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September 30, 2004

The devolution of the hero. David Dunlap provides the details (to perhaps even an unnecesary degree: thermoplastic grout? Yeah, I was wondering about that) of the completion of a project I have been following, quite literally, the progress of over the summer. Jogging up lower Broadway is part of one of my regular routes, and I noticed one evening the presence of slices of what looked to be brass (turns out to be granite with inset stainless -- affixed by the aforementioned thermoplastic grout) stripes that cross the sidewalk as you move north from Bowling Green. They each had a terse description of an event that, after passing a handful, I presumed to be the occassions for ticker tape parades. I was planning to mention this earlier, but progress seemed to be stalled around 1950. What struck me was the frequency in the early part of the century, and a focus that seemed to be disporportionately political figures (which struck me as odd, given how anonymously a world leader can be in the city now) and war-hero related (which was entirely understandable). Given my lived experience of them as a series of drunk New Jersey-ites feting the Yankees (can you tell I'm a lifelong Red Sox fan? Though given what I saw of Yankee fans, I would be even less inclined to attend a Bosox parade, hexed impossibility notwithstanding), I was looking forward to the sixities and beyond, where I could trace the general degredation of civic celebration from the standard of those who saved countries and ruled them to pajama-clad pretty boys and louts who hit a fast moving ball with a stick. But I've passed on that route lately, and thus missed out on the progress. Dunlap doesn't provide enough specifics to bear me out, and the evenings are now dark early enough to prevent a review. I doubt I will be disappointed when I give it a shot some weekend. But the city is betting big on Yankee domination for decades to come: some 33 spots are held empty for expansion. The way the Bombers are pitching these days, they should last well into the next century.

Found always via this Permanent Link.

September 27, 2004

Size Matters. I try to consciously limit observations of those that could be nominally termed public (which means they are reasonably accessible, and require no fee for entry), but occasionally there is an odd confluence that seems worth sharing. I recall a conversation I had about the role of proportion in design with a former professor, then employer, and now friend (which is a great progression for being able to challenge your elders) who wasn’t the source of, but enabled the focus of my intellectual discontent (which of course meant the attendant intellectual laziness justified by half-baked critiques) as it ranged through the ravages of lit-crit solipsism enabled by an academically suspect institution, while skipping over more ‘traditional’ methods and standards.

He managed a more thorough progression using the reverse track, so when it came time to test a design thesis, or apply some order, he was very quick with most of the traditional methods, and adept. I was surly (mostly out of jealousy), but had what I thought was a salient point: the rigors of harmonic proportion, based in math and music, were necessarily hard to test in the lived experience. If a room some 70 feet to a side (or better yet, a freestanding structure) was not quite a golden section, off by six inches, say, how many people could discern the error? Anyone who has fought with actual building design (real walls, real budgets, etc.), knows the complexity that can mount trying to instill this level of order.

It was a convenient way to be a little lazy (as I said) when resolving dimensional issues, and, were it to be assailed, there was the handy intellectual progression from harmony into dissonance and, say, Glenn Branca (who my boss was fond of as much as he was Kurt Weill). But my own personal journey from Dave Brubeck to Albert Ayler wasn’t simply an excuse for not knowing the golden ratio off the top of my head, and but was as much a journey of understanding and discernment (and its own sort of snobbery, sure) as it would be to study Pythagoras. And I tend to be fussy about alignments and precision, so it was partially being a smart ass, and partially a true question about perception and absurdity.

I also tend to be fairly skilled at estimations of measure: passage of time, distances, and the like. Knowing construction standards over time certainly helps, but I always struggle with defining the experiential concept of space as it extends beyond requirements to comfortable to grand, to overwhelming. It is a crucial consideration in design: When you draw a room that is twenty feet to a side, it is grand? Sure, it depends on the furnishing (and the prior experience of the inhabitants), but the space itself will impart an impression, informed by finish, light, and, yes, Dan, ratios (it must be equally pleasing for the mentor to watch the juvenile petulance give way to a nuanced search for the ideal). And I can never quite reconcile the gap between a generalized concept and the actual.

But I got a very good schooling on what big can feel like last evening, having attended the New York Theater Workshop’s ‘revival’ of Hedda Gabler.

I know little enough about Ibsen to comment on the particulars of the production in the context of his body of work (and its traditional staging), or really even enough of theater in New York generally, to say much beyond I found it very compelling. Of course, having been educated by friend on the value of it, I tell everyone I can that seeing theater in New York is precious opportunity that fortunately shows no signs of abeyance, at least in my relatively short experience.

I’ve been a regular attendee at the NYTW over the past few seasons, and their work is uneven, in my estimation (with the complex qualification that ‘average’ theater in New York most might still find exceptional, and the first performance I attended there was Caryn Churchill’s Far Away, which ranks as one of the most visually stunning -- to say nothing of the terrifyingly brilliant script -- events of my life, and a high water mark to subsequently crest). Their staging, however, always impresses me, with a wide range of approaches, and in what is a good, but not ideal, theater space. A testimony to their effectiveness is that I have never been able discern exactly how large the space is.

Thanks to this performance, I can report that theater proper is around 2800 square feet, easily calculated by the stark sheets of drywall that cover the auditorium, neatly stacked in five columns across the stage and seven deep to the rear wall. It is a commanding effect, not quite construction rough (the drywall tape is rather fussily applied in neat lines), but it is certainly raw. The stage is kept spartan for most of the performance, and then it is downright stark. With about ten minutes before curtain, I found myself relating all sorts of measures to this corner or that: my current apartment would fit there, would be this wide. My first bedroom (eight feet by seven) in NY would be there. And, obviously, a open living space forty feet wide and some thirty deep would be a very pleasant way to utilize a mere 1200 square feet (less than half the size of the average home constructed today). At least to a New Yorker.

That I would spend those minutes in such a way attests to the particulars of my mania, but one that I am sure would find great sympathy with most who have sought living space on this island. That I did not know anything about the play before walking in made the experience all the more the perverse. If you aren’t familiar with the play, I’ll not go into detail (if you are as much a cultural philistine as I, see this link for a more detailed synopsis and review), but I can say generally that a key plot point is the acquisition of a large house had somewhat dearly, which, rendered abstractly as a commanding singular space by the staging, must resonate quite acutely with the lusting hordes of loft-seeking Manhattanities. Given our conditioning in the current market, it reads as expensive in a way that no amount of cluttered granduer of a more text specific staging could.

And, no doubt, it’s a nice room. A lovely room. Again, a particular mindset must be had to find unfinished drywall, albeit rigorously applied, viscerally appealing, but good light and room to walk (and run) illustrates just how little may be needed to live a robust life. Worth seeing, because this innocent vista will no doubt crumble (how much Chekov do you need? there are two guns on the wall), and in a way that should expose just how bankrupt our pursuit of the real estate mirage truly can be.

Found always via this Permanent Link.

September 26, 2004

Exactly how dim is the NYPD? Well, apparently they never heard of this Internet thing. Continuing their inexplicable logic that riding a bicycle on the streets of Manhattan is somehow qualitatively more criminal than driving a car, or, really, just testifying to some feelings of sexual inadequacy (though you have to be careful with lines like these: a friend, stopped by an officer -- in, granted, a small Southern city -- late in the night after he decided to collect a number of traffic cones he found attractive in his inebriated state, said in reponse to the officer's request to replace the cones, or be written up: "Ah, now, I know you can't be a cop, because you can read and write". This of course resulted in a trip to the drunk tank and his first experience with the best drunk descriptor ever "toe up from the floe up" [written phonetically]) through silly displays of authority, the NYPD turned up at the Critical Mass ride Friday with their pissy little flyers about not riding three abreast, etc. and, stymied by the clever actions of some, who, fearing a seizure like last month, simply dismounted, locked up their bikes and walked off, proceeded to steal legally locked bicycles. And here's the kicker: they sawed the locks. This, after everyone in the world watched the demonstration last week on how to open a Kryptonite lock with pen. Mabye it's true that real cops can't write, and thus were without the proper implements for stealing a bike in this city.

Found always via this Permanent Link.

September 23, 2004

Fireman Ed loves it, so it must be okay. The Times reports that said Fireman is a well-known fella who is pimping for the Jets regarding the stadium, and since I don't read the tabloid sports regularly, I have to take it on faith they aren't being sarcastic or ironic.

BY THE TIME you read this, it's probably too late. But don't worry, the Dolans and the Johnsons called all their friends, and it was surely a packed and spirited debate (though perhaps lacking the quaintness of grandmas in IKEA shirts) at the ULURP hearing on the Hudson Yards proposal today at the Taft Auditorium at FIT. It's a sad day when I have to depend on the Dolans to carry the banner, but they have strong financial motivation, and since there is to date no evidence that strong, reasoned debate will not stop this fiasco, we may as well see how the old school way of insiderism and influence peddling goes.

LATER ON, you can trek downtown and see Kevin Rampe or one of his minions pay lip service to public safety. Though you can hardly tell from the LMDC site, there is a public meeting on the deconstruction plan for 130 Liberty Street. Details as follows:

6:00 pm – 9:00 pm (with a meet and greet beginning at 5:00 pm)
Location: TRIBECA PERFORMING ARTS CENTER
At the Borough Manhattan Community College
199 Chambers Street, Theatre One
Entrance: between Greenwich & West Side Highway, enter school, pass campus safety at main entrance and bear right.
If you can't make this one, the LMDC does provide for public comments via the website.

Found always via this Permanent Link.

September 22, 2004

Boom. I learned today that anyone, everyone who passes opinion on war, or terror, or any of their related misfortunes, should hear an explosion, up close, and without warning. I seem to be magnet for manhole explosions, or the folks at ConEd are incompentent in ways we cannot imagine, having witnessed (within a minute or so of the event) three in the past fifteen months. I have been struck by lightning (in a tertiary way -- I know that's a strange qualification, but true), so maybe it is just that I have a unique coincidence with electrical-related mishaps.

The first was in front of the apartment the day of the Big Blackout, so the subsequent darkness we presumed in the apartment to be our fault (and, for a while, also the cause of the collapse of the eastern seaboard grid; what can I say? We have a megolamanic streak in the apartment). Then, a few months later, more of the same, even the same manhole, this time sans region-wide darkness.

Today, it was leaving the workplace and hearing -- no, really, feeling the term always used but never appreciated enough: the concussive effect of detonation. The change in air pressure races past you as the sound hits, and your head rings and your ears immediately stopper. Everyone pauses, looking around for some indication of what just happened. No one is screaming, no one has pushed the terrorist panic button yet. Slowly, smoke begins to billow at the end the block. Everyone moves in a very measured fashion, and no one asks their neighbor anything. A slight stir happens as those who are closer begin to move quickly away, but their disruption does not impel those around you, who remain, staring quizzically. More smoke. And then, again, a sonic thrust even greater, accompanied by a junction box (those steel rectangles with a gridded pattern that sit in many intersections), with its entire substructure, a steel fabrication that weighs an easy 200-300 pounds, goes a good twenty feet into the air.

This time causes a headache and ringing that won't dissipate for thirty minutes. People are now runnning rapidly away from the source in a geometrically perfect pattern. Vehicles race for cover with inadequate concern for pedestrians. To the left, a man is berating a woman with the proverbial Nikon D70, who responds "I can't! I'm scared." Some 200 feet off, we who stood and stared after the first event are still paused, even sickeningly relieved that it is only the street exploding, an entirely comestible event, though dozens of people are racing up the street towards us. You begin to warily eye the manhole covers that dot the street. Sirens are now wailing in the distance, and it is quiet, except for the ringing and occassional cries of fleeing pedestrians. One cab sits oddly in the center and you keep wondering of the driver has fled. Smoke is now covering the intersection and the stench of burning electricity fills the air. Some vehicles are still crossing the intersection and you wonder what urgency compels them to proceed in the face of an highly uncertain condition.

A minute passes. Maybe. And people, likely on their way to the Port Authority, have pulled up, and are starting to creep back to the west, the source. A third rupture, one that seems tame, relative to the first two, signals a defiance on the part of our interlocutor, danger, to the evening commute. This being New York, the lack of escalation emboldens the majority to begin walking back towards the scene, the obvious detour of two blocks deemed excessive. And the unexpected additional three minutes spent leaving the building, along with perhaps the concern that those manhole covers under your feet are legitimately worth fearing, forces you to walk away. By the time you reach the end of the block, the passersby are almost oblivious. By the time you exit the subway a stop away, everything is normal, save the uncomfortable thickness in your ears and the pain whinging in your skull. When you get home you can barely find evidence of the event. But concussion sticks with you. And at a hundred feet, two at most. You try to imagine that happening, closer, for hours, days. Bigger, worse.

We know more than one should ever have to about terror. But much of our anxiety is fueled by anticipation. We still, to our great fortune, live in a place where an event like this can be immediately dismissed (as perverse as such a process is) as accident. And regardless of our posturing, we know it. Because something exploded under our feet, and it stopped my heart, and five hundred people stopped and stared. No one, no one took cover, or immediately ran. Five people were injured, the Times reports. We are lucky. As we are every day. I'll remember this. But only for a day or two, unless it is useful cocktail chatter (like this). Because I am lucky.

Found always via this Permanent Link.

September 15, 2004

Kevin Rampe: tool for The Man. But you knew that already. The Times is reporting that perhaps Kevin Rampe's accusations of fraudulent claims on the part of Deutsche Bank were, um, stoopid. Okay, that's not a quote, and I should use more refined language, but since he accused a major investment bank of what was tantamout to perjury (well, okay, it is an investment bank; one should give a little latitude there), and as a bonus, criticized a publicly elected official (a distinction he has never earned, nor would likely, given his treatment of the people who actually live downtown), and then turned out to be entirely wrong I don't quite see the need to bother with phrases like 'incompetent', 'not properly serving the public interest' or, hey, here's one that seems ironically apropos: 'lying'. The report isn't up yet at the LMDC site, or they have hid it very well. I wonder if it's okay with Kevin that we trust the Times on this one for now. After all, they are just trying to pump circulation with their slanderous claims of dangerous levels of contaminants found in a report, um, he commissioned.

Found always via this Permanent Link.

September 14, 2004

Is that a soaring residential development in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me? The abiding issue I have with the Neo-Trad, New Urbanist and out-and-out Luddites (who probably have a name, but it has passed by me -- is it properly TradArch?) is their willingness to speak ahistorically to prove points, or to bend their interpretation to fit conveniently to a predisposed point that is more induced by misattributed nostalgia than analysis. Now, that's one of those comments that, after substituting the reference points, could apply to any dogmatic theorist or critic, but the acute focus on history of these various positions would seem to mandate more rigor and analysis than you might get from, say, Greg Lynn (who, for all I know, may posit that his work is rigorously positioned within a historical continuum).

Curbed pointed to an post recently by John Massengale that discusses the recent article by Nicolai Ouroussoff (the article is appended to Massengale’s post) about the changing Manhattan skyline, particularly the proposed residential tower by Santiago Calatrava. One of Massengale’s points is that “extreme symbolism of the power of wealth is the worst element of the design” and I’m normally not one to poke at anyone who seems to hold that such an accumulation of wealth is fundamentally immoral. And I happen to agree that its display in this form is egregious. But this practice is steeped in social and architectural history, one that is rarely criticized by the TradArch folk (as I know them, at least). Allowing history to flatten prior inequities you are willing to criticize in the current day is potentially a more damnable act that simply shrugging and turning aside from such behemoths, past and present. Stretching from the pyramids, through Versailles, Mount Vernon, the Breakers and landing (or just hovering, like a cheap tease) in Peter Lewis’ backyard, architecture as we know it is an act of the most conspicuous consumption, for better or worse (and you can trot out all the Bataille you want to assuage yourself of that fact). Why Massengale wrings his hands over this point confuses me, since the best-known proponent of traditional architecture owns Buckingham Palace (well, not yet). It doesn’t get much more conspicuous than that.

His second point is that all the recent towers are part of an insidious cabal of practitioners he (among others) dubs ‘Starchitects’. Again, you get lots of sympathy around here in trying to stop the assembly-line tripe you get these days from the upper echelons of American architects. Though he certainly lumps in the likes of Koolhaas in his derision, when you consider over time, the yardstick applied is that architects are form-givers, first and foremost, Koolhaas fares far better (along with some of the European luminaries such as Herzog & de Meuron, Peter Zumthor and MVDRV) than the prepackaged work you see from Gehry, Childs, et al. Where he falters a little is his unwillingness to indict one of his masters, Mr. Original Prick hisself, Frank Lloyd Wright. The man may not have invented the starchitect phenomena, but he polished it in a way that even Stanford White couldn’t have, even if White had kept it in his pants long enough to try.

So the principle is strong, but its application is weak. And that’s unfortunate, since there is much to not like about the Calatrava project. Massengale calls it a “a bad idea from a good engineer”. I would even qualify that last bit, but that’s for another discussion. This leads to his comment on conspicuous consumption, but the most glaring failure is that it is a failure of type. There is very little in the way of precedent for residential buildings at this scale. You are surely saying, “but what of the scourge that is Costas Kondylis?” Well, exactly. Simply because that man has produced a panoply of officious ‘luxury rentals’ does not make them any good. Their presence speaks more to a failure of planning and zoning (and public investment in housing) than any formal extension of type. They are simply the end state of the International Style tower farms, which begat the public housing schemes of the 50’s and 60’s -- now universally derided even as evidence persists that the failures were as much managerial and policy based, not because of inherent design flaws. So it is a rich irony to see it circle back again, in the cycle of gentrification, the appropriation the housing of the ghetto as the future of affuluent dwelling.

The upscale embrace of the Kondylis type heralds a dismal future for housing in New York. Even with the views afforded, when $30 million does not get you a townhome or appreciable amounts of outdoor space, we are in for a dystopian future. When you look at the evolution of housing based on market pressure and available stock, you go from pre-war sixes and eights, which ballooned into some truly magnificent spaces on Park Avenue, and the loft redevelopment of SoHo to the behemoths of TriBeCa, even the humble brownstone to palaces on Fifth Avenue, you see a noticeable trend: the extension of a modest (in scale of building and even unit size), but not humble certainly, type that is then doubled, tripled, and then some, once it becomes desirable. So it is perversely rational, though not terribly inspiring, to take those shoeboxes in the sky on Sixth Avenue and make them into sterile white boxes, albeit huge.

Zoning works against this model, since they cannot be planted in any desirable neighborhoods, unless you are crafty (Trump) or coming at the tale end of a massive development fight (TW Center). So it is irreproducable, and that’s probably a good thing, since it is a rather uninteresting extension of the worst elements of residential design of the past fifteen years. Given the scope of the project ($360 million in sales revenue!), that a chance to produce a form that would be inspiring to residential development, no matter how conspicuous, would have been welcome. Instead we get something that recalls the hot thing back when I still carefully tracked the buzz words of the latest jargon: 'weak form', which was becoming a privileged way of justifying one’s work, as opposed to strong form, which was, if I remember it correctly, what you get when the ideology of the dominant paradigm produces work that is expressly domineering (sort of if Donald Rumsfeld were an architect). Bowing to our local idiolects, the Calatrava projects strikes me as landing somewhere in the middle, and from this, we can coin a new iteration: schlong form.

Found always via this Permanent Link.

September 11, 2004

They were not my friends, but they were my neighbors. I used to live adjacent to a fire house (specifically, Ladder 11/Engine 28). The proximity led to a fairly intimate knowledge of some aspects of the vocation of firefighting. I learned quickly that the circular saws, presumably used to gain entry and clear paths, need to be tested several times daily. It didn't take long to deduce the logic of this: given their use, it's the kind of equipment you want in top shape. More mundane things, such as the subtle and precise hierarchy involved in washing a fire truck, were also revealed. And, best of all, provided you didn't lock your windows, retrieving keys left in the apartment didn't cost you $50.

Mostly, though, you learn just how often they go on a run. Runs can be necessitated by a variety of events. Long ago, in another building, a burst steam valve filled my entire building hallway (four stories), and I was vaguely worried about the danger presented; I called the non-emergency number, and, on answering the phone, a voice demanded "Where is the fire"? I stammered a little and tried to qualify that there wasn't any, or even, I thought, the possibility of one. But I gave my address, and about 240 seconds later there were three burly, fully geared-up firefighters staring laconically at me and the spurting radiator. But they had a wrench that shut it down, and they marched off.

Armed with this knowledge, and a promise from the current tenant that you "didn't notice it after a while" I took the new apartment. And, after a few months, every visitor I had would ask me awkwardly and with a little trepidation once they had spent some time in the apartment, "Uh, it is always like this?" I would smile, ask "the fire trucks?" and they would nod, a little incredulously, when I said "I couldn't really tell you; I don't hear it." And that's the honest truth, even though, when they pulled out, it was like an ambulance driving through the living room. They were as respectful as one could be about the situation, waiting until the end of block to fire up the siren, but you also learn about how shitty and selfish New York drivers are, so there was plenty of blaring from the door out. But, my best guess is, between the two companies, they did six, eight calls an hour. Day in and out, night and day.

What I never saw, and I don't think they did much either, was a real fire. This is statistically true and actually a big training concern: until 9/11 a larger percentage of firefighters never dealt with a live structure fire in their careers than ever before. Of course living next to the fire house doesn't causally lead to seeing a fire.

So I was surprised yesterday, walking down Seventh Avenue, to see smoke billowing. Having called in a trashcan fire (which no one seemed to notice or care about) in that neighborhood before, I went the extra block to investigate and gawk. It was one of those 'Access-a-Ride' vans parked in front of the Bates Building spewing actual flame from the engine compartment. Amazingly, people were walking by it on the sidewalk. Police were starting to tighten up traffic, but in the absurd order of operations, the wailing sirens a block off stayed there, since no traffic was moving. And pedestrians continued to walk unfettered as the police were focused on trying to get the equipment in range. An amazing theater of danger and casual concern overlaid on the density of a New York lunch hour.

The end was professional and anticlimactic. Just as all the film debunking sites indicate, a flaming vehicle almost never explodes, and the flames were even tapering when the truck arrived. Two men, a chemical extinguisher, one hose, and long spear-like device to poke and pull at the fenders and hood and such. A big spray of the extinguisher, some water, a lot of white, dense smoke, and it was over. Over enough. A meeting to make, I walked off, marveling as much at the studied casualness of passersby (or astounding self-interest that obviated noticing) as the efficient professionalism of the Bravest.

Much later, watching Die Hardest after coming home from an evening in Brooklyn, I wondered idly about the odd premonitory tendencies of Bruce Willis films (that and The Siege, not the latter has come true in any meaningful way, but there are uncomfortable precursors). Of course that could be said for a number of films or other remnants of fictional culture. But in the midst of this, I smelt what, were I speaking to a friend who was here at the time, I would characterize as 'WTC'. You remember: it was that sickly burning plastic smell that lingered for months and months. In the air from the still-burning remnants, in dust in the apartments, in our minds. My friend had to leave, and would ask periodically if or when it changed, or improved. I remember for some time thinking it would never go away. So I'm watching the scene in Die Hardest where business attire-clad actors stream from a fake Wall Street Station billowing smoke and the memory is so strong that I wonder if perhaps something is actually burning (and perhaps even don't move out of denial that I don't want to know, whatever it is). Finally, thinking it time for sleep, and with enough certainty that it isn't sense memory, I go to window to discover a tidy fire consisting of about 15 recycling bags on the sidewalk burning briskly. A truck is traveling down an adjacent street, and the scene repeats itself. A hose, a careful assessment that would pass for laziness on the part of the person not watching closely, a burst of water, a poke with the spear. About 60 seconds start to finish, but with the somewhat alarming visual of flames a good six feet in the air (I realize after the fact that there were about 15 feet from my car) it seems to unfold more slowly.

I walk off to bed, before they even pack up, wondering who will clean the mess on the sidewalk, and it occurs to me this is the second fire I have seen this day, a full double the number witnessed in the rest of my life. The latter, at 4:15, and the random thoughts that accompanied it, do not strike me as an odd confluence (even after having seen satellite trucks lining West Street earlier in the evening) until I wake this morning. I don't believe much in fate or other forms of cosmic alignment, but one not need to have reason to stop and offer a remembrance to their brothers and the families of my former neighbors at Engine 26: Captain Thomas Farino, Firefighter Dana Hannon and Firefighter Robert Spear Jr. And to the brothers and families of my former neighbors at Ladder 11: Lieutenant Michael Quilty, Firefighter Michael Cammarata, Firefighter Edward Day, Firefighter John Heffernan, Firefighter Richard Kelly Jr., and Firefighter Matthew Rogan.

Found always via this Permanent Link.

September 9, 2004

A hole of many colors. While busily draping themselves in the glory of past tragedy courtesy the terrorists attacks of 9/11, the GOP visitors last week passed on the opportunity detail the current situation. In case you are still dizzy from either the fervor of untrammeled patriotism or the chemical residue of Pier 57, here is a short update: no planners or funders have been postively identified or apprehended, an amount approaching 'most' of the promised federal funding for the redevelopment is likely never arriving, and the downtown area remains economically depressed and culturally adrift. A few other people have noticed as well.

THOUGH PROMINENT in the Times article on Sunday, the launch of Project Rebirth passed rather quietly. Aside from its poor type decisions, and cloying title, the information can be a good overview, though some of it is lightweight PR flacking. The highlight is the ability to view the reconstruction via a number of time lapse cameras that have been installed. The most striking effect of this is exactly as the Times notes: for all the impressive technology, and the welter of words unleashed over the past three years, it remains steadfastly an ungainly and disturbing rent in the landscape.

IN THE CURRENT Architect's Newspaper (not yet online, and probably won't be) D. Grahame Shane takes a fine pen (and ruler) to some of the current site issues that are painfully unresolved, and typically glossed over in the debate that is so abstractly constructed -- much of it over symbolism, use, and remembrance -- that a fundamental fact is being left out: the site slopes 30 feet from east to west, a fact that was immaterial previously. The original WTC plaza faced primarily east, with no decent pedestrian access to the other boundaries. The transitions were often disguised by the intercession of the outlying buildings, but very evident in a couple of underwhelming stairs few visitors actually used (think about it: did you ever once, sitting in the plaza think, 'Oh, I think I'll go stroll up the east side of West Street?'), given that services such as shopping, transit and access to Battery Park all required entering the complex. Now, the aggregation of competing uses without a fully resolved master plan, as well as the demand to recreate as much as the street grid as possible, will expose the poor state of the current master planning. Shane lays it out peice-by-piece, identifying places where the disjunction is most evident, and, at points, irresolved to the point of absurdity -- such as the likely scenario where Fulton Street will simply dead-end above West Street, a good twenty feet seperating the two. Elegant.

If you get a copy of the article, make sure to have the LMDC's current site plan handy. Unless you are a map hound or intimately familiar with the site and reconstruction plans, it can be hard to orient oneself. What is really needed is an axonometric projection of the site (even better, a Quick Time VR/walkthrough) showing the magnitude of some of the (out-of- ) scale issues. Maybe all the money that's been thrown at dBox can be applied towards something useful.

Found always via this Permanent Link.