Playground of the Century: A Political and Design History of New York City's Greatest Unbuilt Park

摘要

Jesse Owens was the most celebrated American to compete in the infamous 1936 Berlin Olympics, but he was not the first to win a medal. That honor went to a long-forgotten landscape architect named Charles Downing Lay, who was awarded a silver medal for his extravagant plan for Marine Park in Brooklyn, New York (Figures 1 and 2). Until 1948, art was an official class of competition in the summer Olympiad, and "Designs for Town Planning," one of several subcategories that also included sculpture, painting, music, and literature ("Lyric," "Dramatic," or "Epic"). Of course, there had to be some reference to sport and athletics; this was the Olympics, after all. As the 1936 Art Section entry form put it, "Only works relating to sport will be admitted," while those "representing a human body at rest, without apparent sport character... will be excluded."