The Gates

Preparations on Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s Gates project in Central Park began yesterday:

Under the watchful gaze of the creators, a crew of roughly 100 workers began lowering thousands of steel bases onto the walkways of Central Park yesterday in preparation for the biggest public art project the city has ever seen, at least since the park itself was designed in 1857: “The Gates,” by the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude.

The workers, who ranged from musicians to out-of-work actors to forklift operators, gathered at 7 a.m. at the Central Park Boathouse for a briefing by, among others, the artists. A little while later, at the staging area at 102nd Street just beneath the Harlem Meer, where the steel bases were stacked, men and women in yellow vests waved orange caution flags at pedestrians while others, wielding measuring tapes and string, began carefully placing the bases in areas designated with a stenciled maple leaf, about 12 feet apart. Eventually, the bases will support 7,500 gates festooned with saffron-colored fabric panels along 23 miles of the park’s pedestrian walkways – from 59th Street to 110th Street, east and west.

The $20 million project, a quarter-century in the making and financed by the artists, will go on full view on Feb. 12 and remain until Feb. 27. It is expected to attract thousands of art lovers from around the world. The artists are trying to create “a visual golden river appearing and disappearing through the bare branches of the trees, highlighting the shapes of the footpaths,” according to a brochure explaining the project. The color was chosen to cast a warm glow over the park at a gray time of year.