The artists received a great deal of their nationwide fame as a frequent object of ridicule by David Letterman, as well as by Keith Olbermann, whose apartment was nearby.

According to the artists, the work used 5,390 tons of steel, 315,491 feet (96 km) of vinyl tubing, 99,155 square metres of fabric, and 15,000 sets of brackets and hardware.

During the week of March 17, Central Park filled with workers using forklifts to move the rectangular steel plates into position.

All had small orange plastic markers sticking up two feet (around half a meter) from each end, possibly intended to help people find the base plates if they were covered with snow.

On February 7, 2005, more than 100 teams of eight workers, all wearing grey uniform smocks, began erecting the gates and bolting them to the base plates.

The project was officially launched on February 12, 2005, when then-New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg dropped the first piece of fabric at 8:30 a.m., with Christo and Jeanne-Claude in attendance.

On many days, staff members distributed free 2.75" square souvenir swatches of the orange fabric to passers by, in part intended to discourage vandalism.

[7] A 2007 documentary film's synopsis by the video's promoters, Kino Lorber, contend this artwork "brought over 4 million visitors from around the world to Central Park.

"[8] Albert Maysles's HBO movie The Gates, about the installation,[9] aired February 26, 2008, won a Peabody Award that same year.

Successful Japanese businessmen traditionally purchased a gate in gratitude to Inari, the god of worldly prosperity.