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March 31, 2005

Welcome to Orlando. It's just about done -- whoops, sorry it is. Peter Kalikow, Woody Johnson, and Mike Bloomberg have bent the collective we over a canoe and announced: "I'm gonna make you squeal like a pig." This should dispel those pesky rumors that the MTA is something other than corrupt ($200MM in overruns to a limo driver rehabbing your headquarters), incompetent (taking $50MM today over $400MM), or lackeys for scrabbling politicos who are both tone deaf (Mike-Mike) and astoundingly craven (Curious George). Pulling some numbers from the claims in the New Yorker article, if everything goes exactly as planned, in about 10 years, this billion-dollar-plus investment (excluding the 7 line extension) on the part of the city will net -- wait for it -- almost $5MM dollars a year in net tax revenue! Hey, Mike, give me a billion and see if I can produce those same numbers. I think I could. You know how? I'd buy NYC munis, the rating of which should tank once details of this deal are revealed (if they even are -- if you are going to steal from the city all Tammany-style, it's best to hide in the back room), and yields skyrocket. You have to figure Woody has some kind of dirt to railroad a deal like this through. Given the family fortune, it probably involves a lot of K-Y, which we are all going to need, whether it's to love the pounding our tax rates are going to take, or the lube we'll need to navigate the West Side as all the Jerseyites who actually are the Jets' fan base worm their way home each Sunday in the fall.

Found always via this Permanent Link.

March 30, 2005

Errata. Some loose ends, midweek:

SO WHAT BUILDINGS do I actually like? Well, I can't help the dearth of quality. Others can, and back in 2003, the Architectural League decided to try and promote their efforts, creating the New York Designs lecture series to:

...provide a forum for the presentation of innovative and accomplished work in New York City. Exploring a variety of New York building and interior types, New York Designs presents a wide range of projects, from stores and restaurants to offices, galleries, and educational facilities. A new theme is developed each year, and participants are selected based on portfolio submissions.

This year’s New York Designs series will spotlight small scale transformations that express big ideas.

How can a single strong design idea definitively shape a project? From material explorations to design strategies and programmatic invention, what elevates a concept beyond mere function to a project that is inventive within modest means?

If you've got the chops, you'll get the props. Or something like that. Notices seem to have gotten mailed a little late, and the deadline for submissions is tax day (April 15). Details here.

AS BEFITS THEIR FUSSY EVENHANDEDNESS, The New Yorker waited until the day before the MTA vote to publish a non-committal profile on Bloomberg. Perhaps they used his washed-out public persona as a template. They do a fine job of laying out the stadium issues in solid New Yorker-style (um, overly long, and with a couple annoying shifts in narrative sequence to distract you from the fact that it is twice as long as it needs to be; again, don't I seem perfect for a job there?). Unless you have a sub, online you'll have to settle for Ben Greenman's synopsis via an interview with author John Cassidy. And they have an interesting approach to disclosure. The Times does its part by dutifully noting their new building (but, hmmm, rarely mention their PILOT deal) whenever development in the Times Square, or Renzo Piano, is mentioned, but even after detailed conversations about the role of development zones and the diviseness they have sown in neighborhoods, Cassidy didn't think it necessary to note that corporate parent Condé Nast has a home (which includes the editorial offices of the The New Yorker) that is the result of one such battle royale (of which I cannot find any decent online resources, so just trust me), which lasted almost 20 years -- and stands as an example of the benefits of being prudent, given the superior quality of work that resulted, allowing me the generalization that PJ and his lackey Burgee would have produced some of their patented late 80's corporate hackery, given the chance. And that, my friends, is some glittering virtuosity of dependent clauses, is it not?

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March 29, 2005

The memory of Olympia & York looms large. Crain’s New York (print only) is reporting that Larry Silverstein dropped about $300,000 producing cloth-bound promotional brochures (at $150 a pop) for 7WTC, a property still unsullied by the grime of commerce. He's got a good nine months or so to seal the deal -- a deal -- any deal. But he's also got some 1.7 million square feet to deal with.

Now, as you can expect, and I've likely said before, I don't give the proverbial rat's ass about commercial real estate. Soul-crushing behemoths courtesy of David Childs and Ceasar Pelli, if we are lucky, that hasten the degradation of neighborhoods and haven't trickled any benefits down into my pockets? No thanks. Sure, you can start with the half-assed Adam Smith lecture, but I don't think my avocation of campaigning for the dismantling of speculative real estate is actually going to change anything, so leave me to my windmills.

What is significant about this continued failing -- mind you, we're talking about Class A space that, allowing for still-available grants, rebates, and other post-9/11 assistance, nets out to less than 50% of what some boutique buildings are getting in Midtown, and a good 30% less than what larger blocks are going for -- is how accurate a bellwether it will be for downtown recovery. Remember that Kevin Rampe, who still exerts a lot of pull, is adamant that another 7 to 10 million square feet of office space be constructed (and he considers that a moral mandate, not an economic one).

There are arguments to be made about the challenges of the site: it will be surrounded by construction for the next decade, and it really isn't a great location. It was so successful before simply because it was one of the newest buildings close to the WTC. So it can be argued that there is no way to measure the potential for long-term recovery at this stage. But there is also a whiff of desperation in the act. When ground has been broken on a good half-dozen speculative commercial buildings of medium scale and above (which hasn't happened since the 80's), to be this close to completion without even the hint of a deal bodes ill. Sure, once the rest of the area is rebuilt it may be more palatable to commercial tenants, but the air of failure that surrounds half-empty buildings would be its own detriment.

Given that Rampe's thesis is worthy of sharply questioning, the continued absence of tenants should be seen as justification for reopening the discussion of what the remaining sites, previously slated for commercial properties, could now become. The memorial is undergoing serious reworking, there’s some scuttlebutt about whether or not the four selected cultural institutions will be able to raise the money to hold their spots (and to satisfy the voracious appetite of Frank O. Gehry and Associates), so it’s fair to keep an open mind about the remainder of the site. What is sacrosanct about spec office space? And, given the recent travails of Silverstein, the real question might be: What is sacrosanct about unrentable spec office space?

Found always via this Permanent Link.

March 28, 2005

I've got a hole in my pocket. As distracting as the teeming masses of humanity that collide on the streets of New York each day can be, I still find myself craning up or down, seeking insight into the mysteries of life lived so transparently in towers, or the secret spaces below that knit together the services that sustain them.

I've often heard the comment that one shouldn't look up, as it marks you as tourist and makes you an easy target for the slick-fingered. But I feel like an outsider most times and still have yet to meet someone who has fallen victim to a pickpocket. Given the banality of much of the street-level services, entrances to buildings given over to unfortunate awnings, various storefront metal enclosures, and rafts of merchandising, wanting to know the buildings themselves requires distance and a willingness to look provincial.

Seeing below only requires an embrace of the slight dementia one projects when staring pointedly into a grate or opening briefly revealed. Such diligence reveals sights that are quite amazing. On Bleecker Street, just west of Mercer, one can see an amazing subterranean support area for an NYU facility -- or used to be able to; I walked by to verify the location, and for the life of me I can't find it, leading me to believe that some security fears have eliminated it (any better directions here are welcome). While it was still visible, it appeared that the furthest visible point was at least four stories down. Over on 4th Avenue, several of the ancillary space of the Lexington Avenue line are visible just north of Astor Place.

These vistas are a permanent possibility on any given night. Construction provides a whole other level of insight, albeit a more fleeting one. To get an understanding of the impact of bedrock on construction in Midtown -- aside from convenience to regional transit and other socio-economic interrelations, one of the reasons Midtown became so dense with towers is the presence of bedrock in exceptional quantity -- go look at the site for the new Times tower on 8th Avenue and 41st Street, where literally just below surface level excavation equipment is clawing at bedrock every day in preparation for the coming tower.

The revelation of complexity that hides between the buildings requires a rare moment of street opening. So there are holes, and then there are superlatives of holes, such as can be found at the intersection of Stanton and Chrystie Streets. I consider myself something of a connoisseur of such sites, and this one is awe-inspiring. A temporary street crosses the opening, with the cut visible on both sides, showing a network of suspended cables, conduits, supply lines, and temporary bracing. Far below is what appears to be a disused platform that is part of the Chrystie Street connector of the IND. The only other possibility is that it is the southern tip of the proposed ‘East Houston’ stop of the Second Avenue line. I don’t know enough about the locations of some of the photos available of the completed portions to speculate with any accuracy. But for those who are more adventurous, not only is this a hell of a thing to see, but there is also a readily accessible ladder -- a quick hop over some fencing, and you could be in. It’s a quiet enough area, and, aside from having to scale down some thirty feet rather obviously, there is plenty cover the further one gets from street level. I can’t imagine this area is completely free from oversight, but it sure looked empty on a Saturday evening.

Even if you aren’t the spelunking kind, seeing this is a fascinating explication of how we manage to keep all the pieces in place. I’ve noted that my obsession with infrastructure came at the knee of David Macaulay, and this intersection looks more like a page from Underground than I have come across in ten years. Knowing it’s not the sort of thing that provides the same kind of charge as waiting in line for Crash Mansion, I don’t recommend it unreservedly. But if it’s the kind of thing you go for, don’t miss it. And if you are more ballsy than I when it comes to flouting the propriety -- well, legality -- of further exploration, please send me any evidence or stories.

NB: I've avoided using imagery in the course of posting, mostly because I'd rather not have an image substitute for the lived experience. But words can bserve the same vicarious function, so I'll occassionally provide a visual supplment. Click here to view some mediocre images.

Found always via this Permanent Link.

March 25, 2005

How much is that tax subsidy in the window? There's nothing like cash: anonymous, a little grimy, but everyone takes it, and doesn't ask questions. Except for Mr. Clean Hands, Mike Bloomberg, who is still turning up his nose at the cold, hard green that Cablevision plunked down.

Those Cablevision folks are playing this one like Karl Rove. I foolishy predicted that they would be braying all over town if they topped the Jets. Turns out, they didn't and they did, offering the truly staggering sum of $760 million, cash, to tell the Jets to get stuffed. Their offer is noncontingent, meaning that if they never get around to building anything, the MTA keeps the scratch.

The cash is still a gross number, and includes the cost of building the platform over the rail yards, so it's likely that Cablevision would deliver about $450 million upfront, which, by someone's calculation, is the value of their near-monopoly of sports and large-arena events in the city.

Given how much they have dragged their heels on renovating the Garden, this is likely one of those Enron moments, where a craven decision to dump cash now (that may be less than the costs of renovations and lost opportunity dollars for displaced events during the renovation period) in most expeditious way to protect the monopoly and its likely extraordinary margins. Plus there's that $12 million a year in tax breaks.

If Bloomberg wasn't blinded by Dan Doctoroff's obsession with making New York into Tysons Corner, he might leverage this offer into a win-win for the city: wrestle down the development proposal into a binding situation that provides housing and public facilites and get the Dolans to do the renovation at MSG (sure, we can all get to hand-wringing on the monopoly status later; does anyone think a Madonna concert will get cheaper once there are two large-event spaces in the city?). None of this will compromise the potential to expand Javits, since the preferred expansion is to the north (not without its own problems) or, creatively, east or upwards. Only the Post would miss the Super Bowl, and if we need to promise a stadium today for 2012, well, fuck 'em. What's the IOC done for anyone lately, besides take bribes?

Found always via this Permanent Link.

March 23, 2005

It's time for the obvious 'Show me the money' reference. So everyone had to put their cards on the table, and would you believe it? The Jets happened to have about 600 million more cards than everyone thought they did (that’s some Gaultier-like sleeve they were wearing).

Before the MTA starts counting chicks, there is the issue of the platform. Aside from the fact that the platform itself is a bad idea, it also needs to be constructed and funded. When the Jets made their original offer of $100 million, it was only a footnote. After Cablevision got in the act, words from the mayor indicated the that the platform construction was going to be funded by the Jets, making the $100 million a net offer. Cablevision was offering $600 million gross, which, less the estimated $250 construction cost, was only $350 million net. Bloomberg took pains to explain all this to underscore that the Cablevision offer wasn’t all that generous, merely three times as much.

As of yesterday, the Jets are the big dog, gross (maybe: Cablevision didn’t release numbers -- but if they did top the Jets, you can be sure we would have heard about it by now) and net, with a $720 million net offer on the table, meaning if the Cablevision offer did not increase, the spread between the two is $480 million. That’s a nice bit of change for the MTA. However, that is not any great sacrifice on the part of the Jets, since almost all of the increase comes from other developers in exchange for increased air rights on adjacent parcels. And this is still offset by $600 million of city subsidy (which City Council is taking a whack at) and city-guaranteed bonds to finance the Jets' contribution.

The addition of new development is a problem, since it may require a ULURP, a process the stadium has been thus far able to avoid, since it is under state control. This is crucial, since this is one of those annoying good government check-and-balance requirements that allows opposition to fairly heard. Presumably, by detaching the additional development, the Jets are proposing the stadium construction move forward while the land review is underway for the new housing (Cablevision, by restricting its development to the yards proper, would be able to avoid ULURP just as the stadium did). It’s not clear if the Jets want this offer to encompass all of the use rights for the yards. You will recall that the justification for their underwhelming bid was that they were only securing use rights for one-third of the site.

Meanwhile, Cablevision is offering a socialist paradise in the form of a gargantuan mixed-use development -- housing, schools, library, performance space, a needle exchange, abortion clinic, and gay marriage chapel. It’s the sort of project only an urban studies professor could love, which makes sense, since that’s exactly where it came from. The Daily News seems to be in the business of promoting GSD staff (that’s Alan Altshuler who is the dean, not Alex Krieger), but hey, a Harvard guy is a Harvard guy, right?

Sure, the renderings are a little scary, but no more so than those from the Jets, who didn’t provide a model of what the new housing will do to an already overcrowded West Side plan (which the Times helpfully points out will be bigger than downtown Cleveland when all is said and done). Whenever you try and build a model of 5,800 apartments it can be a little daunting. Comparative studies of recent projects such as Trump Theme Park up on 72nd Street or Battery Park might be instructive. If Cablevision could promise that a substantial (30%, say) portion would be low-income, it would end up being one the most progressive large-scale developments since Stuy Town -- and that turned out okay, didn’t it?

Most distressing is that adding six thousand housing units won’t even make dent in the housing shortage up and down the economic scale. Even though this superheated market has made renting finally the better deal -- so yeah, take a look at your hyper-expensive shoebox and tell yourself that you are getting the long end of the stick -- that fact only underscores that we are in desperate need of a long-term housing policy that is citywide. And it will produce ideas that look much like the Cablevision bid. Given the timetable and circumstances in which the bid was mandated, it could be much worse. And, after years of being nothing but a pox on the city, several of its sports teams, and cable subscribers all over Long Island, it is ironic that a deal that evokes the spirit of the Dolans would be the catalyst to provide them a moment of possible redemption.

Found always via this Permanent Link.

March 21, 2005

Morris Minor. Cue woeful, seventies Elmer Bernstein soundtrack (sorry -- caught the end of Serpico this weekend), fire up the Penn Station references and knit together the Identikit of bygone days obliterated before our very eyes. Oh, wait, someone did all that already. Thanks. Anyhow, one of the last remnants of the old school flavor of Union Square slipped quietly (well, not for the neighbors) away last week, when the plague of bright, red Bank of America branches, which are spreading like the blood from the elevator in The Shining, claimed the Paterson Silks building, lately know as Odd Job, one of the local extant examples of work by Morris Lapidus, the designer typically associated with everything negative about American excess.

Lapidus was an interesting designer -- maybe he would be even better acknowledged as scenographer. Inevitably, when one discusses his work, the form in its entirety is rarely discussed. Most times it is an interior event or detail, or the subsequent impact his hotels had in affecting the shape and style of recreation across many fronts, from the idea of a glamorous destination being accessible to all, to swinger and cocktail culture across the generations.

Lapidus was not the progenitor of these disparate threads, but, like Victor Gruen, his accomplishments have be attributed to much more than his actual oeuvre (though given his longevity, it was substantial). As a result, there are myriad examples of work, some of it better, some far worse, that are living examples, and not likely to disappear anytime soon.

The value of the Paterson Silks building is actually an interesting contrast, since the external form is far more recognized and notable than the interiors. As Unbeige noted, when the folks at Odd Job undertook the renovation, they did not deem it necessary to modify their basic retail strategy on the interior. One could imagine a perverse ironic thrill that Lapidus would have surely appreciated upon encountering the dross of consumer culture that is the dollar store without any accommodation for the (relatively) impressive lineage of its environs.

But how much value? There is something to be said for the scale of the building, and the low-key way it managed to occupy the corner, a tyke in among giants at the edge of Union Square. Before it succumbed to the dollar store tide heading eastward, it also stood out as a remnant of retailing that recalled the mid-century history of Union Square. It was a good little building.

But good little buildings may not be worthy of preservation. They certainly aren’t to the folks currently managing such things. I might also hazard they aren’t even if the Landmarks Preservation Commission deemed it so. There are inherent problems with how ‘preservation’ is conceptualized and executed, and these problems leave us with a murky future path.

Though preservationists would have that a rigid and quasi-objective standard is employed, in practice, local boards are rife with taste-making, a practice that is typically eschewed by most public oversight of construction. There is a likely correlation among the rise of homeowners associations, local preservation boards, and a perverted notion of "states' rights" or "local rights" which is typically a stringent taste hegemony masquerading as libertarianism.

Consequently, here is one theoretical rub -- if the protection of significant structures is a certain question some years down the road, why do we not permit or mandate more rigorous oversight of construction now? In areas that are historic districts, this is already a condition of new construction -- often resulting in disappointing pastiche or fawning historicism -- so why not be proactive about the areas that will someday rank similarly?

There are a couple reasons why this questions lingers with little interest. One is the relative youth of American cities, most untouched by war or other disasters that would foreground issues of recreation or rebuilding absent the most degenerative force in our cities: developers. Another is the relative youth of the preservation movement, and its apparent fetishization of nineteenth century architecture, which for the early decades of the movement was intensified by the pressing need to move quickly to preserve legitimate candidates that were falling literally daily. The last problem is scale: the world used to be a lot smaller, and there isn’t much of it left. We are increasing the stock of buildings and means of recording them exponentially. And in many places we are running out of room.

The question of what to ‘do’ -- in terms of what to preserve next -- is debated in design and academic circles, but generates less interest in large swathes of the armchair community -- a situation that can be best described as not a living mandate, but as a museum with a limited purview, and the current members would rather those twentieth century preservations just go set up shop in another part of town -- preferably where the modern architecture is.

Well, they have, to mixed success. One area in which they brush up uncomfortably against the traditional preservationist mandate is time: the Historic Register, which is the gold standard of protection, as might be inferred, does not admit members under 50. Localities can be more aggressive, pulling in the goal posts to 25 years. It isn’t obvious, but there are more than a few examples of buildings that might merit protection that fail to cross even the lower threshold. So even as buildings with relatively little merit besides perseverance are racing over the transom of local protection (thankfully the National Register entails a more rigorous process), there isn’t even a functioning dialogue as to what should be kept, and, often more importantly, when we need to start making those decisions about what is being made today.

If you follow this line of thinking -- that each step need be taken with an understanding or expectation of determining absolute historic value as soon as possible -- to its logical conclusion, the process of winnowing and landmarking would be analogous to deciding what to name your kids before you kiss on the first date.

Without a doubt, each day we lose a building, or a part of one, that is worthy of additional consideration, or preservation, for many reasons, often outside the criteria typically applied. But trying to establish an after-the-fact justification is closing the proverbial barn door, and prone to caprice once the control falls outside the glare of public consideration. An effective preservation strategy would encompass a methodology for mandating design quality from the outset. That sounds like a call for design review as part of the permitting process, and I think it’s viable. Given the number of underemployed designers, and the successes of Edward Feiner at the GSA, it’s not an unreasonable notion. And it would parallel the review process at the other end. I don’t believe you can effectively have one without the other.

It’s a shame about the Paterson Silks building. But the more acute failing is the quality of building that is replacing it. That is why the current logic of preservation is flawed -- once the battle for saving has been ended there is no recourse to mandate quality going forward. I’m okay with progress, if it has value, and here there is none.

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March 16, 2005

Someone else gets $850MM. You get a free dinner. The dregs of WTC recovery funds are still unallocated. The upside is that the dregs are some $850 million. The downside is the LMDC has well over that in requests. If you include such blue-sky/ill-advised proposals such as the West Street Tunnel, or an airport rail link, there is upwards of three times as much being requested as is available.

And apparently there is still a belief that good, old-fashioned commmunity organizing can make difference. Now, I'm not trying to disparage the effort, I'm just a little cynical. If you aren't, and still have the wherewithal to make an effort, tonight the folks at 9/11 Environmental Action (be wary of that site: it's a little over-italicized) are sponsoring a forum that seems part conscious-raising, part tactics and planning:

What: "Without a Trace???" A forum on how the remaining LMDC funds could STILL revitalize the communities of Lower Manhattan in an exciting way that addresses the affected communities' most pressing needs--jobs, affordable housing and unmet environmental health needs!

When: TODAY: Wednesday, March 16 -- 6-8:00 PM (Registration begins at 5:30, when a free buffet dinner will be served!)

Where: University Settlement --- 184 Eldridge Street

The range of possibilities is quite broad, under the terms of the grant, so don't be swayed by the downtown real estate cabal. This money could be used to fund educational programs, job-training for displaced workers, housing, and economic or cultural development. If Kevin Rampe got his way, it would, of course, subsidize spec office space. At least one downtown figure, councilmember Alan Gerson, thinks this is a poor response, and is part of the program tonight, presenting his "Renaissance Plan".

Found always via this Permanent Link.

March 14, 2005

Whither Bohemia? In Greenwich Village, good fences make good Fascists, or so the rabble-rousers at CB2 would have you believe. A recent meeting, The Villager reports, got a little nasty, when some attendees wanted to voice their dissent and point out that the creeping authoritarianism masquerading as renovation that the Parks Department has been quietly rolling out across the city is about to land on the most contentious piece of 'public' space left: the venerable Washington Square.

Once home to personalities and events that are the cornerstone of every liberal arts fantasy about sticking it to the man, and now the source of some of the best single-serving-size oregano in the city, Washington Square Park stands tall with Union and Tompkins Squares as the hallowed ground of alternative culture. And, like those two sites, the Parks Department has set its sights on providing beautiful planting and green space that will be inaccessible to humans, and dog run renovations, which, regardless of the final form, will incense some portion of the mercurial dog-owning community.

Though several of the design recommendations are under scrutiny, as one would expect with any vigorous community interest, the major point of contention is the plan to wrap the park in the same vaguely nostalgic wrought iron fencing that has slowly but certainly encircled every piece of park property in Manhattan. In some areas, it is used to great effect, such as the planting areas (Gustav Hartman Square and the like) along East Houston, or some parks, such as Tribeca Park, which, prior to renovation, looked like a traffic divider with trees. But in places like Tompkins, the fears of Washington Square residents are amply demonstrated. With only a few entrances, often blocked by NYPD patrol vehicles, the utility of fencing as crowd control and as a means of restricting access is strongly in evidence.

I haven't seen the plan (the Parks Department is going to 'try' to put it online), so the real indicator of this will be in the handlding of the north and south entrances. Given the current layout, simply ringing green spaces won't be of much benefit to putative police control: the plaza that runs through the park, mirroring the width of Fifth Avenue, terminating on the north end, and West Broadway, on the south, is so broad that other means of restricting access would be necessary to reproduce what is possible in Tompkins.

The indication from the article is that a more drastic intervention is called for; if so, this is a frontal assault on the what makes the park such a pleasant formal environment. Standing in an area that already features tree cover than can be found in most other areas of Manhattan, its continuity with the park creates the most humanly scaled residential and park interaction in the city. That most of the perimeter buildings have become institutional is more than unfortunate, but at least pedestrians can experience firsthand what idealized urban living can be. Tompkins, which is bounded by wider streets, lacks the same intimacy, and most other larger parks and squares are more commercial than residential.

How any fence that is enclosing enough to ‘secure’ the park at night, and, as the NYPD argues, deter drug dealing -- which is funny, since a permanent substation with real cops and myriad cameras hasn’t stemmed the tide, so the new strategy basically admits that a fence may be more effective than live officers -- won’t ruin one of the most commanding vistas in the city is hard to imagine. Perhaps the thinking is that we got so used to seeing awful cyclone fencing surrounding the arch for what seemed like decades of renovation that a permanent visual intrusion won’t be any further insult.

All in all, this creates the perfect storm of community resistance: a renovation that not even its mother loves. The lack of any formal precedent for the fencing, and likewise the obstruction of one of the most striking views in the city should get the even the most conservative preservationist exercised, and the threat to whatever vestiges of bohemian culture that exist in the Village should bring out the Tompkins battle-wounded in droves.

As glib as that is, it’s no small issue. The Parks Department has had a string of impressive successes throughout the city, and the decision to force this restrictive collar on what is legitimately historic ground to several generations of diverse New York culture needs to be seriously reconsidered. Here’s a good place to start.

Found always via this Permanent Link.

March 11, 2005

Giant stoops. Collectivist utopias never work. We’ve been told that over and over by the good folks over at the National Review (or, at least, back when people read it). You would think Gary Bettman was a subscriber. But he was out working the fields and writing poetry, and now the NHL is belly up, another dashed dream of Bolshevism. As a consequence, NFL owners are looking warily at the implosion. Sure, their ‘intentional community’ always had nicer digs, and was more popular with townies (they probably had better drugs), but their old magic -- convincing powerful, moneyed pseudo-liberals to fund their self-involved exploits -- is faltering.

Wednesday, the Giants blinked when whatever crony-saddled private public partnership that runs the Meadowlands demanded a last-minute change to their clusterfuck of an agreement to expand the locus of Northern New Jersey culture. I can't quite sort out the details, but the state wanted a guaranteed $3 million if the Jets deal fell through -- or didn't, I can't remember -- and somehow it is related to an "entertainment complex" called Xanadu (god, don't you hope it will entail a skating rink -- or at least opiates?) and a horse racing track. Anyhoo, the team put their foot down. Stamped it just like a petulant eight-year-old who still has 20 more years of parental hegemony staring them in the face. Why? Because the Giants' leass runs until 2026. That's right, the Giants' lease will last longer than Social Security.

Like any good, family-funded anarchists, the Tischs' & Co. seem to think that other people should not only love their communist paradise, replete with revenue sharing, centralized planning, and wage control (hell, they pay for everyone's health care too, right? Fucking socialists.), but they want them to pay for it as well. Sure, they were gonna pony up some scratch, but they were also asking for a distinctly hippie-like rent of $1 a year, which was about one six-millionth what the mean old gubmen was asking for.

Today, the government got real, going to court just to show how serious they are. So serious that the Giants haven't even tried to break their lease yet, but just in case they are thinking about it, there's a lawsuit waiting. Mike, ever the coy debutante, played it distinctly cool, adding more evidence to the speculation that his nose need be medically extracted from Woody Jonhson's ass.

Maybe we should just get real about revenue sources: Giants Stadium should be renamed Springsteen Stadium. Or Mike should build one over here. Considering that The Boss can draw better in two weeks than either the Giants or Jets do in a year, and it creates less scheduling conflicts, and you can have a much more event-friendly seating plan, why not back a winner for once? Of course, that would obviate the homoerotic Mandingo fantasy of pasty white guys buying, selling, and trading big, brawny guys who get all sweaty for them every Sunday.

No, no, let's erase such thinking and get back to the tawdry soap opera that everyone lamented would be impossible if we voted in someone as dry and unexciting as Bloomberg. Just in case you haven't honed your sense of irony precisely enough by reading Vice, you can mull over how interesting it is that every day, another rich, powerful guy makes noises about how he can get it done better, and then turns around as asks the goverment for a handout to kick start the process. You will wonder if that concept hasn't been tried elsewhere, and been massively (if incorrectly) discredited over and over, by those very same guys. There is even a specialized name for it: welfare.

ON A RELATED NOTE, there is an excellent round-up at Transfer, a site that makes me sometimes think I'm not that mean a guy after all, on a particularly noxius eminent domain dustup in Connecticut. Since it's gone national, it may be that a favorable ruling for the property owners might mean that the Times has to pay market-rate pricing for a development site in, oh, 43 years or so.

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March 7, 2005

Entasis: Just a fancy name for a bulge. The history of wavy buildings in New York is not one of great distinction. The short list includes a number designed by luminaries, and one can trace a theme of ‘genius’-driven arrogance to confound the grid formally while flaunting the economics that make it such a lucrative proposition.

Granted, FARs and setback requirements and air rights transfers make the undulations not so much a waste of buildable space as a demand that sums slightly greater than the absolute minimum be invested.

It is no small consideration to break the grid. Even though a few notable examples predate New York’s unrolling of its Euclidean masterstroke, the Manhattan grid is the tabula rasa of rectilinear American urbanity. Now the classic over-determined postmodern trope, it fits conveniently into any narrative (including lazy ones such as this). Even as we find alluring many of the neighborhoods that stand in contradiction to its unyielding geometry, several of our most commanding -- and noted -- vistas depend on its monumental monotony.

Perhaps noting the decided lack of success in many recent attempts, or perhaps only a result of a ‘luxury’ hotelier being maybe not so luxurious, Richard Gluckman’s new project, One Kenmare Square, serves up its undulations with far more restraint.

And speaking of restraint, why am I offering up comments on a building still some months from completion? Well, hyper-inflated real estate and the attendant fervid marketing efforts work to create an opinion and legitimation well in advance of construction. Add to that ready access to more detailed representations, and it seems that some level of critique can be offered to counter the manufacture of ‘buzz’. Any greater aspiration, such as the ability to attenuate the more dismal efforts through a welter of critical disdain, exists solely in my addled, design-schooled mind.

But, mostly, it was prompted by my discovery of the project in the usual manner, followed by an unexpected walk past soon after, and a lunchtime perusing the Herzog & de Meuron issue of El Croquis -- which has two absolutely stunning mixed-use / apartment projects (though I didn’t read closely to find out if they are public or private). It’s hard to draw corollaries between housing in modern European and American cities, I know, so I fall back on the awkward but seemingly logical point that Manhattan is now overrun by what are endlessly touted as luxury dwellings, what standard is fair to apply? One would think condos that fetch near $1,500/sf should be able to compete fairly with government-sponsored housing in Europe, no?

Add to that an architect I typically admire, if not for his strikingly original forms, then at least for his sustaining a practice that has enforced a mandate with clientele that produces consistently impressive work, and one might have reason to work up a little more hope than usual. Which is any. At all.

There isn’t much in the plans, presentation, or completed work to indicate any exemplary success. Soon (well, once Winka Dubbeldam ever figures out how to install that last window), we will have enough name brand works to create a hierarchy or sorts. Of sorts, since it seems everyone will be lumped at the bottom, and victory means perhaps as little as rising incrementally above the rest. Using this tepid yardstick, One Kenmare Place fares, well, fairly.

The undulations featured in the lovely dbox renderings appear a fallacy compared to the current state. The windows look to be set in perpendicular to the floor plane, though the rendering seems to imply they will shift on two axes, if not three. The difference is subtle, and even sensible from an assembly standpoint, but given how much attention is lavished in the curve, it is also a little disappointing. And the operable window sections, which diminish the rhythm considerably, are absent altogether from the renderings.

The write-up on materials and finish hold some promise, though the interiors shown, not so much. There are few instances where the presence of the dominant, curved façade impacts the plan, but otherwise, they are an intelligent, but unexceptional, response to zoning and service requirements.

The website clumsily explicates a connection with the ‘Crosby House Residences’, which is a rather high-toned name for what will be the least attractive building on Crosby Street, a disappointing response to the residual standard width lot that came with the property (previously a parking lot with more frontage on Lafayette, and a pass through to Crosby). It eschews the expanses of glass typical in SoHo and TriBeCa for what appear to be contractor grade casement windows (and only three at that). The façade is finished in the same brick, which is promised to shift colors with changes in daylight, but in my visits has remained resolutely dull grey.

And though it is still months away from a form that will be close to finished, I can’t see it improving substantially. The curve that repeats itself, while sliding as it rises is interesting as an abstract idea. The presence of banded windows and a brick that will look like split-face CMU more often than isn't going to appear to the casual viewer (or maybe even the uncasual) all that original. The archetype that one will recall upon seeing it will likely be any number of spec office parks found near freeway interchanges in anonymous suburbs in Atlanta or Dallas. If you peer closely, you might conclude that the subtle gradations in how that curve occurs indicate more investment, and you would be right. But you might also think it a rather timid investment, and perhaps a cynical gesture, a scrim of design fussiness masquerading as something more. Which, when you think about it, sums up what the ‘luxury hotelier’ role is all about.

But let's be clear: this is not a Scarano or Kondylis project. It will no doubt be superior to that. Like the proverbial sports adage, it's a game of inches. Gluckman didn't move the ball that far, but it looks like he put his head down and ran with it. If the next one in the pipeline moves the sticks a little further, then perhaps it will be time for real excitement. But, like one of my most astute college professors pointed out, exasperated at another half-assed effort: "Everything is an attempt!"

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March 4, 2005

I like Mike. The other day a friend wrote and observed that I didn’t like Mike Bloomberg. I replied that this was not actually the case, only an effect of writing about him as pertains to only a single issue, the West Side Stadium (which, at the pace we are moving, will be termed the ‘Third Rail of City Development’ in no time flat). I was coincidentally at the Crain’s breakfast forum that very day (no, not because I am that obsessed with the stadium, but because most of the day people think I am a reasonable and even-tempered person, and my attendance was a consequence of those activities), and what I saw was a textbook example of my point: as long as the word stadium didn’t leave his mouth, all that he did say was, on balance, the most I could hope from a mayor in this city.

He spoke very bluntly about the need for investment in services to insure that the city remains a popular destination for long- and short-term visitors; he spoke of the need to reduce the city’s dependency on Wall Street for tax revenue; he wished he could pay city employees more, and he underscored the role of New York as an exceptional destination, one that is made so by the strength of our cultural institutions and diversity, and those exceptional characteristics place a premium on residents and companies that want to be part of it. And he said what I’ve never heard a public official say: namely, that companies don’t have much choice but to locate here, because the best and the brightest flock here, and the companies must follow, should they want to be competitive -- though he stopped short of saying we should exert more leverage as a result, he also did not pander to the call to lower their taxes.

None of these are small points. The inane cudgel of taxes has blinded people to the notion of a social contract. Perhaps it has worked so well that the entitlement we have provided a portion of our population empowers them to think they are actually responsible for their success, even as most of their personal decisions belie this logic. Without a vigorous support of taxes and the resulting city services and, yes, direct subsidy (one way or another -- grant-making, rent stabilization, graduated taxation) they provide, we cannot hope to continue to have the city we do. It’s not so much that New York is unique -- even as we all believe it to be -- but that we carry an ideal, one that is remarkably consistent, considering the large number of people who contribute to it, and that ideal is not self-sustaining.

Given his relatively clear-eyed assessment of the struggles the city faces -- and if he were a better orator, he would have been able to better shame the Crain’s hack, who clearly longs to run the Chamber of Congress in Peoria, for asking flat-out stupid questions -- his continued support of the stadium is puzzling. One possible answer is he believes it to be a prudent fiscal investment. But given the history of the process, lacking competitive bidding or a reasonable effort to solicit a variety of development plans, there is no indication this was the case.

Two recent events have not helped his cause -- the introduction of legislation by Clifford Miller that may take away his power to assign city revenue to the project, and two separate studies: one, whispered about by the IOC, indicates that less people support bringing the Olympics here than in the other host cities (which, as a matter of pride, we should note is exactly how New Yorkers would respond), and one, by Quinnipiac, that indicates that a majority of residents do not support the stadium, Olympics or not.

As he protested that he is tin-eared when it comes to politics and will not abandon his convictions to pander, that Bloomberg isn’t backing down makes sense. At the same time, a relatively small minority also said that his stance will effect their support. So his Quixotic pursuit may actually be winning him some respect -- at the very least, it is not noticeably diminishing his prospects. And it isn’t with me. Unless Freddie Ferrer manages some sea change over the next six months (or, at the very least, distances himself from the machine that holds jobs open for people when they are convicted of defrauding the city), I fully intend of pull the lever for Bloomberg this fall. Between now and then, though, he can expect a vigorous fight from me, and many others, on the foolish stadium -- a fight that only a year ago seemed hopeless, but now looks to be winnable. Viva la France!

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March 1, 2005

I have to apologize: I used the adjective bilious improperly last week. Let me clarify further: I did not necessarily use it improperly, but, better, I used it in haste. Were I to know that I would be walking in the East Village on a crisp, cold day, and coming upon the mostly complete superstructure of Charles Gwathmey's "Sculpture for Living" in Astor Place, I would have held on dearly for a week further, thus affording myself the occasion to relish it's all-too-elegant propriety. For those still unclear on its appeal to me, a snippet:

3 : sickeningly unpleasant : of a kind that makes one queasy : NAUSEATING, REVOLTING {utterly bilious weather} {with clapboards painted red and bilious yellow -- Sinclair Lewis}
-- "bilious." Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Merriam-Webster, 2002. (27 Feb. 2005)
I find it so useful, since it allows a paronomastic construction with the certain to be employed "billowing" in the lesser lights of critical reflection that will delude themselves into finding good things to say about this abomination.

But let's pretend this is a New Yorker profile: I will interject a vaguely related anecdote from times past that will eventually, after too long a detour, return us to the overarching premise.

A friend moved here some years back, not many many years, but a while ago. He made the dutiful phonecalls to nameplate firms, and ones that might actually be hiring (it wasn't always that you got to fall out of bed and into the hands of a developer willing to pay for you to vomit all over our streetscape). When he spoke to an associate at Gwathmey/Siegel, he was told their ideal profile for a new hire was someone "really good at CAD and willing to work for $6/hr." My friend chuckled appropriately, until he realized the associate was dead serious. Later, he heard tales from people working there (the juiciest of which I can't report, unfortunately, since they might well be libelous) including that Charlie used to bring his wolfhounds to the office, and once, being told by an underling that one had done its business, looked up, and said distractedly, "Oh? Can you take care of that?" Which leads me to say (can you see it coming? can you?): one would hope his staff has grown enough that he can dispatch them to clean up the shit he's taken on Astor Place. That his last major work was nicknamed the toilet tank makes it all the more ironic (whammo! sign me up, Remnick!).

In case you've been living under a rock -- or in denial, which is more likely -- the Cooper Union traded part of Manhattan for a shiny trinket courtesy of Charles Gwathmey (gory details), who delivered what looks like a parody of a first-year studio project: a squared-off base, rationalized for high impact retail, surmounted by a completely featureless and banal curvy shaft of residential, topped by another rectilinear form, as arbitrary and unattractive as the rest. At least it's consistent: ugly from top to bottom.

I remember back in the day when my distaste for his work was malformed and juvenile. I used to think his formal explorations seemed facile and unconsidered, compared to those of his contemporaries, such as Hejduk and Eisenman, who were doing work that was superficially similar. But, being green and lacking an academic pedigree of any kind, I figured my confusion was simply a lack of sensitivity or discernment.

Now, years later, my for distaste his work, highly polished and juvenile, and lacking any credentials whatsover, is tempered by understanding that he is a high-class hack with a bulletproof rolodex. Coasting along on second homes that dot the eastern end of Long Island with no distinction whatsoever, I struggle to name anything he has done in the past twenty years of note, save the aforementioned addition to the Guggenheim (which they found necessary to gussy up with a shard from the golden boy of sinew).

Perhaps someone will rise in his defence and list some for me. Perhaps that same person can try to use logic and reason to detail the virtues of his Sculpture for Living. Perhaps I should actually bother to craft an argument. But it's like complaining about American Idol or Fox News: it's barely worth mentioning, let alone expending precious brain cells that could be better used as fodder for alcohol or playing solitare. So, my apologies for taking your time in the course of an unnecessarily elaborate warning: stay away from Astor Place. For, um, I guess, ever.

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