The Daily News reports on a recent symposium dedicated to establishing guidelines for the development of Governors Island, a project, like the new Pennsylvania Station, that is an example of the extraordinary statemenship of the late Sen. Moynihan leading to positively provinical and embarassing inaction (the legend is that he convinced Clinton to sell the island to the city for a $1 during a helicopter flight; even though Clinton agreed, the foolhardy response of the city and state necessitated another five years of negotiation). As it stands, there still aren’t any plans for the island, though a wide range of ideas have been put forth in the past half decade (a casino, campuses for most of the major universities, an generic resort, both public and high end private housing). So the Governors Island Alliance had some clearly hippy dippy event that produced the startling recommendations that it remain car-free, and that they build a hill, which they are calling a glacis, likely to acknowledge the former use of the island as a military iinstallation, or as a symbolic gesture to ward off the inevtiable cries of ‘What the fuck?’ the first of which enamanates here. We’re all for car-free everything, but this is really the low hanging fruit. It’s an island, without any vehicular access. Car-free Central and Prospect Parks would be a more worthwhile way to spend one’s afternoon than sketching water parks and other urban planning workshops fantasies. They bothered to say horse-drawn carriages would be better than cars. No wonder OMA’s vision of neo-Orwellian excess persuades people planning large-scale urban redevelopment. When opposed with carriage rides and log flumes, which would you pick?
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Apparently they hand out nostalgia and psychedelics at these events.
The Daily News reports on a recent symposium dedicated to establishing guidelines for the development of Governors Island, a project, like the new Pennsylvania Station, that is an example of the extraordinary statemenship of the late Sen. Moynihan leading to positively provinical and embarassing inaction (the legend is that he convinced Clinton to sell the island to the city for a $1 during a helicopter flight; even though Clinton agreed, the foolhardy response of the city and state necessitated another five years of negotiation). As it stands, there still aren’t any plans for the island, though a wide range of ideas have been put forth in the past half decade (a casino, campuses for most of the major universities, an generic resort, both public and high end private housing). So the Governors Island Alliance had some clearly hippy dippy event that produced the startling recommendations that it remain car-free, and that they build a hill, which they are calling a glacis, likely to acknowledge the former use of the island as a military iinstallation, or as a symbolic gesture to ward off the inevtiable cries of ‘What the fuck?’ the first of which enamanates here. We’re all for car-free everything, but this is really the low hanging fruit. It’s an island, without any vehicular access. Car-free Central and Prospect Parks would be a more worthwhile way to spend one’s afternoon than sketching water parks and other urban planning workshops fantasies. They bothered to say horse-drawn carriages would be better than cars. No wonder OMA’s vision of neo-Orwellian excess persuades people planning large-scale urban redevelopment. When opposed with carriage rides and log flumes, which would you pick?