Bryant Park

This guide to Bryant Park in New York tells how the park behind the public library became one of the city's most dangerous spots by the late 1970s, known locally as Needle Park, with hundreds of drug arrests in a single stretch and an executive mugged at its gates. It brings in sociologist William Whyte, who had spent years studying why public spaces succeed or fail, and Dan Biederman and Andrew Heiskell, who founded the Bryant Park Restoration Corporation in 1980. Listen while seated in one of the park's movable chairs, part of the story the guide is about to tell.