So this is my own Nosy Neighbor, since it is one of my biggest neighborhood pet peeves. It has bothered me for years that the plaza in front of City Hall Park is closed to the public, along with the steps, and that the space I remember as part of City Hall Park is now a parking lot for black cars.

(NB: This will be the first in a series of updates on City Hall Park, since there’s a ton going on over there.)

It was my recollection that it was closed by Giuliani after 9/11. I was wrong. He limited access in the mid-90s and then closed it altogether in 1998, after the bombing of the American embassies. From The Times in 2008, in a story about the reservation system for rallying on the steps:
“The steps of City Hall, once the scene of loud, colorful protests and even a few violent riots, are now available only by appointment and must be booked much like a Saturday morning tee time…Giuliani invoked an obscure rule to limit to 25 the number of people on the steps through most of his first term. Then, after the bombings of two American Embassies in Africa in the summer of 1998, he banned all activities there, citing security concerns. The New York Civil Liberties Union sued, and the courts struck down the ban and the tight restrictions that followed it as Mr. Giuliani’s term wound down. When Mayor Bloomberg took office in 2002, he put in place the system of appointments.”

The park was renovated by Giuliani in 1999, and The Times then noted that “critics say the park’s ornate fencing, new guard posts and other security features — including chains closing off the plaza in front of City Hall — will serve as a reminder of Mr. Giuliani’s heavy-handed authority.”

Before the Giuliani era, it was totally open — “you used to be able to walk right into City Hall — up the steps and into the lobby,” said Skip Blumberg, who founded the Friends of City Hall Park. “They would put the Yankees trophies in the lobby, and when I would have dinner parties, we would walk over to see them. Symbolically it signifies an open government.”

I checked in with the (current) mayor’s office and a rep there said it is closed for security reasons, and there is no plan to change it. The public can access the plaza for rallies by reservation and for City Council hearings, after they go through the metal detectors.

And Skip for his part does *not* think the area should be open to the public. “I lived through the assassination of Harvey Milk in San Francisco so I respect the security around City Hall,” Skip said. “We want our city officials to feel safe. And unfortunately the world has changed. It’s not a political problem — it’s a species problem.”

The Friends and the City Hall Park Conservancy are resigned to the limited access to the steps and instead are focusing their energy on accessing other parts of the park — having the temporary barricades moved back and some of the grass area reclaimed for the public,

“We asked about the possibility of having increased access for years, and it does not seem that the steps and plaza directly in front of the building will ever have public access due to security concerns,” said April Krishnan from the Conservancy. “There is a better possibility of having the temporary barricades moved back and some of that grass/park area reclaimed for the public — perhaps as part of potential new programming for the Park, such as a dog run.”

So that leaves us with the parking lot. The parking, the mayor’s office said, is for City Hall staff and the mayor’s office personnel. It turns out there was a parking lot there before the park was renovated in 1999, a symbol of decay if you ask me. The park is actually eight acres, from Chambers to its point at Park Place, with a building (well, two) in the middle of it. The photo below from the 1940s gives you a sense of it — and a sense of the potential.

Courtesy of The Friends of City Hall Park

So that’s my new, redirected pet peeve.