"Canopy," a plan submitted by a team of French designers, took people's choice in the "Reinventing Grand Army Plaza" competition, sponsored by the Design Trust for Public Space. It was also selected last month by competition jurors as one of two top designs.

"Canopy" is one of few submissions that actually connects the plaza with the park. Like last year's Grand Army Plaza Coalition proposal, it at least takes a stab at dealing with area-wide traffic management issues -- a major consideration for any workable redesign.

While raising the profile of the project and drawing the attention of thousands of Brooklynites, it's unknown how much of an impact the competition will have on the eventual design. The Brooklyn Paper reports:

"The contest wasn’t intended for a design to be constructed," sniffed Scott Gastel, a spokesman for the Department of Transportation, which is conducting traffic studies as a first step in its own plan to fix the plaza.

"The competition has produced some very interesting concepts, which we will bear in mind as we continue to think about the future of Grand Army Plaza," he said. "We’re still looking into the designs [to evaluate their feasibility]."

Last Saturday, the opening of the Design Trust for Public Space's "Reinventing Grand Army Plaza" exhibit quickly transformed the plaza, normally devoid of any street life, into a vibrant public space. Visitors were welcomed with live music, a dance performance, food and exhibition tours. This photo set on Flickr has over 400 shots from Saturday's event. City Room reports:

Gone are the wasted expanses of concrete behind the arch, where ambulances used to lie in wait for traffic accident victims. The winning ideas include squaring the traffic circle to make more regular intersections, putting a canopy or elevated pedestrian walks over the plaza, creating a shelter for a year-round green market, adding a bike rental shop, and putting a visitor center at the subway stop.

The plaza, home to the city’s second-largest green market, close neighbor to four top Brooklyn attractions, and the occasional rooster, was done in by the car.

Residents in Park Slope, Prospect Heights, Crown Heights and Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, the four neighborhoods it separates instead of unites, are hard pressed to figure out how to reach the Bailey Fountain and the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Arch without becoming roadkill. The traffic whizzing around the plaza has been called “the only concrete and asphalt roulette wheel in the world.”

You can check out the designs of all 30 finalists here, and if you see one that you think promises to improve conditions for pedestrians and cyclists, don't forget to give it your people's choice award vote.

Photo: The Design Trust for Public Space

This morning officials announced the winners of the "Reinventing Grand Army Plaza" competition, a contest that drew 200+ proposals for transforming the gateway to Prospect Park into a public space worthy of its landmark status. A jury composed mainly of designers, planners and community advocates selected four designs to receive cash prizes, while winnowing the entrants to a field of 30, to be displayed on-site through October 13. Members of the public will be able to vote for their favorites via text message, with results announced on October 8.

After the exhibit, the Design Trust for Public Space and the Grand Army Plaza Coalition, along with NYC DOT and the Parks Department, will participate in a series of public workshops based on the top 30 designs, with the ultimate goal of composing a new plaza master plan.

Prize-winning designs are "Canopy" and "Please Wake Me Up!" (pictured) in a tie for first, "Urban Stripes" was awarded second place, and Brooklyn's Garrison Architects took third with "A Center for Brooklyn." Unfortunately, not every finalist made a serious attempt to address GAP's complex traffic issues, which will be essential to creating a lively and inviting public space. On the other hand, the guidelines do indicate that entries "did not have to be realistic."

The Grand Army Plaza Coalition, which recently won a grant from the Design Trust for Public Spaces, has launched an Ideas Competition for its Reinventing Grand Army Plaza project. If you want to participate, answer the following questions in full sentences, and email your responses by the end of the week to survey@reinventingGAP.org.

1. What is great about Grand Army Plaza?

2. What existing problems could be addressed by a Plaza re-design?

3. What potential uses or opportunities for the Plaza might a Plaza re-design incorporate?

Additionally, GAPco organizer Rob Witherwax writes:

Next week there is an important meeting of the Community Board 6 Transportation committee. Please try to attend:

WHEN: Thursday, 17 January 2008, 6.30 PM

WHERE: Prospect Park Residence, 1 Prospect Park West (at Union Street)

AGENDA: Discussion with representatives for the Department of Transportation on pending traffic calming request for Prospect Park West and 8th Avenue, and for decongesting Union Street approach to the Grand Army Plaza.

Photo: pianoman75/Flickr

The Grand Army Plaza Coalition (GAPCo) and the Design Trust for Public Space are launching an "Ideas Competition" called Reinventing Grand Army Plaza. Building on GAPCo's on-going effort to re-envision this historic Brooklyn crossroads, the Ideas Competition will solicit new, creative proposals for Grand Army Plaza's re-design. Top submissions will be exhibited in the summer of 2008 at the Brooklyn Public Library or the Brooklyn Museum of Art.

To document GAPCo's progress to date, the existing context of the Plaza and the competition's goals and aspirations, GAPCo is creating a Briefing Booklet for competition entrants and they want your thoughts, ideas, hopes, frustrations and visions for Grand Army Plaza represented in this publication. The briefing booklet will quote from responses to this questionnaire. Please answer the following questions by December 20, 2007.

1. What about Grand Army Plaza currently functions well?
2. What existing problems could be addressed by a Plaza re-design?
3. What potential uses or opportunities for the Plaza might a Plaza re-design incorporate?
4. Please include your name, organization/affiliation, neighborhood and contact information in your response.

For more information about this project, please visit: http://www.reinventingGAP.org. Email info@reinventingGAP.org with questions or to be placed on the competition mailing list.

Someone who is not a traffic engineer please reinvent me!

Top photo: Nakeya B./Flickr
Bottom photo: Aaron Naparstek

In the most recent issue of the Architect's Newspaper, Editor-in-Chief William Menking has some very enthusiastic things to say about the Grand Army Plaza Coalition's project, Rethinking Grand Army Plaza (download the proposal here) which was recently awarded a 2007-2008 Design Trust fellowship. Menking writes:

This past month I served as a juror on the Design Trust's latest funding round. We were presented with many well-crafted and smart proposals, and settled on two projects to fund: Closing the Gap: Rethinking Grand Army Plaza and Park Design for the 21st Century. The Grand Army Plaza Coalition's proposal to reroute the roads around the difficult and inaccessible traffic island-cum-monument is such a brilliantly obvious solution that one wonders why it hasn't been tried before. The roadbed between the plaza and Prospect Park will be closed and used on the weekends for a farmer's market, allowing pedestrians to actually access this beautiful space without having to cross many lanes of traffic. (This will all be accomplished without denying drivers access from Flatbush and Vanderbilt avenues and Eastern Parkway to Prospect Park West.)

You can download a PDF of the current issue of the Architect's Newspaper here.

On the heels of Tuesday's press conference, here is another exciting development at Brooklyn's Grand Army Plaza. Robert Witherwax, an organizer of the Grand Army Plaza Coalition, sends along the following news:

As you may know, GAPCo applied for a fellowship from the Design Trust for Public Spaces, a progressive and exciting group that has supported such recent projects as the Times Square Streetscape Improvements and Reclaiming the High Line.

We are pleased to announce that our proposal -- "Closing the GAP" -- has been awarded a 2007-2008 fellowship!

We will be working closely with the Design Trust over the next few months to refine GAPCo's consensus vision. From the first day, this has been a grassroots, community- and stakeholder-driven project, a fact that we are extremely proud of. We look forward to engaging all of GAP's stakeholders in this exciting next step.

With city workers pouring concrete in the background (and StreetFilms' cameras rolling), New York City Department of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan announced pedestrian and cyclist improvements for Brooklyn's Grand Army Plaza yesterday. The plan calls for 11,000 square feet of new, landscaped pedestrian islands, a separated bike path, new crosswalks and pedestrian signals.

The redesign should do a lot to help make pedestrian and bike crossings safer and more convenient, particularly on the Prospect Heights side of the Plaza. With new crosswalks connecting Prospect Heights residents directly to the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch and Bailey Fountain, two of the city's most truly awesome historic monuments, DOT's plan may also help activate the beautiful but under-used public space in the center of GAP's traffic maelstrom.

DOT's plan for the Plaza is a direct result of work done by the Grand Army Plaza Coalition, a group of community organizations that myself and others started up back in the spring of 2005 to begin to reclaim and re-envision Grand Army Plaza as the great public space that it was originally designed to be.

Yesterday's press conference was notable not just for the physical changes taking place in the Plaza but for the changes that have taken place at New York City's transportation agency. When we started GAPco, DOT staffers weren't permitted to attend our meetings or even speak at our press conference with Danish urban designer Jan Gehl (Dalila Hall from the Brooklyn Borough office disobeyed the ridiculous order and said a few words anyway).

Yesterday, Grand Army Plaza Coalition organizer Rob Witherwax stood shoulder-to-shoulder at the podium with Sadik-Khan, Borough President Marty Markowitz, Council member Tish James and Prospect Park Alliance president Tupper Thomas. The press conference, staged in front of the Brooklyn Public Library, was probably visible from the apartment window of former Commissioner Iris Weinshall who lives on Prospect Park West.

While the news at GAP yesterday was all positive, GAPco organizer Michael Cairl still qualifies DOT's work as "a good first step." To get a sense of what he means by that, immediately after the press conference Sadik-Khan and DOT Alternative Modes Director Ryan Russo were peppered with questions from Park Slope Civic Council member Ezra Goldstein about why the agency still hasn't done anything to change the seemingly malicious traffic signal timing that traps pedestrians -- often dozens of them at a time -- on a tiny strip of concrete in the middle of Flatbush Avenue between Prospect Park and the Library. Russo said DOT wanted to see how the new crosswalks worked before making any more changes in the Plaza.

For a "before," an "after," and one very compelling "long-term vision" plan, click through to the jump below.

Related:

• It Must Have Required a Concerted Effort to Ruin It...
  
• Reconnecting Grand Army Plaza
• Grand Plans for Brooklyn's Iconic Public Space
• StreetFilms: Reclaiming Grand Army Plaza
• StreetFilms: Grand Army Plaza Community Survey

Existing Conditions at Grand Army Plaza:

One of the most ambitious New York City Streets Renaissance projects currently underway is the Grand Army Plaza Coalition's initiative to re-conceive New York City's biggest, most chaotic traffic rotary into one of the city's finest public spaces.

A couple of weeks ago GAPco hosted a "Livable Streets" forum at the Brooklyn Public Library to present findings from a community workshop conducted in March. The big idea? Reconfigure traffic to allow the fountain and arch to connect directly to the front of Prospect Park, as depicted above. The Brooklyn Papers reported:

Grand Army Plaza could be transformed from an intimidating, speeder-friendly highway in the center of Brooklyn to a calmer traffic circle under a revolutionary plan that continues to gain speed of its own.

At a meeting last week at the Brooklyn Public Library’s Central branch, a citizens group presented its most fully drawn plan to reconfigure the plaza and reconnect the landmark Soldiers’ and Sailors’ arch with the entrance to Prospect Park, creating a safe, car-free walkway (see map).

Currently, the circle is a mess of misleading crosswalks and dangerous traffic islands that separate park users from the recently restored Bailey Fountain and Arc de Triomphe-inspired Civil War monument in the center of Grand Army Plaza.

Thanks, in part, to GAPco's work, captured in this StreetFilm, the Dept. of Transportation is already forging ahead with short-term pedestrian and cyclist improvements around the dangerous Flatbush Ave. and Eastern Pkwy. intersection.

Below is an aerial shot of the Plaza as it is currently designed. Note the six lanes of one-way traffic running along each side of the interior circle and the intimidating crossing between the Prospect Park and the Arch.

This Thursday will be the opening reception of "Livable Streets in Brooklyn," an exhibition at the Brooklyn Public Library. There will be a presentation by the Grand Army Plaza Coalition (GAPco) about the community-driven process that has been underway to re-envision Grand Army Plaza. And the Department of Transportation will discuss its recently announced plans for bike and pedestrian improvements.

Opening Thursday, June 21st at the Brooklyn Public Library. Reception 6:30 pm, Presentation 7 pm. RSVP to streets@transalt.org.

The summary of the brainstorming done at last month's placemaking workshop of the Grand Army Plaza Coalition (GAPco) is now available, and it's full of rich possibilities for this vitally important yet underused space. Download the PDF here.

The DOT's recently announced plans for pedestrian- and bicyclist-friendly improvements give some official momentum to the effort to remake the plaza, but the GAPco report opens up a much broader range of possibilities for the plaza's future. Those include everything from more benches to an expanded Greenmarket to "shake shack"-type food vendors.

This kind of creative, community-driven thinking could turn Grand Army Plaza from a disjointed sea of traffic into a well-integrated and vibrant public resource. It's well worth reading the whole report, but here are some of the broad overall recommendations:

• Conduct short-term improvements. Take the most feasible suggestions from the workshop and start experimenting. Start showing people the future of Grand Army Plaza can start now.
• Close the gap. Connect the arch with Prospect Park by extending the entrance plaza to the arch (using paving, etc.).
• Improve access to the plaza and connect it into a broader circulation system for pedestrians, bicyclists, automobiles and transit users. Balance the user needs.
• Create clear pathways to the "center" across the berms. Create access (visual and/or pedestrian) through the berms. Sight lines and physical connection will increase presence and use of arch and fountain.
• Relocate the "entrance" to Prospect Park to the north side of Grand Army Plaza. Create a symbolic entrance on the north side of the plaza that marks the beginning of Prospect Park at Grand Army Plaza. Treat this area as a part of the park rather than a traffic circle.
• Connect the west berm area to the arch and fountain by converting the west side of  the inner circle from traffic lanes to a pedestrian plaza.
• Partner with local institutions. For example, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden could display rotating horticultural displays, the library could host events in the plaza, and the zoo could partner with the Brooklyn Children's Museum to host an event oriented to children in the plaza.
• Formalize GAPco's role as an advisor and manager of the public process.
  

In all of the uproar over DOT's various transportation proposals for Park Slope last month (One Way? No Way! and 9th Street) this Grand Army Plaza project managed to slip beneath the radar. That's too bad because it's a really thoughtful and detailed piece of planning work that will help connect neighborhoods and improve the pedestrian and cyclist experience of Brooklyn's most iconic public space (see slides 9 and 10 for a quick overview). And while DOT is, unfortunately, loath to acknowledge that it is actually responding to a community, this plan seems to do a really good job of answering many of the concerns raised by the Grand Army Plaza Coalition community planning process (see the StreetFilm). Grand Army Plaza still has a long way to go but this is a nice start.

The DOT plan highlights include:

• Closing unused roads during weekend hours
• 2,300 square feet of new landscaping
• Removing a travel lane on Eastern Parkway
• Providing a Class 1 bike facility through Grand Army Plaza
• Five new crosswalks providing access to Prospect Park and the Arch
• Eliminating one auto lane east of the arch

Proposed changes

Here's a look at the proposal the DOT gave to Brooklyn's Community Board 6 on March 29th regarding safety improvements at Grand Army Plaza. The plan's highlights include:

• Three new concrete islands (5,900 square feet)
• 2,300 square feet of new landscaping
• Removing a travel lane on Eastern Parkway
• Providing a Class 1 bike facility through Grand Army Plaza
• Five new crosswalks providing access to Prospect Park and the Arch
• Eliminating auto lane east of the arch.

According to Michael Cairl, chair of the Gowanus Community Stakeholder Group, the Class 1 bike lane would be one-way eastbound, with westbound (park-bound) cyclists from Eastern Parkway either using the Plaza Street bike lane or dismounting and using the new crosswalks to cross. DOT also announced at the meeting that reconstruction of the Eastern Parkway median from Plaza Street to Washington Avenue would start later this year and would include a bike lane.

While I haven't managed to get a look at DOT's proposal, we know a few things about it: It will include some pedestrian improvements at Grand Army Plaza, new bike lanes for Red Hook and a new design for 9th Street. The Grand Army Plaza changes, supposedly, include some of the improvements that the community has been advocating via the Grand Army Plaza Coalition. The Red Hook bike lanes sound pretty straightforward. As for 9th Street, DOT wants to do the following:

• Install two bike lanes heading in each direction.
• Stripe a median down the middle of the street with left-turn bays for cars at the intersections.
• Eliminate one travel lane in each direction.

Not surprising -- it's Brooklyn, folks! -- there is some opposition brewing to the 9th Street changes, the bike lanes in particular. Below is a discussion thread I found on the Brooklynian web site. Fans of MyBikeLane.com will have to wrap their heads around the idea that their bike lanes are actually blocking motorists ability to double-park. Is it only a matter of time before someone starts MyDoubleParkingSpot.com?:

Ninth Street Residents and Businesses

The Mar. 29, 2007 meeting of the Transportation Committee of Community Board 6 will discuss adding a painted centerlane (similar to Prospect Park SW) for left turns, AND bicycle lanes.

That will mean there will be only one lane for driving, and NO ability to stop your car to drop off/pick up at anytime because you will be blocking the bike lanes.

Please come out to the meeting to voice your opinion/opposition to these changes

Transportation Committee of
Community Board Six
Mar. 29, 2007
6:30 PM

Old First Reformed Church
729 Carroll Street
(Corner of 7th Avenue)

All across the city neighborhood groups are coming together to re-envision and plan their own communities. In the last few months we've seen valuable community-planning processes taking place in Hell's Kitchen, the Meatpacking District and, to a certain extent, along Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. People aren't waiting around for real estate developers or city agencies to tell them how their neighborhoods should be. They are going out and doing the thinking and planning themselves.

Add the neighborhoods around Grand Army Plaza to the list of communities taking pro-active steps to create a streets renaissance in New York City. Grand Army Plaza Coalition organizer Rob Witherwax describes the GAPco community workshop event in more detail:

Recently, we've witnessed a great example of community planning and traffic engineering from the top down (DOT Deputy Commissioner Michael Primeggia's one-way plan for 6th and 7th Avenues) and seen how well it was received by its intended beneficiaries. However, on a much quieter note, we have also participated in a great example of grassroots community planning: the GAPCo Community Workshop, held on Saturday, March 10 at the Brooklyn Public Library.

GAPCo, as you may recall, is the Grand Army Plaza Coalition. It was formed just over a year ago to study Grand Army Plaza and propose ways to improve access to, and through, Grand Army Plaza for all user groups. GAPCo has grown organically to comprise many community stakeholders: private residents, civic and business associations, cultural organizations like Prospect Park and the other Heart of Brooklyn members, activists, and the city government (community boards, elected officials, and bureaucrats alike). Everyone got on the bandwagon early, and participated: in a site walk-through, the formulation of 14 short term fixes, and taking ownership of the Plaza through clean up efforts.

The culmination of GAPCo's year of organization and study was the March 10 community workshop. Fifty individuals, representing almost as many different stakeholder groups assembled on an overcast Saturday morning to play Project for Public Spaces' "Place Game." Seven teams dispersed to various sites around GAP to examine and evaluate how (and whether) those sites worked to their full potential. Returning to the library, those teams brainstormed on improvements to their site, and presented their findings to the other teams.

Literally, dozens of great ideas emerged: some were simple, small scale, easily achievable; others dramatic and more far-reaching. PPS and GAPCo are currently refining and categorizing these ideas, and will shortly issue formal findings. These findings will contain suggestions for improving way-finding and access, addressing the lack of public amenities, leveraging opportunities for historical and cultural exposure, restoring a better balance between 'car space' and 'people space', and instituting regular programming for the space. 

The important point to emphasize is that each of these suggestions was reached in a consensus-building manner by a broadbased coalition of stakeholders. Rather than having a few guys in a room crunch numbers and redraw maps, many people immersed themselves in Grand Army Plaza, and devised solutions based on their own common observations. Together we came up with a set of ideas that no one indivdual ever could have developed. It doesn't take an expert to see Grand Army Plaza has issues, and it need not take an expert to solve those issues.

Reclaiming Grand Army Plaza
A StreetFilm by Sean Clifford
Running time: 5 minutes 40 seconds

The Grand Army Plaza Coalition formed in the Spring of 2006 to begin to re-envision GAP as the great public space it was designed to be. A community-driven, grassroots project, GAPco is a prime example of how New York City's public planning process could work and how city agencies could leverage the collective intelligence of neighborhoods. After all: no one knows a neighborhood better than the people who live there.

StreetFilms Sean Clifford covers the GAPco's recent community planning workshop, where fifty people met for a walk through the plaza and a brainstorm on how to make the Plaza safer, more accessible, greener, and more people-oriented.

Since the beginning of 2005 I have been helping to organize a group called the Grand Army Plaza Coalition. The group is focused on improving the pedestrian experience around the Plaza and re-envisioning it as the great public space that it was originally designed to be. 

In May GAPco conducted a site visit of the Plaza led by Chris Hrones, a professional urban planner who lives in Prospect Heights. During the visit we filmed video and generated a big list of ideas for things that we thought could be improved. Afterwards, GAPco produced a detailed, 22-page report recording the group's photos and observations and suggesting possible solutions. Additionally, Transportation Alternatives invited Danish urban designer Jan Gehl to begin to take a look at the Plaza and he produced this report (PDF file)

GAPco's study is a nice piece of work and, like the community-driven initiative underway in Manhattan's Meatpacking District, another example of how local groups can be a valuable resource to city government in creating more livable streets for New York City. In June we boiled down the report to a list of fourteen specific, inexpensive, short-term ideas for improvements and sent them off to DOT's Brooklyn Borough Commissioner, Joe Palmieri.

In a strange twist of fate, the report and set of suggestions that Chris Hrones was so instrumental in helping to put together landed on his very own desk just a couple of months later. In September Hrones was hired by DOT to replace Ryan Russo as the new Downtown Brooklyn Transportation Coordinator. 

While Hrones says that he hasn't yet been involved with Grand Army Plaza in his new position, it looks like GAPco's grassroots initiative is beginning to produce some results. Last week I received this e-mail from Rob Witherwax of Prospect Heights, another GAPco organizer:

Momentous news, people: this morning I crossed the entire width of Flatbush Avenue, from the Library to the Park, in one movement -- without waiting on the island, without running across, and without disobeying traffic laws. I know, it sounds ridiculous, but it happened. The crosswalk signs, from the library to the island and from the island to the Park, turned 'walk' at the same time. I was astounded, and the woman alongside of me audibly gasped. 

If you have ever tried to walk across Flatbush Avenue in front of the Brooklyn Public Library then you are surely familiar with the malevolently timed pedestrian signal that Rob refers to. Prior to the fixes that DOT made last week, the "little walk man" beckoned pedestrians into the middle of Flatbush Avenue only to trap them on the tip of a narrow concrete island smack in the middle of rushing traffic (pictured above). On sunny, greenmarket Saturday's you would see scores of pedestrians trapped on the traffic island or scampering across the street to avoid being trapped.

Community people had been pushing DOT to change the timing of those pedestrians signals for years and had been told repeatedly by traffic engineers that it was simply impossible -- that changing the timing of the pedestrian signal at that one spot would disrupt the intricate flow of traffic through one of the city's most complicated intersections. Well, the changes now appear to be in place and traffic continues to flow -- something to keep in mind if a traffic engineer has ever told you that a pedestrian or public space improvement in your neighborhood can't possibly be done.

Witherwax and others also noticed that southbound traffic from the Plaza onto Prospect Park West was being held longer at a red light thus giving pedestrians more "walk" time between Union Street and the Park (pictured right). Talk about self sacrifice -- by adding 20 seconds or so to this pedestrian crossing, DOT Commissioner Weinshall, who lives on Prospect Park West, added more time to her evening commute.

DOT has not yet officially responded to GAPco's list of fourteen suggestions but the agency said that it has already made or is planning to make the following changes around the Plaza:

1. Provide more pedestrian crossing time across Prospect Park West by holding southbound traffic entering Prospect Park West during northbound Flatbush Avenue phase. - Implemented 10/16/06

2. New crosswalk and raised islands to enable direct pedestrian crossing from Flatbush Avenue north of Grand Army Plaza to Baily Fountain - To be implemented in 2007.

3. New crosswalk and raised island to enable pedestrians to directly cross from Library and east side of Prospect Park entrance to Arch area - To be implemented in 2007.

4. During auto-free park hours, we would at the request of Parks be willing to temporarily close the short northbound roadway directly east of Arch. This area would then be available for pedestrians and public events. Traffic from Union Street or Plaza Street West wishing to travel north on Flatbush Avenue or Vanderbilt Avenue would be required to make a slower speed left turn at the intersection of Flatbush Avenue/Eastern Parkway - Can be put into effect after Improvement #3 above is implemented. (Pictured at top)

5. Missing pedestrian ramps on existing pedestrian crossings - NYCDOT is installing missing ramps throughout the City and is scheduled to be completed by 2010. If possible, we will try to get ramps at GAP done next year as well, but due to the nature of the contracts already initiated, specific locations cannot simply be prioritized based upon request.

It's a good start. So, why all the fuss about Grand Army Plaza anyhow? It's just a gigantic traffic rotary, right? Take a closer look... 

The closer you look, the more you realize that it must have taken quite a concerted effort to ruin it...