The Circle of The Gates

With next Monday's dismantling of The Gates fast approaching, Newsday looks at how the Gates will live on beyond the confines of Central Park and obssessive photobloggers. All the parts will be recycled, and here's a rundown:

- The steel bases are to be melted and recast as rods for reinforcing concrete, steel plates or steel coils.
- The aluminum corners and base sleeves are to be recycled into such products as gutters and aluminum sheeting.
- The vinyl frames are to be fed into large-capacity grinders and eventually find new life as such products as PVC pipe, fences, tool handles or the inner cores of paint rollers.
- The ripstop nylon curtains are to revert to nylon thread.

Now, if Christo and Jeanne-Claude wanted to give the Central Park Conservancy even more possible revenue streams, Gothamist thinks they would have created "The Gates Saffron Thread" and a Philips head screwdriver, in The Gates Saffron, or sell the gutters and aluminum sheeting to some yuppies renovating their Brooklyn townhouse. Gothamist wonders if people will attempt to steal parts as they are dismantling, but there will probably be a lot of security.

Are you going to Central Park one more time this weekend to see The Gates? Here's Christo and Jeanne-Claude's site on The Gates. And the hansom cab drivers of Central Park love The Gates for giving them business - so many small industries the saffron sheets have affected!

Detail of The Gates from Bluejake