A total of 26 years in the making, Christo's The Gates was unfurled today in Central Park New York. KML is Summit Rock area that is supposed to be one of many good locations to see the Gates which cover the entire park.

From Christo's Gate page:
The 7500 Gates, 16 feet (4.87 meters) high with a width varying from 5' 6" to 18 feet (1,67 m to 5,48 meters) will follow the edges of the walkways and will be perpendicular to the selected 23 miles of footpaths in Central Park. Free hanging saffron colored fabric panels suspended from the horizontal top part of the gates will come down to approximately 7 feet ( 2,13 meters) above the ground. The gates will be spaced at 12 foot (3,65 meter) intervals, except where low branches extend above the walkways allowing the synthetic woven panels to wave horizontally towards the next gate and be seen from far away through the leafless branches of the trees. The temporary work of art The Gates is scheduled for February 2005, to remain for 16 days, then the 7,500 Gates shall be removed and the materials will be recycled.

The Gates under construction:

Overlay of The Gates in Central Park attached.

Fans of Christo, (me among them!) must certainly know of his site at Christo and Jean Claude. Take a look at his other works. My favorites are Running Fence, and Wrapped Reishtag. As a young artist-wannabe, I was awestruck...he tasks us to "dream the incredible, do the impossible".

Wow! there are a lot more of them than my local (west coast) news made it sound like. Thanks to you both for posting about this.

I loved Running Fence also, and the draped canyon.. hmm that gives me some overlay ideas

Updated: Overlay of Running Fence path is now attached -
it was 18 feet tall, 26.5 miles long, installed September 10-23, 1976 .. the path was designed using aerial photos

Christo at the Pacific Ocean terminus - originally officials had denied permission for him to run the fence into the ocean. He went ahead anyway, prepared to go to jail, and the officials backed down and let it stay.

To some Christo's work is a complete waste of time and money. I visited The Umbrella's in 1991 in California. The view was spectacular. 1760 huge yellow umbrellas were installed. At the same time 1340 blue umbrellas were installed in the Sato river valley in Japan. The umbrellas were installed on the Tejon Ranch property over several miles. They were each 28 feet in diameter! The yellow color was picked to contrast with October's dry brown hills. These hills are covered in brilliant orange poppies during the spring.



I was there on the last day of the installation, and we were looking towards the other end of the valley and noticed a very black cloud approching. It was getting late and we decided to head home before the storm got to us. At about the same time at the other end of the valley, the storm hit and blew over several umbrellas, killing one woman.

Thanks, neon...I was working a while ago on getting an overlay for Running Fence, never did get far. Mucho appreciated.

I sure would have loved to be at Running Fence while it was running, or at Valley Curtain or at any number of Christo's works. New York is only 7 hours from me by car...I might just have to take a run (or fly) down there!

::slapping self::

Dunno why I thought your first & second posts were from different people Lunatech, sorry!

I did see a bit of Running Fence but just in passing - I would have liked to see more of it. Valley Curtain was the first to catch my fancy.. the guy has definitely cornered the market on giant wrapping projects!

Thanks Neon and Lunatech. I remember my wife and I were returning from a trip further north in redwood country and we came across "Running Fence" where it paralleled and crossed the road east of Bodega Bay. It was an amazing thing to see coming on it unexpectedly as we did. That may be the best way to view his work. We didn't know what it was until some time - perhaps years - later. We planned to go see the umbrellas, but missed it. I think it was disassembled early because of the fatality.

If only Keyhole could overlay GIFs then you could overlay this Gates Map from the New York Times .

But alas, you'll have to do the conversion to JPG yourself.

no slapping needed, neon!

I have a huge coffee table book on Valley Curtain, even includes a sample of the fabric. What is inspiring is the engineering that goes into the projects.. Stunning work behind the scenes to solve incredible engineering problems.

CBC (TV) just did a piece on The Gates tonight, it may be the first time I heard Jean Claude and Christo talk. The focus of the report was the reaction of the "jaded" New Yorkers. One said it well...everyone complains about it until it is up, then they will defend it every chance they get!