Workers have begun putting up the orange support beams for Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s Gates project in Central Park.

Jeanne-Claude explains the project to a group of children:

“Know why we’re doing this?” Jeanne-Claude asked children yesterday after unexpectedly getting out of a car on East Drive near 90th St.

“They are a work of art, and a work of art is for nothing,” she said. “Only a work of art, for joy and beauty.”

Unfortunately, the Daily News omitted the children’s responses.

Meanwhile, the Post, doing the Postian thing, quotes an 81-year-old retiree doing the 81-year-old retiree thing:

Park-goers seemed excited yesterday as they watched the much-hyped project take form.

“I think it’s good that they are challenging people to re-envision their conception of a place they know so well,” said Chris Martin, 27, a Brooklyn poet.

Others weren’t sold.

“The park is for everyone, not for one person to gum up with their whimsical, individualist fancies,” said Louis Thorn, 81, a Manhattan retiree.

Bah humbug!