The state of New Jersey changed course on a public landscape-architecture feature in Trenton, N.J., that was put on the chopping block in late July.
Amy Cradic, policy advisor to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, told landscape artist Athena Tacha that the state would not destroy "Green Acres," a landscape feature by Tacha that the state commissioned in 1985. ARCHITECT magazine reported on the issue after Tacha complained to state authorities that the work was falling into disrepair and was told, in response, that it would be razed.
A Change.org petition garnered more than 400 signatures in support of maintaining the landscape feature. The Associated Press, Newark Star Ledger, and Philadelphia Inquirer all ran stories on the kerfuffle, as did Landscape Architecture, Artinfo.com, and The Huffington Post. The Cultural Landscape Foundation worked with Preservation New Jersey and ArtPride New Jersey to alert people to the threat.
New Jersey authorities appear to have had a change of heart. New Jersey authorities originally told Tacha that there was no money to restore the 77-by-85-foot landscape feature she made for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. They later elaborated that the deteriorating brick feature could represent a hazard in the case of an emergency. New Jersey authorities also told ARCHITECT that they hoped to replace it with a greener feature. (Cradic did not immediately return my call today.)
"I am very pleased that the state of New Jersey has committed to preserving 'Green Acres,'" Tacha said in a release.
