Empires crumble. Sometimes in a big way, though we seem to lack the capacity to think so expansively. Our empires are now tiny things, inflated by the empty promise of television, small men writ large with the aid of buildings the clamber skyward sans distinguishing features, as if any pause would prompt the viewer to realize the entire edifice was merely charade.
Mayor Bloomberg, on the cusp of his second term, faces the same issue as Giuliani, which is the quest for legacy, though I suspect it doesn’t gnaw at him the same way it did Rudy — who became the recipient of the most perverse and unnecessary deux ex machinas one will find the annals of political history.
With the Olympics gone, the Jets and Giants safely nestled in the most optimal location for a sports stadium in the country, and the ‘Memorial Quadrant’ safe from rational thought and girded by its inevitable substitute, shopping, there isn’t much left for Mike. He can’t even get the fish market to move (though the failure can be squarely attributed to Giuliani, who, even as he might excel at mob-busting, doesn’t know squat when it comes to contract law).
It’s not like there aren’t major initiatives happening in the city, but even if one of them sprung fully realized from the earth tomorrow, a visitor would not look twice at the results and imagine anything exceptional had transpired. Be it the Williamsburg rezoning, the Hudson or Atlantic Yards, all of it is awash in the ugly repetitive logic of large scale commercial development. This does seem to be the thing Bloomberg is most comfortable with; hell, he even went and built his own bland anonymous corporate tower (while he was mayor — talk about multitasking).
The abject failure of Westway, and the rise of the uniquely New York type — the under-accomplished pretend liberal that decides to forge their identity by playing martyr while claiming it is in the service of good urban planning — means that any time someone wants to building anything larger than a Starbucks (and even that has its problems) it will be bogged down in every direction, and forced to dliute any vision in the form of incremental payoffs. It used to be much easier when the machine and mob took their cut in cash and left the buildings largely intact. Now everything is mixed use hell, posturing and hairshirts for some aggrieved constituency.
[Anyone who has made it through more than half a post here knows this is not a call for untrammeled developer freedom. As usual, I make my call to ship the lot of them to Dallas, which seems to reflect their vision of urbanity far more accurately.]
Where can one go to find a place to make a lasting contribution? One that doesn’t just emblazon a façade with the progenitor’s name in garish bronze letters, but the very utility and experience of which becomes part of our urban fabric and history. One that we cherish and laud — at least until someone future version of Bruce Ratner comes along and puts a mall there.
Even as it doesn’t seem that way most days (especially if you live and work in Manhattan) that the history of NewYork is a history of working class people being afforded an opportunity to rise economically and socially, all while being cheek and jowl with some of the most extraordinary arts, research and industry (to say nothing of the scads of well-to-do, beneficiaries of random selection and those soaring high on exceptional talent) to be found in the world. It could be argued in many ways that New York invented diversity, and has been the tireless champion of the concept for decades.
Consequently, the physical markers of this accomplishment that stand out are those that accentuate the overlap and interrelations that form this diversity: infrastructure and housing. Though both are nominally egalitarian, that has never been the appeal for most New Yorkers. Rather it is the enforced intimacy of space, access and, at times, law, that has mandated that we all end up spending more time than we like with people we don’t.
This friction is the lubricant of endless Metropolitan Diary entries, precious Talk of the Town pieces (oh, and, hey, a blog entry or two) and, occasionally true insight into that continually less optimistic circumstance we quaintly call the human condition.
So what can Mike do to stamp his name indelibly on the city? Sure, Namath guaranteeing the Super Bowl seemed to be the sort of cultural moment that justifies a Quixotic pursuit of a stadium. But who was the mayor at the time? Right. It was a guy who didn’t get reelected because he couldn’t get the streets plowed on time (though that is a bit of apocrypha, since he actually did, though it seems he bribed every city employee at the time to manage it).
So that leaves what my dear, departing for the left coast friend Will use to say during his nascent years as stand-up comic: in New York, people talk about real estate and how they get there. Pick one, pick both: housing and transit. And we’re not talking some namby-pamby 7 extension here. We’re talking decades of irrefutable evidence about the economic benefits (in reduced strain on resources, increased property values, job growth, you name it) of adding train lines to the city. Second Avenue is where it’s at.
And the people riding those trains need some place to live. SoHo. TriBeCa. Stuyvesant. EV.LES. Williamsburg. These places aren’t appealing for the same reason. And none of the resonate because they have large column-free floorplates of commercial space. They all became what they are because they became desirable places to live. Most of them were enabled by various forms of government intervention, control or incentive. We need a Mitchell-Lama or revamped rent stabilization for the 21st century. And it is not to be found on the boards of Costas Kondylis’s office or the barren environs of Sixth Avenue. Or the twisted mind-meld of Frank “Fight Club” Ghery and Bruce “Bland Club” Ratner. It looks to be a easy walk to another four years. After all the “I’m just a technocrat who is trying to make the city run like a business” it’s time ante up and acknowledge what has providing enduring value — cultural and economic — and find a way to foster that, before we get crushed by entities with name like Avalon Bay. Ugh.
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Bread and circuses. And pro football.
Empires crumble. Sometimes in a big way, though we seem to lack the capacity to think so expansively. Our empires are now tiny things, inflated by the empty promise of television, small men writ large with the aid of buildings the clamber skyward sans distinguishing features, as if any pause would prompt the viewer to realize the entire edifice was merely charade.
Mayor Bloomberg, on the cusp of his second term, faces the same issue as Giuliani, which is the quest for legacy, though I suspect it doesn’t gnaw at him the same way it did Rudy — who became the recipient of the most perverse and unnecessary deux ex machinas one will find the annals of political history. With the Olympics gone, the Jets and Giants safely nestled in the most optimal location for a sports stadium in the country, and the ‘Memorial Quadrant’ safe from rational thought and girded by its inevitable substitute, shopping, there isn’t much left for Mike. He can’t even get the fish market to move (though the failure can be squarely attributed to Giuliani, who, even as he might excel at mob-busting, doesn’t know squat when it comes to contract law). It’s not like there aren’t major initiatives happening in the city, but even if one of them sprung fully realized from the earth tomorrow, a visitor would not look twice at the results and imagine anything exceptional had transpired. Be it the Williamsburg rezoning, the Hudson or Atlantic Yards, all of it is awash in the ugly repetitive logic of large scale commercial development. This does seem to be the thing Bloomberg is most comfortable with; hell, he even went and built his own bland anonymous corporate tower (while he was mayor — talk about multitasking). The abject failure of Westway, and the rise of the uniquely New York type — the under-accomplished pretend liberal that decides to forge their identity by playing martyr while claiming it is in the service of good urban planning — means that any time someone wants to building anything larger than a Starbucks (and even that has its problems) it will be bogged down in every direction, and forced to dliute any vision in the form of incremental payoffs. It used to be much easier when the machine and mob took their cut in cash and left the buildings largely intact. Now everything is mixed use hell, posturing and hairshirts for some aggrieved constituency. [Anyone who has made it through more than half a post here knows this is not a call for untrammeled developer freedom. As usual, I make my call to ship the lot of them to Dallas, which seems to reflect their vision of urbanity far more accurately.] Where can one go to find a place to make a lasting contribution? One that doesn’t just emblazon a façade with the progenitor’s name in garish bronze letters, but the very utility and experience of which becomes part of our urban fabric and history. One that we cherish and laud — at least until someone future version of Bruce Ratner comes along and puts a mall there. Even as it doesn’t seem that way most days (especially if you live and work in Manhattan) that the history of NewYork is a history of working class people being afforded an opportunity to rise economically and socially, all while being cheek and jowl with some of the most extraordinary arts, research and industry (to say nothing of the scads of well-to-do, beneficiaries of random selection and those soaring high on exceptional talent) to be found in the world. It could be argued in many ways that New York invented diversity, and has been the tireless champion of the concept for decades. Consequently, the physical markers of this accomplishment that stand out are those that accentuate the overlap and interrelations that form this diversity: infrastructure and housing. Though both are nominally egalitarian, that has never been the appeal for most New Yorkers. Rather it is the enforced intimacy of space, access and, at times, law, that has mandated that we all end up spending more time than we like with people we don’t. This friction is the lubricant of endless Metropolitan Diary entries, precious Talk of the Town pieces (oh, and, hey, a blog entry or two) and, occasionally true insight into that continually less optimistic circumstance we quaintly call the human condition. So what can Mike do to stamp his name indelibly on the city? Sure, Namath guaranteeing the Super Bowl seemed to be the sort of cultural moment that justifies a Quixotic pursuit of a stadium. But who was the mayor at the time? Right. It was a guy who didn’t get reelected because he couldn’t get the streets plowed on time (though that is a bit of apocrypha, since he actually did, though it seems he bribed every city employee at the time to manage it). So that leaves what my dear, departing for the left coast friend Will use to say during his nascent years as stand-up comic: in New York, people talk about real estate and how they get there. Pick one, pick both: housing and transit. And we’re not talking some namby-pamby 7 extension here. We’re talking decades of irrefutable evidence about the economic benefits (in reduced strain on resources, increased property values, job growth, you name it) of adding train lines to the city. Second Avenue is where it’s at. And the people riding those trains need some place to live. SoHo. TriBeCa. Stuyvesant. EV.LES. Williamsburg. These places aren’t appealing for the same reason. And none of the resonate because they have large column-free floorplates of commercial space. They all became what they are because they became desirable places to live. Most of them were enabled by various forms of government intervention, control or incentive. We need a Mitchell-Lama or revamped rent stabilization for the 21st century. And it is not to be found on the boards of Costas Kondylis’s office or the barren environs of Sixth Avenue. Or the twisted mind-meld of Frank “Fight Club” Ghery and Bruce “Bland Club” Ratner. It looks to be a easy walk to another four years. After all the “I’m just a technocrat who is trying to make the city run like a business” it’s time ante up and acknowledge what has providing enduring value — cultural and economic — and find a way to foster that, before we get crushed by entities with name like Avalon Bay. Ugh.