One art critic called it pure Despite the mixed reviews of Christo and Jeanne-Claude's temporary art installation in New York's Central Park, the public reaction to The Gates was largely positive.The Gates consisted of 7,500 orange PVC frames straddling the park's walkways that varied in widths from 5 1/2 feet to 18 feet. Eight-foot-long ripstop nylon fabric panels hung from the 16-foot-high gates bolted to steel bases placed at 12-foot intervals along the park's twenty-three miles of asphalt pathways from the Plaza Hotel to Harlem. Christo and Jeanne-Claude began the planning, proposal, and negotiating processes in 1979. But it was not until after the final round of negotiations with the City of New York in 2003 that the production stage of the project could begin. The Gates made its debut on February 12, 2005, and came down, as planned, sixteen days later. From start to finish, from the initial idea to the final realization, Christo says that it's the laborious process of negotiation