Reason #9 to Save the WSV Sasaki Garden

The top 10 reasons to save the WSV Sasaki Garden in 10 parts.

Reason #9:

The Garden is the defining feature of Washington Square Village, a successful example of tower-in-the-park residential development model first developed by Le Corbusier in the 1920s.  Tower-in-the-park architecture is no longer en vogue among architects and planners.


Here is what Architectural League Executive Director Rosalie Genevro had to say about towers-in-the-park:

Management is more important to creating successful places than architectural form. Form can be supportive, but it is not determinative. Starrett City was under construction while St. Louis was dynamiting Pruitt-Igoe.


Towers-in-the-park can be great places to live, if they are well managed and the promise of the name is delivered in the site and landscaping. New York has plenty of examples of towers in the park that work, including Stuyvesant Town and Penn South and Fordham Hill in the Bronx.

Ms. Genevro did not list Washington Square Village but the development is exemplar nevertheless.  Help us Save the WSV Sasaki Garden (and Washington Square Village)!

Read reason #10 here.