January 2016 - Parks & Recreation - 23

but it's around us, so I think it's just a
matter of thinking about it differently. It shouldn't be an either/or proposition. I used to work for the [New
York] City Parks Department, and I
think just now they're starting to do a
better job of connecting people to nature, but mostly when they talk about
parks, it's about exercise and recreation, and it's never really something
celebrating the natural areas. I think
that's a problem.
Parks are amazing, especially the
New York City park system. The
division for which I worked was
called the NRG - Natural Resources Group - and it wasn't formed
until 1984, so it was a really recent
part of the parks department. Probably 95 percent of parks department
personnel, time and energy is spent
on recreational stuff. Largely, that's
because that's where the people are.
But, I think the city parks department
is grossly underfunded. There're lots
of issues, but I don't think that's necessarily a good excuse for the lack of
educational resources given to natural areas. These places have really
rich stories to tell and no one's really
telling them. There should be people
on the ground engaging with the public and telling these stories and, as far
as I can see, that's not happening.
P&R: What challenges/support
have you encountered along the
way? Have there been any major
surprises?
Anzelone: I would say that I've had
zero challenges. If you can believe it,
there have been no surprises. It's just
taking a long time and it's a long process... At this point, there are enough
other vested parties that [the PopUP
Forest] has a life of its own, and it's
not just something being pushed by
me, which is amazing. No one has

told me " no " - no one. They've not
said " yes, " but no one has ever said to
me flatly, " no, " which is shocking! I've
gone in and I've had meetings with
some of the top brass at the Times
Square Alliance and they said, " We
think this is cool! " I went in and I was
taking a deep breath thinking, " Okay,
I'm going get it today...this is where
it ends. " And no...it did not happen,
and I left there thinking, " What just
happened? Did they like the project? " It was nuts. I don't have formal
approval, but this has been pretty
smooth, and it's been largely due to
the fact that I've been in close contact
with the director of public art at the
Times Square Alliance. Her name is
Sherry Dobbin and she's been incredibly lovely to work with and very supportive, and really thinks the project is

cool. So that's how the project would
be coming in...through Sherry and as
a public art project, which I love. She
just saw that instantly - this is how
we would do this because it's asking
a question and that's what good art is
supposed to do. What would happen
if New York City valued nature? It's
not meant to be an indictment, but
it's meant to be celebratory and fun
for goodness sake. People should just
go in there and have a blast and love
it. It's all good stuff but it's definitely
about asking questions.
Look for part two of this conversation in February's People for Parks
column.
Sonia Myrick is the Managing Editor of Parks
& Recreation magazine (smyrick@nrpa.org).

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January 2016 - Parks & Recreation

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