The Gift Horse

In making his presentation to the Southampton Village Board last week, outlining an ambitious plan to add grand public gardens as an expansion of Agawam Park in exchange for closing Pond Lane to vehicular traffic, Robert Giuffra, who heads the Lake Agawam Conservancy, acknowledged opposition to the proposal, but said, dismissively, “There were people opposed to the Eiffel Tower … Any good idea, there will be people opposed to it.”

He’s correct. As the scholarly online publication JSTOR Daily notes, when construction began in 1887, the Eiffel Tower attracted plenty of hostility: “French painter Ernest Meissonier, the first president of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, was one such rigid Anti-Tower individual. So, too, was Charles Garnier, architect of the Paris Opera. Academic painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau. Poets Sully Prudhomme and Leconte de Lisle. The composer Charles Gounod. All saw the Eiffel Tower as a humiliation and a mockery.”

Generations later, the tower is, of course, “the acknowledged foremost universal symbol of Paris and France,” as William Thompson has written in The French Review. It’s a reminder that anything new — even a beloved landmark — will have its detractors at first.

The Lake Agawam Conservancy, a nonprofit formed by the cluster of wealthy owners of some of the most valuable real estate in the United States, surrounding Lake Agawam in the village, is proposing something undeniably philanthropic. Peter Marino’s generous offer to design, gratis, a public garden to be added to the existing park is an opportunity to create a public space with enormous appeal — a centerpiece attraction that befits a town with an international reputation. The neighbors have already put up their own money to save the parcels from development for the time being, and they say they will use private funds to both create and maintain the gardens.

Still, this gift horse is getting a very close dental examination. The biggest objection centers on the proposal to eliminate cars from Pond Lane, turning the paved stretch of lakeside road into a walking and biking path. At the same time, there seems to be a general suspicion: This is all simply too good to be true, and there must be an ulterior motive behind all this largesse.

On the surface, the elimination of traffic on Pond Lane is sensible for several reasons. It’s part of the village’s long-term vision for making safer spaces for pedestrians and bikes. And removing the paved road will allow the installation of buffers and barriers to further help with the ongoing reclamation of the terribly polluted Lake Agawam. It also would be safer for the flocks of visitors such a feature might entice.

The pearl-clutching about losing Pond Lane as a thoroughfare seems overwrought. A simple glance at traffic patterns suggest it’s far from essential, and the balance sheet is heavily weighted toward the public benefit of creating such a recreational space in the center of the village.

The idea deserves, and will get, a healthy debate over the coming weeks and months. In evaluating it, the public should be cautious, but it’s worth noting that this kind of public project can either be fully funded by taxpayers or supplemented by civic-minded people of means. Whether or not there is some benefit to Lake Agawam property owners in creating public spaces rather than watching more sprawling mansions rise, the only question is: Does the community gain or lose? That is the measure that matters.

Marino’s willingness to create this space for the village is one aspect of the proposal that is above reproach. It seems rooted in his genuine affection for the community. He has already shown altruism in preserving the historic building in which the Peter Marino Foundation is based, and his sincere vision is for Southampton to be an arts mecca.

To a large degree, the circumstances have conspired to allow him to present this gift horse to Southampton Village. It’s prudent to consider all the factors of saying yes. But it might be wise to keep in mind those Parisians who saw “a humiliation and a mockery” in what is now the iconic image of the City of Light, and to ask what would have been lost if they’d won the argument.