Washington Sq. Park Redesign Nemesis Appointed To Head Up Park & Conservancy

The new head of Washington Square Park is controversial Parks Department landscape architect George Vellonakis.  He was responsible for the controversial redesign of the park during the Bloomberg administration.   

  

Manhattan

By Geoffrey Croft

The irony.

George Vellonakis,  the much reviled Parks Department landscape architect behind the much vilified $ 30 million dollar renovation of Washington Square Park has been appointed to head up the historic park. 

He will simultaneously serve as both the park administrator, a city job, as well as the executive director of the private Washington Square Park Conservancy.

Mr. Vellonakis has stepped down as a landscape architect for the Parks Department after  more than 35 years. 

Friday was his last day in the capital division.  He starts Monday in his new positions.

His appointments will certainly ruffle a few feathers.

The then unlicensed landscape architect - but licensed real estate salesperson for Brown Harris Stevens  - was responsible for the controversial redesign of Washington Square Park during the Bloomberg administration.  (He has since gotten his landscape license after his lack of licensure became more wildly known)

The contentious renovation plan drew considerable public opposition.  Controversial elements included moving the fountain to align with the arch, (the fountain had been in the center of the park since 1870) reducing the size of the fountain,  eliminating the park's popular mounds, installing a wrought iron fence in order to close historic park at night, and the destruction of numerous trees.

The city was forced to make several concessions after community backlash. 

Unlicensed landscape architect George Vellonakis, and Manhattan Brough Commissioner Bill Castro holding up a rendering of the proposed fence at a public hearing on the Washington Sq. Park renovation plan.  The fence, which was to be used to close the park at night, was eliminated from the plan after public opposition.  (The Villager file photo)  

The park’s contentious nine year renovation was completed in 2014. 

The salary pays between 85,000 - 95,000 a year according to the Internal Job Vacancy Notice. 

His commute will not be a hardship as he lives four blocks from the park.

Vellonakis replaces Sarah Neilson, former chief of staff for Jonna Carmona-Graf,  Chief of Capital program management. Sarah left in 2016.

“I never lose my temper,” Vellonakis  told the NY Times in 2005.   

For months George was in the park’s maintenance building every Wednesday to discuss the design with the public. It was during this time that he was infamously caught by hidden camera speaking to a critic in rather unfriendly manner. (1:46 in)  

"We will pull our money, there won't be any design," he says in a contemptuous tone.

In 2008 the city was forced to pay $ 1 million dollars to fix a poorly designed sidewalk in City Hall Park after the Parks Department’s unlicensed landscape architect Vellonakis choose to use bluestone.  This despite being told by colleagues not to use that material because the surface was not appropriate - too slippery - and people might get hurt, which they did.

The forming of a conservancy for the park and its influence also raised the ire of the public.

The Parks Department worked behind the scenes to help form the private Washington Square Park Conservancy with the help of actor John Leguizamo’s wife, Justine, and socialite Veronica Bulgari. 

A year before the group publicly announced its formation plans in June 2013 Conservancy founder Elizabeth Ely was on the four person interview committee to decide the new Park Administrator and was instrumental in picking the city employee for the job.

Founding Washington Square Park Conservancy board members (from left) Justine Leguizamo, Gwen Evans, Veronica Bulgari and Elizabeth Ely.  The fledgling group had already succeeded in influencing public park policy even on which city employee to hire as Park Administrator a year before the group even presented themselves to the public for the first time on June 5, 2013.  (Photo: Geoffrey Croft/NYC Park Advocates.) 

The Executive Director job is subject to the approval of the Parks Commissioner and the Board of the Washington Square Park Conservancy. 

The duel role of city employees simultaneously holding a Park Administrator job while serving as the head of a non-profit affiliated with the same park has repeatedly raised conflict of interest issues.

Washington Square Park in 2013 after the renovation. 

Fence Repairs Finally Being Completed At City Hall Park

A section of the cracked granite fence base. Workers have finally begun replacing broken granite curbs and fence posts around City Hall and its four-acre park - seven years after the city sued Barney Skanska Construction Co. and its subcontractors who installed them. The park was renovated during the Giuliani administration. (Photo: Chad Rachman/NewYork Post)

Under a settlement finally reached this year taxpayers will not be on the hook for the estimated $1.1 million in repair costs.

Unfortunately the taxpayers weren't so lucky on another part of the City Hall Park renovation project. In February 2008 crews started blasting the sidewalks that surround the entire park including City Hall with a blowtorch - "thermal roughening," to burn away the slippery top layer of stone.

In 2008 the city was forced to pay $ 1 million dollars to fix a poorly designed sidewalk after a Parks Department's then unlicensed landscape architect choose to use bluestone.

According to several city sources controversial parks landscape architect - and real estate agent - George Vellonakis was repeatedly told not to use that material by colleagues because the material was too slippery and people might get hurt.

Beginning in at least 2002 the city's legal department had known about the problem after lawyer Steven Kartagener slipped on a rainy, leaf-covered slab in November 2002 and tore the meniscus and ligaments in his knee.

He filed a notice of claim against the city, but did not file suit. However, a woman who slipped on ice and snow there in 2002 sued for her injuries and won a $15,000 settlement, according to the New York Daily News from a story broke by NYC Park Advocates.

The City however didn't bother to get around to thinking it was a problem worth fixing until late 2007 when Mayor Bloomberg watched several people - including two staffers - slip and fall on rainy days.

"He walked in and said, 'What are we doing about this?'" said mayoral spokesman Jason Post. "Then he made a call."

Two months later the comptroller's office gave the Parks Department an emergency safety exemption to have a contractor do the work quickly.

However Mr. Vellonakis and former Parks Commissioner Henry Stern's mistake doesn't just end there. The city has installed unsightly metal riot barriers in the southern end of the park around the beautiful historic relief on the ground in order to protect the public from being injured further. They city can not file down the bluestone without destroying the relief which depicts the parks history. - Geoffrey Croft

City Hall Park. The city has installed unsightly metal riot barricades in the southern end of the park around the beautiful historic relief inlaid in the ground to protect the public from being injured on the slippery stone material.

Manhattan

The cracks at the seat of government are finally getting fixed.

Workers have begun replacing broken granite curbs and fence posts around City Hall and its four-acre park -- seven years after the city sued the contractors who installed them when the park was renovated by the Giuliani administration, according to the New York Post.

“The damage includes major cracking, chipping, spalling and water damage,” the city charged in a lawsuit filed in 2004 against Barney Skanska Construction Co. and its subcontractors.

“The damage will continue to undermine the security and integrity of the fence, causing a public safety hazard.”

Repair costs were estimated at $1.1 million.

It took a while, more than two-thirds of the Bloomberg administration’s occupancy, but a settlement was finally reached this year to replace the rotted posts at no cost to taxpayers, officials said.

Henry Stern, who served as former Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s Parks commissioner, said it shouldn’t come as a surprise that glitches developed in the $28.6 million City Hall Park project.

“If you do it nicely, there’s likely to be more problems than when you do a garden-variety job,” he said. “It’s more complicated.”

The redesigned park opened to rave reviews in October 1999. The iron fence was cast as an exact replica of an 1820s original, which was found surrounding a cemetery in upstate Bloomingburg.

Unfortunately, a decision was also made to replace the concrete sidewalk around the park with glossy stone slabs.

They became slick when rained or snowed upon.

After several people slipped and fell, the Parks Department allocated $1 million in 2008 to “thermally roughen” the sidewalk using heating devices. That pretty much ended the slips and falls.

Large bluestones intended to grace the entranceway to City Hall were clearly a huge mistake. They’ve become chipped and shattered and have absorbed oily spills from vehicles.

Stern said he was confident that all work on the separate, $119 million project to renovate the interior of City Hall would be completed well before Mayor Bloomberg leaves office.

“The greatest incentive to completion of a major construction project is the expiration of a mayoral term,” Stern observed.

Read More:

Repairs being completed at City Hall Park

New York Post - November 11, 2011 - By David Seifman

Mayor Bloomberg orders $1M worth of repairs on sidewalk near City Hall

New York Daily News - April 14, 2008- By Adam Lisberg

City Finally Looking Into Cause Of Multiple Tree Deaths In Washington Sq. Park

Dying Tree - Washington Sq. North. Thanks to the Washington Square Park Blog who has written extensively about the issue, the city has finally agreed to look into the cause of multiple trees that have died since the park's controversial renovation. The park was redesigned by unlicensed Parks Department landscape architect - and real estate agent - George Vellonakis. Mr. Vellonakis has since gotten his landscape license. (Photos By Cathryn Swan)

Manhattan

GREENWICH VILLAGE — Trees in Washington Square Park have been mysteriously dying ever since the famed greenspace was redesigned — and some nature lovers are trying to get to the bottom of the problem, according to DNAinfo.

Eight trees have died in Washington Square Park since May 2009 — all Zelkovas, a type of elm — near the park's fountain, a Parks Department official said Tuesday. Four have already been removed and four others have been identified as dead or dying.

"We have experienced a series of failed plantings for the Zelkova trees in the area around Washington Square Park’s plaza," a Parks spokesman said. "We are investigating potential causes of why trees are not surviving here and will conduct soil tests, examine the drainage and determine if there is a problem with this particular species."

Reconstruction of the park's fountain and plaza began in December 2007 and concluded in May 2009, according to the agency.

Northern end of the park. "With all the talk about “MillionTreesNYC” in our city, as one blogger on the Washington Square Park Blog wrote, it’s really “OneMillionDeadTrees”. Another p.r. ruse put forth by our Mayor — the plan lacks any built-in initiative to maintain the “million” trees planted on neighborhood streets."

The redesign of Washington Square Park began in 2007 and eliminated dozens of trees more than 40 years old. A lawsuit was unsuccessful in preventing this destruction.

The trees that died were planted during the rehab efforts, which moved the fountain about 20 feet to the east so that it would align with the arch. Dozens of older trees were removed in the process.

One expert, Bronx-based arborist Ralph Padilla, 50, said he thought the Zelkova trees — which a Parks Department official said have a history of success in the city — had been planted incorrectly.

"It seems pretty obvious that this is an instance of a tree being planted too deeply," he said after looking at photographs. "Even though tree roots are underground, they need oxygen to survive. If they're too low into the ground, they will suffocate."

Padilla, who has cared for city trees for more than 20 years, said the Zelkova trees in the park that are already dying don't have much of a chance of survival.

"If the canopy is green, it has a good chance. But if the leaves are all wilted, there's no coming back. It's too far gone," he said.

Four trees that have been removed were replaced for free by the contractor who planted them, according to a Parks Department official. The other four trees need to be replaced by the city for approximately $1,500 each.

Cathryn Swan, who has tracked the park's trees on Washington Square Park Blog for more than three years, said multiple experts have told her the trees are dying because of inadequate drainage or having been planted too deep.

Swan, a Brooklyn resident who started her blog when she heard that the park's redesign would chop down trees more than 40 years old, said she thinks political issues are the real problem in the park, though.

"Every business and city agency has its own level of politics, and this problem is due to internal politics," she said. "People don't want to upset the designer, and so they're not speaking out."

Longtime architect and real estate agent George Vellonakis, who oversaw the park's redesign, did not respond to requests for comment.

The Washington Square Park tree battle has deep roots. A group called the Emergency Coalition to Save Washington Square Park lost a 2007 lawsuit to stop the extensive reconstruction plans that resulted in the cutting down of about 32 trees.

August 16, 2011. The eighth tree around the fountain in two years that is now dying according to Washington Square Park Blog.

Read More:

City Getting to Root of Washington Square Park Tree Deaths

DNAinfo - August 25, 2011 - By Andrea Swalec

How to Prevent Additional Trees at Washington Square Park from Dying? — Questions Abound

Washington Square Park Blog - August 23, 2011 - By Cathryn Swan

How Many Trees Around the Washington Square Fountain Must Die Before Suffocating Design is Corrected?

Washington Square Park Blog - August 18, 2011 - By Cathryn Swan

Eighth Tree In Two Years Now Dying Around the Fountain

Washington Square Park Blog - August 17, 2011 - By Cathryn Swan

Part I: Why Do the Newly Planted Trees Around the Washington Square Fountain Keep Dying?

Washington Square Park Blog - July 11, 2011 - By Cathryn Swan

Part II – Arborcidal Design For Fountain Trees at Washington Square. Will City’s Parks Department Address This At Last?

Washington Square Park Blog - July 15, 2011 - By Cathryn Swan

Two of Seven Newly Planted Trees Surrounding the Washington Square Park Fountain Have Died — Is the Cause the Design?

Washington Square Park Blog - December 10th, 2009 - By Cathryn Swan

Mistakes Plaguing Washington Square Park Renovation

Manhattan

Maybe NYU would do a better job with Washington Square Park, according to Curbed.

After the contractor working on Phase II of the park's controversial renovation went absolutely bonkers on the Parks Department, blaming construction delays on mishaps like officials ordering the wrong granite paving stones, The Villager set out to discover the truth and catalogue all the problems with the park. Please note that this is much more entertaining if you're playing this song while reading:

For starters, it seems the Parks Department ordered the wrong color Canadian granite, “Molten Black,” for lining the pathways and plaza areas; so it all had to be returned and the right color, “Caledonian,” ordered. In addition, we’re told that the contractor installing the granite has put a lien on the job, and is not working until he’s repaid for the cost of the order screw-up, which he had to foot. In another goof-up being pinned on Parks, the circular granite, low retaining wall around the chess plaza in the park’s southwest corner has to be shifted about 6 feet north, because if completed as it is now, it would run right into a beautiful 150-year-old London Planetree!

And that's not all!

We hear that Parks’ plans for the job mistakenly showed a “light post” instead of the humongous tree at that spot. But it’s even worse that that: The entire path that connects the chess plaza to the Lyman Holley monument circle — and which has been lined with the granite retaining walls — also has to be shifted. In addition, we hear the wrong type of children’s swings (not safety compliant) nearly got installed as part of the playground’s renovation.

Read More:

Epic Screwups Plague Washington Square Park Renovation

Curbed - September 10, 2010 - By Joey

Washington Square Park Contractor Rips Parks Department

Curbed - August 27, 2010 - By Joey

Park project panic

The Villager - August 26, 2010