It’s curtains for “The Gates.”
Teams of dismantlers began a two-week mission to reverse Central Park’s orange makeover yesterday – stripping down the city’s most talked-about art installation into piles of junk ready for the recyclers.
Working through early snow flurries, an army of 300 workers – paid by artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude – began their attack on the flame-colored creations, which have drawn more than a million spectators to the park in the past two weeks.
But as the official take-down teams labored, a light-fingered rope climber appeared to have snatched a curtain for himself.
Photographers noticed that one relatively secluded gate near the Boat House at East 74th had been stripped of its orange finery – leaving behind only a rope and a jagged frill.
“There was a rope tied to the frame and to a nearby tree which had been used to hoist someone up,” said fotog Mitchell McCormak. “You could see the material had been cut with scissors or a knife.”
Officials later said only part of the fabric had been ripped off – workers cut down the rest.
The official take-down started at the north end of the park, and workers hoped to remove most of the gates above 80th Street by last night.
But by lunchtime, 200 of the park’s 7,503 frames had been felled – but then heavy snow started falling.
“They might have to tell everyone to come back Wednesday,” said Kito Sharpe, 25, a safety worker on the project.
“It’s tough to maneuver the forklift trucks in the snow, and it doesn’t make sense to shovel the snow off the bases [of the frames] while it’s still coming down.”
Once they are taken down, every piece of the $21 million art installation will be recycled.
The 15,006 steel bases and 165,000 nuts and bolts will be made into construction rebar, steel plates and steel coil. The uprights, base covers, and cross-beams will start new lives as PVC piping, vinyl fencing and the inner cores of paint rollers and tool handles.
Aluminum bracing will become storm gutters.
Last but not least, the 1 million square feet of nylon will be converted into thread or ground into filler to be used as carpet under-padding.
And no doubt, some of the stolen curtain will end up for sale on the Internet.