ACTOR, Sean William-Scott was caught wearing the ol' Barking Irons classic "Greensward" tee in his new movie, "Role Models" last week. The film has been advertising all over NYC with a giant pictures of Mr. Stifler wearing this vintage Barking Irons diddy. Aside from Scott, Role Models also stars Paul Rudd -a gallant knight of comedy these days and a Barking Irons fan to boot. The film has been scoring solid reviews as a good ol' knee-slapper, just the thing for our depression era blues. For the curious among you who are wondering aimlessly about the history and meaning of the "greensward" shirt, rest easy and you may now unfurl your brow:
In 1860, the city commission of New York issued a design contest for a landscaping plan to fill the center portion of Manhattan island. Over 1000 entries were submitted from all over the globe, but it was a submission by Fredick Law Olmstead and Calvert Vaux entitled, "The Greensward Plan" that ultimately won the day.
The ambitious Greensward Plan proposed roughly 8 years of massive terraforming and redirection of waterways in order to reconfigure the feral, rock-strewn land into a sprawling opus of open public space in the center of the country's most crowded city.
It is remarkable to remember that while it may seem like a preserved natural space, Central Park and the Greensward Plan represent the totalizing efffect of man-made space. Every square foot of Central Park was mapped out and reformed by steam shovels and good old-fashioned Irish labor, more than anything else it represents man's ideal vision of nature.
Thank you Sean-William Scott for your wearing on chest a most memorable homage to manscaping.
The Greenward shirt is available on the Back Door section of the Barking Irons webstore, get yours NOW!!!
