Cover

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Frontmatter

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Contents

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List of Illustrations

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pp. vii-viii

A Note on Terminology

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pp. ix-x

Acknowledgments

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pp. xi-xii

Chapter 1. The Cultural Life of Large Urban Spaces

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pp. 1-18

William H. Whyte set out to discover why some New York City public spaces were successes, filled with people and activities, while others were empty, cold, and unused. After seven years of filming small parks and plazas in the city, he found that only a few plazas in New York City were attracting daily users and saw this decline as a threat to urban civility. He began to advocate for viable places where people could meet...

Chapter 2. Urban Parks: History and Social Context

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pp. 19-35

As Michael Brill (1989), Sam Bass Warner (1993), and perhaps others have noted, the variety of park types has multiplied since parks first appeared in North America in the early nineteenth century. Many kinds of public spaces fall under the general rubric of “park.” The case studies in this volume are a sampling of urban park types: a landscape park, two recreational beach parks, and two historical parks. To...

Chapter 3. Prospect Park: Diversity at Risk

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pp. 37-68

In their sociability and informal layout, places of working-class recreation continue to resemble the vernacular weekend resort, or “grove,” that lay outside every nineteenth-century American town. This was an open space with trees, fields, and water at hand, used informally for recreational gatherings by the townspeople on Sunday afternoons (Jackson 1984). Although such places have yielded to urbanization...

Chapter 4. The Ellis Island Bridge Proposal: Cultural Values, Park Access, and Economics

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pp. 69-99

In 1994 the Public Space Research Group was asked by the National Park Service to find out what local residents thought about building a bridge from Liberty State Park in New Jersey to Ellis Island. Ellis Island was the federal immigration station for the Port of New York from 1892 to 1954. More than 12 million immigrants were processed there, and over 40 percent of all U.S. citizens can trace their ancestry to those who came through this facility. In its early years, when the greatest...

Chapter 5. Jacob Riis Park: Conflicts in the Use of a Historical Landscape

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pp. 101-126

In 1994 the Public Space Research Group was asked by the National Park Service to find out what local residents thought about building a bridge from Liberty State Park in New Jersey to Ellis Island. Ellis Island was the federal immigration station for the Port of New York from 1892 to 1954. More than 12 million immigrants were processed there, and over 40 percent of all U.S. citizens can trace their ancestry to those who came through this facility. In its early years, when the greatest...

Chapter 6. Orchard Beach in Pelham Bay Park: Parks and Symbolic Cultural Expression

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pp. 127-148

On the Fourth of July in 1996, I (Suzanne Scheld) made my first visit to Orchard Beach. Typically, this holiday conjures up images of barbecues, festive good moods, and the colors red, white, and blue. That day I found all of this in the park. The colors of the American flag were prominently displayed. More often than stars and stripes, however, I saw triangles, rectangles, and crosses— the red, white, and blue symbols of the Puerto Rican and Dominican flags...

Chapter 7. Independence National Historical Park: Recapturing Erased Histories

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pp. 149-173

As I (Setha Low) drive Route 10 from Palm Springs to West Los Angeles, my personal history passes by inscribed in the landscape through places, institutions, and cultural markers. I am reminded of where I went to college, where I spent my summers as a child, and where I got my first job as I travel this Southern California highway. Physical reminders like these provide a sense of place attachment, continuity...

Chapter 8. Anthropological Methods for Assessing Cultural Values

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pp. 175-193

It is sometimes difficult to find the right method for studying people in a place, especially when you are trying to collect something as sensitive, intangible, and variable as cultural values. The best way to start, however, is to understand what “toolkit” or “palette” of techniques is available, and what works best in diverse fieldwork situations. As researchers, we have had to decide what would work best in a range of settings and have adapted our methods to fit the specific site and problem...

Chapter 9. Conclusion: Lessons on Culture and Diversity

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pp. 195-210

William H. Whyte’s seminal work in the 1970s on small urban spaces was so clear and convincing that the city of New York revised its zoning code to reflect most of his recommendations. Whyte’s work inspired some of his associates to found the Project for Public Spaces, a consulting firm that has worked to bring his vision of user-friendly, comfortable, and popular public spaces to communities throughout...

References Cited

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pp. 211-218

Index

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pp. 219-226