A former New York City parks commissioner who denied permission for Christo to stage his “Gates” project in Central Park 22 years ago explains why he thinks the project is now a good idea. “Now there is both a time and a place for Christo and his ‘Gates.’ Now they cannot hurt the park or distract us, as they surely would have in 1981, from our duty to preserve and maintain it forever. ‘The Gates’ will visit the park briefly, like the New York City Marathon, which wends through and terminates there, or Joe Papp’s Shakespeare in the Park at the open-air Delacorte Theater. And its colorful, whimsical embrace of the restored landscape will make us stare, laugh, gasp, prance, gawk, and say, to no one in particular, ‘Isn’t the park wonderful. . . . Isn’t New York amazing’.”