Parks have always had a place in people’s lives. It’s a place where one can come to relax, enjoy nature and run away from the chaos, especially in the cities such as New York. While the history of our parks is not that clean and bright, they still exist as a tourist attraction to some, a place of collecting sculptures around the world or dedicated to some heroes of our time. Landscapes of parks are, in some cases, designed to portray the landscape focused on trees, plans, offering benches and places to sit for people, and in other cases concrete playgrounds and strictly designed use for people. While of their past, many activists and theorists see them as misused places that gentrify an area. So does Jane Jacobs argue the same in her book “The Death and Life of Great American Cities.” The use of natural spaces and parks seem to be useless and volatile to her, but on the other hand, parks serve as a common benefit to others, from elderly to toddlers.
In New York City itself, there’s more than 1,500 parks, playgrounds and places of recreation. Parks in the city may and don’t have to represent the city itself. The backgrounds of people in a neighborhood brings them the need to create something for their people, bringing the nostalgia of their countries, cities, and heroes through sculpturing. In that case, parks aim to represent one’s culture, and while they are free of use, one can find them of use to bring their kids and learn about the history about their country and past, while others can just ignore the fact that they are even existent or not pay attention to it. While every neighborhood in the city has its past and culture passed down by the people who have settled or immigrated in, such as Little Italy, China Town, and Sheepshead Bay, another example offered is Astoria, Queens. While Queens itself is the most diverse borough in New York, Astoria is mostly the place for numerous Greeks or Italians families. Being so, they have created ways to represent their significance and importance to the whole city, through the sculptures and installations that represent something close to them.
Ultimately this leads to the park in the heart of Astoria, “Athens Square Park.”
