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It's Bryant Park-going plebes versus the fashion plates! The Daily News has an article about how Bryant Park wants the fashion shows out (or auf, if you like) this February, so the park can keep its free skating rink, The Pond, open. Dan Biderman, the head of the Bryant Park, says, "The public hates the [fashion] shows, except the public who goes to them, and they want the ice rink in the winter and they want the ability to use Bryant Park the way they always use it, sitting under the trees and reading or talking or eating." So true! The fashion tents, though glamorous seeming, are just huge blobs for the rest of us. However, Vogue editor Anna Wintour deigns to give the Daily News a quote:
"We need a very, very large place and we need something that's very central and convenient for all the press and media coverage that the fashion industry quite rightly garners, and nobody has come up with anything that's as good as Bryant Park."Wintour also believes Mayor Bloomberg will come out on fashion's side in the dispute (apparently Lincoln Center and sites on the West Side waterfront haven't been acceptable). Hey! Why not the Javits Center? It's not glamorous, but it's sorta central - and it's near Chelsea clubs! Then if not that, why not Lower Manhattan -we're sure the Mayor could cook up a good deal.
Would you rather ice skating or fashion shows be in Bryant Park?
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I live three blocks from Bryant Park and despise Fashion Week. Tons of bitches and meatheads stomping around all week with their foul couture and massive egos. Don't view me as sacreligious but I think I'd actually take tourists over them. I'll take the ice rink, please.
For a couple of weeks, a couple of times a year, we should be grateful for the exposure and the continued choice of nyc as the fashion center of the world. get over yourselves.
This really comes down to seeing NYC parks as issues of the "commons" where a piece land is divided amongst the public, but where one entity begins taking too much space for itself.
The same issue can be said about NYU's religious takeover of Washington Square Park for it's Graduation Ceremony.
Regardless, although I appreciate Fashion Week, they really must find themselves a new venue. By taking over Bryant Park, they do the public less of a service than it believes itself doing. I have to walk across Bryant Park's main entrance to get to classes and it's truly a hassle to have to literally force a path through Fashion Week patrons crowding the ENTIRE sidewalk.
I, for one, do not think New York needs any more "exposure". And that particular street corner, probably one of the busiest in the entire world, does not need any more traffic, foot- or otherwise. Stick 'em in the Javits.
Find another space, hoity space hogs. Ice rink please.
Last year, I went to The Pond @ Bryant Park several times a week. I'd be slightly miffed if the ice skating season were cut short there for Fashion Week.
I suspect Fashion Week events would generate more revenue than The Pond. Is this why Bloomberg would side with Anna Wintour & the fashion world?
I certainly hope not.
If you really want to try something fun, grab a hot cocoa and sit in the park to watch the comings and goings. The seats remain open to the public, and while it may be cold, the show is totaly worth it. NYC needs the tents in Bryant Park.
Well, the ice rink is not that good, IMO.
fashion beats ice skating
Fashion is self-promition masquerading as art. Keep the rink.
As for a big open space, I hear Jersey is nice.
I'd love to see Anna Wintour on a pair of ice skates. Bitch, please. Y'all have enough money, find a new venue yourself and stop clogging up public space for private enterprise.
New York is NOT the capital of fashion. It's not even the capital of finance.
What about "Fashion Week on Ice"?
the ice ring wins by a landslide. The fashion is just gaudy shit designed by elitist sodomites who don't even dress like that in real life. You ever notice the designers look they shop at banana republic or urban outfitters? The models are all underfed skinny waifs coked out of their minds and everyone always says their line is "sexy" and "provacative" and "trend setting" when it's all the same year after year and you couldn't even tell. Fashion is for sheep.
New York *is* the capital of finance. I don't know from where you're getting your 'facts,' but I'd find a new source.
Kern, brilliant comment, although I think there could be some Zoolanderesque freak model deaths as these "skinny waifs" fall on the ice.
On a seperate note, does anybody find it hilarious when models fall on the runway, considering that is all they are paid to do?
No ice ring, no fashion week. Why can't the park be a park, as it was designed? If you don't skate but do use the park regularly, the rink is as disruptive as Fashion Week is, so if the choice is one or the other, it's really all the same to me. There are precious few weeks of the year now that the park isn't monopolized by an ugly giant commercial venture!
How about the Theater at Madison Sq Garden?
Or even the Garden itself?
Truly fashion on ice!
Anonymass,
London is the true center of the financial world.
Fashion week is part of NYC. Get used to it. Too bad. It makes NYC one of the great cities of the world (and one of the few places in the US that non-Americans still like). If you're so closed minded that everything in NYC should revolve around you and what you want, then you should probably leave and go live in isolation. NYC is not YOUR city, it's EVERYONE'S city. Share it. I'm shocked how self-centered and bigoted (sodomites?) some of these comments are. It's not something I would expect from New Yorkers, though I do like the idea of Fashion Week on Ice. Now that's all in good fun! For the record, I'm not in fashion, if that's what you were thinking. So there! phhhhhtttttt!
I vote for the hot models in Bryant Park over a bunch of ice skaters.
As if the "non-Americans" you speak of do much travel beyond New York. Just like most of the idiotic commentary on Gothamist comes from people who haven't ventured beyond Paris and London and yet think all Europeans are hyper-educated sophisticates.
F*UK Fashion, I hope they all die from lung cancer and drug OD's.
Is that bigoted enough for you?
If we're going to start blaming Fashion Week for taking up space and disrupting our comings-and-goings, what's going to be next? All those parades on Fifth and Sixth? Street fairs? The Met in Central Park? Free concerts in Prospect Park? If we don't allow Fashion Week to take up Bryant Park for two weeks a year (fashion people are skinny, just squeeze around them), isn't it only fair that we get rid of all the other things that make our city so unique?
Put 'em in the 7th Regiment Armory on Park Avenue...it's huge, just think of how many skinny models you can jam in there.
www.forgotten-ny.com
Since the fashion shows are essentially indoor activites, it seems ridiculous to dedicate one of New York's few outdoor spaces to them.
Right Jonathan, because the Opera and Philharmonic in Central Park take up 100% of the park. Idiot.
Can everybody take a deep breath and remember what Bryant Park used to be like just a few short years back? That people would even have this argument was unthinkable back then. How wonderful is that?.
And I'll take a clean park, fashion week, summmer movies AND a skating rink over the way it used to be any day of the week (and really, they can fit them all in and still leave some time for the office folk to eat lunch).
And FYI Kevin, I think some of the shows this year, i.e. Marc Jacobs, were at the Armory...
Yes, I remember and the stories are all exaggerated.
Jonathan: Nice try, but you cited nothing but public and non-profit events. Last time I checked, the fashion industry wasn't exactly what one would call non-profit.
I have no problem with public, accessible events. Fashion Week is not one of them.
"Sodomites"? You should be embarassed of yourself.
I understand the point about the difference between public and private events. Perhaps I was a little hasty. But I would still like to point out that Fashion Week also does not take up 100% of the park. In fact, it takes up about as much space as the ice rink.
"Since the fashion shows are essentially indoor activites, it seems ridiculous to dedicate one of New York's few outdoor spaces to them."
This is the most logical argument on this thread. You can toss the fashion show anywhere, but you can't do the same with an ice rink. I can't believe how up in arms people get about haute couture. Seriously, who gives a shit?
amazing!!! who cares about fashion except Sex in the City wannabes. OOOh, look at that dress, it's only 5 grand, worth every penny.
I can't stand fashion shows or the morons who sit there and oooh and aaah at weird clothing, then stand up and clap for some other moron who reinvented a style that was popular 20 years ago.
Keep the free rink, there is much more exposure for the park that way.
And as for Anne Wintour, fashion doesn't garner anything quite rightly you shallow self-centered idiot.
Alright, so i'm a little late to the party but.
A. fashion week is a for profit enterprise that is an indoor activity, and could be held any time of the year.
B. Ice skating is a fun and healthy outdoor activity that new york needs more of in the winter.
C. January through march are prime ice skating months that are cut short because fashion week boots the rink out of the park for their one week event.
To respond to NYCJim's comment about every citizen of the city of new york, the surrounding areas, and the world, that are not involved with fashion week needing to "get over themselves", your disconnect from reality seems acute and they do make drugs that can help with that. Go see a shrink, or in fact, leave midtown and chelsea every once and a while and see how the real world works you arogant and needlessly entitled, elitist human parasite.
They should Put the tents up in central park which is about the most central location in the city (thus the name central park), fully accessable to all the media and participants, has enough room to not cramp anybody's style (i.e. they could have even bigger tents to cram their egos and budgets into, and the regular people could have their ice rink for the whole winter.)
It's a no lose proposition.