Back in 2005 I was living in San Diego, but I made a trip back to New York in February of that year to see Christo’s last project, which was located in Central Park. The project, called The Gates, was comprised of 7,503 gates, which were installed over the entire length of the park. The gates were 16 ft tall and varied in width, from 5 feet 6 inches to 18 feet. Each gate had a saffron-colored panel of nylon fabric hanging from it. The Gates Project had a life span of two weeks (12 Feb to 25 Feb) and that was it, it was gone after that, never to return. Seeing the Gates was a once in a life time opportunity.
Here are a few of the pictures I took of The Gates….
gmf journal 
Very cool! Did he say what the project personified? Man… that must have took forever to set up. Did they say how many people it took to setup and how long it took?
According to The Gates website the installation of The Gates was performed by 600 workers, who were divided up into 8 person teams. Each team put up 100 Gates. They started working in early January 2005.
Christo stated that The Gates had no inherent meaning. The project would evoke a variety of different feelings from those saw it in person. I found it to be visually stunning based on the sheer volume of Gates. Central Park is over 800 acres and it was almost surreal to see the huge orange Gates covering the walkways of the park from one end to the other.
Here is the URL of the Gates website:
http://www.christojeanneclaude.net/major_gates.shtml