Heckscher Fields, Central Park
Granted my team hasn't played there in a full season or two, but I always loved playing at these fields on the southwest corner of Central Park. There are a ton of people milling around, so you feel like you have fans, though they overlap more than the fields in North Meadow (though not as bad as McCarren... yikes).
Never really knew who Heckscher was though...
Until now! August Heckscher II was Special Consultant on the Arts under President Kennedy (a new position JFK started following his administration's help in stopping a strike at the Metropolitan Opera). Heckscher wrote a very important opinion that expanded the definition of "the arts" and society's responsibility to support them that countered any previous 1950's concerns over government involvement in the arts as equating Soviet Socialist Realism. His opinions paved the way for the creation of the National Endowment for the Arts in '65 under LBJ, and lead to a shift in attitudes that created even more public art agencies in the 1970s. Nice work! He was also Parks Commissioner in the late 1960's and early 70's (when a lot of awesome stuff went down in Central Park, if you know your NYC history...)
Until now! August Heckscher II was Special Consultant on the Arts under President Kennedy (a new position JFK started following his administration's help in stopping a strike at the Metropolitan Opera). Heckscher wrote a very important opinion that expanded the definition of "the arts" and society's responsibility to support them that countered any previous 1950's concerns over government involvement in the arts as equating Soviet Socialist Realism. His opinions paved the way for the creation of the National Endowment for the Arts in '65 under LBJ, and lead to a shift in attitudes that created even more public art agencies in the 1970s. Nice work! He was also Parks Commissioner in the late 1960's and early 70's (when a lot of awesome stuff went down in Central Park, if you know your NYC history...)
Next time I play here, I will be thinking about public art (though I usually use softball to stop thinking about school... doh!).
**Addition 8/14: Heckscher was also the brand new Parks Commissioner during the Sculpture in Environment show in 1967 where Claes Oldenburg famously dug and filled in a grave-sized ditch behind the Met around the same time as the escalation of the war in Vietnam. Placid Civic Monument or The Hole.
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