The New York Times reports that Caitlin LaMorte was in the park one morning, the weather obligingly balmy though rain was possible later. As development manager for the Women’s Committee of the Central Park Conservancy, which manages the park, she runs the Adopt-a-Bench program. It began in 1986, as a way to finance the maintenance of the benches and their immediate surroundings.
If you can afford it, it’s simple enough. Pay $10,000 (it began at $5,000) and you get to put a plaque on a bench, saying almost whatever you want (within limits of decorum: no cursing, no advertising), up to a suggested maximum of four lines of 30 characters each. And then it’s there forever. Ms. LaMorte consulted her tablet for the latest count: 4,223 of the benches adopted. About 250 go each year, she said. While plenty of benches remain unadopted, some areas are sold out.
There are three styles of benches: the simple wood-and-concrete version; the World’s Fair style, with its circular armrests, dating to 1939; and the Central Park settee, based on the benches used during the park’s creation, circa 1858. There are also several dozen handmade rustic benches. With those, you have to fund a restoration of an entire park area and the cost starts at about $500,000, not something to rush into.
To read the article in its entirety, as well as to learn about some of the specific benches and donors, as well about the man who takes care of them, click here.