Central Park SouthChoosing the best design for a new park on New York's Governors Island.

Remarks from the Fray Editor:

Who needs a park? Tourists? Birds? Businessmen? You? –G.A.

Remarks from the Fray:

What else would distinguish New York City on this site? A real golf course, not just a stack of driving range tees. (I can hear your yawn or rightgeous yawp from here).

Now I am not even a golfer as it is beyond my financial means. However consider the many businesspersons who are pained by the lack of a real course within easy reach during a short business trip to the city. They are those who now pay an extra $200 to be pre-screened at a heliport to be whisked away to JFK where they skip the security ordeal altogether. Why not use that extra time to combine 9 holes on Governors Island with a helicopter ride to their flight home from JFK? Good for city businesses with out of town clients? You bet.

I adore parks, especially Central Park, but New York already has one of those. Why not add a new dimension to the experience which made the city such a great business center in the first place? For comparison see the 20 acre 9 hole course at Grayslake, IL and the 56 acre regulation length 9 hole course in Fort Collins, CO.

It can be done. Build it and they will come. Again and again.

On the other hand should need arise in future it is easy stuff to turn a golf course into a cityscape unlike the converse.

--wccomninel

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