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Mark di Suvero Sculpture on Governors Island Tweaked to Make it Safer

The new swing on the Mark di Suvero sculpture is designed to be safer.
The new swing on the Mark di Suvero sculpture is designed to be safer.
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Flickr/joevare

GOVENORS ISLAND — This piece of art was too dangerous for Governors Island.

A towering sculpture by abstract expressionist Mark di Suvero was recently altered after children swung too vigorously on a suspended wooden platform that was part of the interactive artwork.

"We have a different swing now, because people were a little too exuberant," said Leslie Koch, president of the Trust for Governors Island.

"I'll blame it on the parents. Parents were prodding their children…saying 'Why don't you climb this?'"

The 52-foot-long di Suvero sculpture at the island's Picnic Point, called "She," now features a more solidly anchored swing made of twisted tires, which has a smaller range of motion and is therefore safer, Koch said.

"She" is one of 11 di Suvero sculptures on display on Governors Island this summer, as part of one of the biggest public art show the island has ever mounted. The welded steel sculptures — which stretch up to five stories tall and weight up to 50,000 pounds apiece — will remain in place through the end of September.

Koch sees the playful, interactive artwork as central to her effort to turn Governors Island into New York's backyard and an incubator for the arts.

Halfway through the 2011 season, the island has already seen 260,000 visitors and is on track to break the half-million mark for the first time, Koch said at a board meeting Tuesday.

"It really is shocking, even to me, how much the public has embraced the island and embraced the arts," Koch said, noting that the island had just a few thousand visitors six years ago.

Also at Tuesday's meeting, Koch also announced a $3.3 million project to improve Soissons Dock, where most visitors enter and leave Governors Island. The work will start this fall and finish in June 2012.

In the meantime, officials are continuing a public review of the $150 million redevelopment of the island's parks and public spaces. The project — which includes playing fields, a hammock grove, historical restoration work and much-needed infrastructure improvements — will begin construction in the third quarter of 2012.