On June 28, the Great Neck Park District Board of Commissioners held a public meeting at the Great Neck House to discuss plans to renovate and improve the Village Green. This effort is part of an overall plan within the next five years to improve the infrastructure of the Great Neck park system. The park board approved the issuing of a $3.8 million bond to finance the improvements. The bond will cover replacing the Village Green's existing playground and upgrading its existing lighting and electrical system, which is not code compliant, at a total estimated cost of $250,000. The equipment for the new playground has yet to be decided. Further improvements, still in the planning stages, to the Village Green are hoped to be completed within two to three years. They are expected to be financed by private and state grants.

The meeting saw a very lively, passionate group of residents and local officials give their suggestions on ways to improve the park. Two members of Andropogon Associates, an architectural landscaping firm, guided the discussion and will ultimately complete the final blueprint for the renovations. Central to the reconstruction of the park is the goal of harmonizing the park's original design, created by renowned landscape architect Beatrix Farrand in the late 1920s, with both current and anticipated needs and uses of the park.

Beatrix Farrand (1872-1959) was born in Manhattan into an old and wealthy family and was the niece of the celebrated writer Edith Wharton, best known for her novel Ethan Frome. Farrand started up her own business at the age of 20 and quickly established her reputation as a talented landscape designer. She soon began designing gardens for the homes of the nation's elite, including those of John D. Rockefeller, J. Pierpont Morgan and Henry Cabot Lodge. Farrand was the only woman among the 11 founding members of the American Society of Landscape Architects, founded in 1899. She achieved perhaps her greatest fame in transforming the look of many Ivy League campuses, most notably that of Princeton, as well as that of the University of Chicago. Ms. Farrand also aided in sculpting the plans for the gardens of the White House. At her peak, she had offices in Maine, Connecticut, New York, and California. Many specialists consider the gardens at Dumbarton Oaks, in Washington D.C., to be her definitive masterpiece.

Today, very few of Beatrix Farrand's gardens remain as she originally designed them. In this fact lies one of the major obstacles facing the effort to renovate the Village Green: the park has gradually changed over the years and no known renderings of the original plan exist. The original design for a garden was recently unearthed in the library of the University of California at Berkley. The current rose garden, adjacent to the veterans' memorial, was created in 1952. However, the precise layout for the rest of the park remains largely unknown. Teresa Durkin of Andropogon Associates described the firm's current knowledge of Ms. Farrand's design as, at best, extremely "limited." If any reader has any information which might shed light on the original layout of the park, please contact Neil Marrin at 487-7665.

A major trademark of Farrand's style was her emphasis on beautiful, natural vistas in her work. She once wrote for the Princeton Alumni Weekly: "We all know that education is by no means a mere matter of books, and that the aesthetic environment contributes as much to growth as facts assembled from a printed page." Indeed, both board members and residents generally responded favorably to the landscaping firm, Andropogon Associates' proposal to attempt to recapture, to the extent possible, the spirit of Ms. Farrand's original design.

One of the main purposes of the meeting was to encourage residents to make criticisms and suggestions for the park. Great Neck fireman Mike Flood, who helped lead the drive to rename Grace Avenue Park in honor of fallen fireman Jonathan Ielpi, proposed the building of a centrally located fountain, to commemorate Great Neck residents and firemen who perished on September 11, as a "place to honor heroes." In response, another resident expressed concern that such a memorial would unnecessarily distract attention from the existing veteran's memorial, a prominent fixture of the park and the end destination for the annual Memorial Day parade.

On a more practical note, one resident addressed the need for greater seating to accommodate the many office workers who frequent the park during lunchtime. Another resident who chimed in went even further, excitedly saying that the current seating arrangement is not only inadequate but inherently "useless," claiming that the setup discourages large group gatherings. Residents Beth Myer and Jim Christiansen even prepared their own presentation. They discussed transforming the storage garage behind the rose garden into something more promising, an "enchanted cottage," while calling the current building an "eye sore." Their proposals included turning the building into a bistro/café, rotating a changing art exhibit inside, and adding a greenhouse extension room. Members of the Great Neck Garden Club who attended the meeting proposed dramatically reshaping the nature of the park. This would entail switching away from London's Hyde Park model, which encourages more active physical "participation," to the more "passive" Parisian Tuilleries approach, with its many formal rows of lined gardens. This change, according to them, would give the park a beautifully unique identity and help it to distinguish itself from the plethora of Great Neck parks.

Other proposals included constructing a wading pool for children, a sailing basin for toy boats, easily accessible restrooms, using the gazebo as a site to hold summer concerts, resituating the playground, and creating more shaded areas within easy reach of the senior housing which comprises part of the Village Green.

Park Board Commissioner Ruth Tamarin expressed a desire that the revamped park be a focal point for residents of the Old Village, a source of pride for the entire community, and a magnet for attracting out-of-towners; a "hub" that will spur increased business activity in the surrounding neighborhood. At the conclusion of the meeting, Teresa Durkin of Andropogon Associates said that choosing between and encorporating various possible visions for the park remained a "tall order," but was also impressed at the unusually high level of community spirit displayed at the meeting.

Typical of the lively, forward-thinking spirit of the meeting was a remark made by Great Neck resident Robert Lewis. Mr. Lewis legitimately questioned the extent to which the current renovation effort should follow the park's original design: "... how much deference should be given to Farrand, even though she was a famous designer and the niece of Edith Wharton .... so what? Move on!" Mr. Lewis' opinion was clearly not held by all attendees of the meeting. Yet the high level of enthusiasm and obvious concern for the welfare of both the Village Green and those who use it, was a pleasure to observe. It is largely a result of the great interest taken by so many residents in such affairs that Great Neck's park system and the town as a whole remain so beautiful.