Christo began his career in 1958 wrapping cans and bottles, graduating in the 1960’s to covering replicas of storefronts with fabric, paint and wrapping paper. Christo first collaborated with Jeanne-Claude in 1961 when they wrapped oil barrels and industrial paper rolls with tarpaulins on a Rhine River waterfront. Since then, they have wrapped fountains, monuments, islands, a bridge and the Reichstag. 

Source: christojeanneclaude.net

Bill Gates, the richest human alive, is worth $46.5 billion, according to Forbes.com. Given the $21 million price tag footed by Christo and Jeanne-Claude for “The Gates Central Park,” Bill Gates could build 2,291 Central Park Gates projects, if he wanted to – that would include 16,642,500 gates stretching for 51,037 miles, enough to wrap twice around the Earth with enough left over to connect Manhattan with Miami.

The Golden Gate Bridge spans 1.7 miles across the San Francisco Bay, which the Central Park Gates could cross 13 times. Eighty thousand miles of wire bundled into cables holds the bridge aloft. The Central Park Gates used 116,389 miles of nylon thread, enough to string up the Golden Gate 1.4 times.

August Rodin sculpted his first maquette of the Gates of Hell in 1880, at the age of 40. It was his first major art commission, and it was never fully completed until his death in 1917. Undergoing numerous changes, individual figures from the Gates became their own statues: The Thinker and The Kiss primary among them. Rodin worked on his Gates for 37 years; Christo and Jeanne-Claude had planned their Central Park Gates since 1979 – 26 years in the making.