#NYC’s failure to protect Columbus Circle for the public

Rich, poor or middle class, if you live in Manhattan, you depend on public parks for recreation. One sign that Gotham is failing at yet another task of keeping people with resources in the city: Columbus Circle Park has been barricaded to visitors for three hot months, and city officials can’t agree on who’s to blame.

For New Yorkers who stuck it out on the concrete island for pandemic summer, the only thing to do in town was to go outside. In a vague nod to the need for more public space, the de Blasio administration closed some roads to cars in favor of pedestrians and cyclists and let restaurants operate on the street.

But what is the point of creating new — and highly imperfect — asphalt parks, if we aren’t going to use the parks we have?

Columbus Circle Park, at the northwestern tip of Midtown, is a prime example. It’s a fine gateway to Central Park, a place to sit and enjoy the quieting and cooling impact of the circular fountain. Kids and dogs splash in the water, and teens skateboard.

It’s also an important pedestrian thoroughfare, allowing people a shortcut through busy traffic.

Fifteen years ago, the city ­acknowledged the park’s importance, completing a $23 million renovation, including the benches and fountains. “For much of its history, Columbus Circle was neither a circle nor a good public space,” said then-Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe. But now, “a multi-agency ­effort has created one of New York’s great new public plazas.”

And, it worked — until now.

After the George Floyd protests turned into criminal riots in late May, the park was closed, guarded by multiple layers of metal gates and police officers idling around the clock in SUVs.

Yes, vandals have their eye on the Columbus statue atop a three-story pillar, just as they have toppled Columbus statues around the country. But that is no reason to close the park. The city that kept Times Square and Rockefeller Center open to hundreds of thousands of daily visitors despite near-constant terrorist threats after 9/11 shouldn’t respond to a few thrill-seeking brats by closing off a marquee public space.

It sends a bad signal: A few dozen organized people, with a chain and some spray-paint, could close off any public space indefinitely.

This isn’t the only public space New York has given up on. ­Absurdly, the city canceled its “Summer Streets” program, during which it closes Park Avenue for Saturdays in August so that people can walk and cycle. If there was ever a summer we needed Summer Streets, this was it.

The privately managed Lincoln Center public plaza has also been closed for months. That’s more understandable, as the non-profit arts groups that manage the plaza have no revenues coming in. But it’s a little stinging, considering that the city used tax dollars to demolish an entire West Side neighborhood for Lincoln Center six decades ago, supposedly for the broad public interest, not just for classical-music lovers.

Now that the public needs the plaza, it has proved to be just an expendable intermission amenity for operagoers.

Who’s responsible? In the case of Columbus Circle, just finger-pointers. The Parks Department, in response to a question about whether or when it will reopen the park, told me to “please contact NYPD.” And the NYPD says, “The park is closed and locked by the Parks Department. Please be referred to them.”

Jurisdictional pass-the-buck is common. That’s why you need a mayor who cares about a livable city. This mayor has always airily been contemptuous of Manhattan, because there might be some billionaires lurking about (by the way, they’re out of town).

And he doesn’t like anything that smacks of his predecessor’s successes, such as the Columbus Circle renovation and Summer Streets.

Meanwhile, the private sector — which Hizzoner hates — is doing its best. At Rockefeller Center, Tishman Speyer is doing an admirable job of trying to generate socially distanced foot traffic in the private plaza it manages, with carefully spaced tables and chairs, seasonal flower replantings, to-go outdoor food and lively music.

One would have thought a supposed socialist would care about public space — but for now, mid-Manhattanites must turn to the capitalists for fresh air.

Nicole Gelinas is a contributing editor of City Journal. Twitter: @NicoleGelinas