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“I’m going neutral,” said her friend Susanne
Bober, from Church Street.
The two women with opposite tastes could well have been choosing
the rug for a bedroom or the right shirt to go with a new
pair of pants. Instead, they were voting on a color scheme
for the Washington Market Park’s newly expanded playground.
Its temporary blue-and-purple striped surface has enraged
many who look down on the park from apartments across the
street.
The balloting, conducted by Fraya Berg, Harriet Grimm and
Karen Brodsky for the park’s board of directors, took
place May 18 on the spongy, colorful surface that will soon
be history. Thirty- seven ballots were cast, including several
by voters young enough to have a proprietary interest in the
outcome:
- Beige and gray stripes/yellow circles—18
- Beige and gray stripes/blue circles—10
- Dark and light blue stripes/yellow circles—9
While there is no shortage of residents who find the fuss
more than a little petty, the city’s Art Commission,
which must approve visible changes to city property, had given
the matter an official and very sober hearing in City Hall
the previous week, leading to the community poll.
At the hearing, Lee Weintraub, the park’s landscape architect,
made his pitch for keeping the blue and purple. Then he listened,
grim-faced, to the
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