle the fabric from the Gates into clothes. I told him it was some kind of industrial looking stuff. Perhaps nice waterproof capes for people.

They say it is saffron but it looks orange to me. One little girl interviewed in the Times thought maybe they should have been pale yellow, or a light blue to match her eyes.

I can't really imagine them anything but orange.
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These photos were taken by my other friend Gail, from a car. She didn't want to walk.

She said, "Seeing them from a slow moving car was like floating, almost like being in a gondola, with no relation to land, where you could spin and turn and see the world floating by. With the horse drawn carriages it made it seem last century and everyone seemed to be on one big adventure, kind of Dickensian for some reason."

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Some pictures by my friend Craig. We saw the same gates, but he saw them a little differently. So did his camera.
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I was a skeptic, but the Gates cheered me up as soon as I saw them, and was delighted again at each new turn in the walk. It was like when you come home one day, and someone has strung crepe paper all over the house, because it's your birthday. Everything is transformed.

While individually they are about as interesting as traffic cones, seeing them in their rank and file, with all the people everywhere walking through them ... walking all around the Park ... that's the thing.

What's great is how they are like a big orange highlighter over all the paths in the Park -- the paths are the genius of the Park. You can look out and say, oh, I've walked on that path over there, and in your mind's eye you know what it's like walking on that path, but at the same time you are seeing the whole path in perspective -- that is interesting. I hope I can remember this part of it when the Gates are gone.
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Rachel was away when the Gates went up. She wrote:

I'M SENDING YOU A VALENTINE, FROM THIS WASTELAND CALLED L.A.
HOW I LONG TO BE IN NEW YORK, WHERE WE WOULD RUN AND PLAY,
AMONGST THE ORANGE IN CENTRAL PARK, OR EVEN IN A BAR,
TO SIP A DRINK AND MUNCH ON NUTS, DIRECTLY FROM THE JAR.
WHATEVER YOUR STATUS BE TODAY, BETWEEN LOVERS, FRIENDS OR
MATES,
JUST KNOW THIS TRUTH, WITHOUT ANY DOUBT, I'D RATHER BE IN
"THE GATES!"

She got back here the day after the official closing, when they were still all up, and said afterwards, "I see what they were talking about."

Either I read it, or a tour guide told me, but it took many many years for the Cristo and Jean Claude to get approval for this project, it was always intended to be in winter so that the color and visibility of them would be best — and plus it would interfere least with everything else that goes on in Central Park — but also, that they would only be up for two weeks, forcing people to visit them in a compressed time period, making for bigger crowds, and a more intense, memorable experience.

My "Gates" Gallery on pBase.