Tree Falls, etc.

A colophon is a tedious, self-aggrandizing exercise. Oh, but wait, so is a blog. So one will be provided eventually, which will outline some reasonable facts, such as editorial mission, some notion of frequency, etc., for all you who are newsreader deficient. Two days does not constitute a hiatus, and there still isn’t a procedural attitude about them. A list of where to fill the void is silly. A perfectly adequate link list is provided at right. One thing for certain is self-referential commentary is frowned upon. A short interlude provided frequent sampling of what is likely the best burger in the country and the sign of an abandoned midwestern steak house chain that had been damaged enough to read only ‘Ponder.’

Locally, in case you missed it, Muschamp may be on the way out (which makes sense, since he can’t be bothered to, you know, think), the Drawing Center is on the way in, and the virus that is the team to recreate the Trade Towers claims another victim.

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Glenn Lowry to the young philistines of Manhattan: Drop Dead.

In case no one told you, MoMA is a damn important place, and those who work there are pretty damn important too. And serious. And worthy of endless hagiography. If you try really hard, you might be good enough for them someday. In case you were wondering just what particular path of improvement would be best, Mr. Lowry lays it right out for you:

We’re talking to a younger and in many ways better-educated audience but one that is not necessarily more sophisticated.

Meanwhile, the blessed are busy playing with dolls (but are very, very serious about it), using a scale model of the galleries to determine what will be shown and where. If you were wondering how they can tell who is sophisticated, well, here’s a sample of the shimmering erudition of the anointed:

“I felt strongly that each gallery should have a subject,” Mr. Elderfield said. “I want each gallery to have a kind of integrity so that if it were taken out of the museum and plunked into the middle of Central Park, it would be a viable show on its own.”

Whoa, dude. I need to go read some Rosalind Krauss and figure that shit out. I guess they’re too sophisticated to use, you know, CAD renderings of the spaces, which would allow them walk-throughs at eye level, variable light conditions, and near photographic-quality representations of the works in situ. But that’s where they are different from the rest of us. I just hope they’ll take my money when they reopen.

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But what do you do when you take the kitchen to work?

Yesterday was officially the first day of Riding the Subway Sucks. The condition does not merit a more clever appellation. I christen the day when I first note the absurdity of the way the subterranean work spaces are cooled: namely, with wall units that exhuast into the public spaces. I never cease being amazed at how few people understand how air conditioning actually functions. The short version is, you need heat to make cool. You need more heat. So in order to cool the (relatively small) workspaces in a subway station that have wall units, you generate (incidentally) a larger amount of excess heat that must be shed (which is why half your air conditioner sticks outside the building). In this case, it all goes into larger public spaces of the station, quickly adding to the heat given off by people and the trains. Now, everyone should have a comfortable workspace, but given the large number of people negatively burdened, couldn’t they find another way (perhaps to vent the exhaust, or require buildings in the vicinity to support air handlers)? Just something to muse on while you are thinking positive thoughts, perhaps that the next train is so late, someone better have died to cause the delay (that’s a hell of a thing isn’t it? We all think that sooner or later, except for some people, that was actually the case). Otherwise, you can try these tepid suggestions:

1. Know where the vents are, and stand as close to them as you can. All stations have some connection to the outside world, to allow for passive ventilation. When a train exits the station it creates a vacuum that will pull air in, provided the air outside is cooler (mostly in the mornings). Conversely, arriving trains will push air around, but it won’t feel as much like a breeze.

2. If you are in a station near the end of a line, or where a connection forces a one train to wait regularly (Chambers Street or 2nd Ave, for instance), don’t forget that you can hang out in the delayed train.

3. This is a minor point, but once you are on the train, on the IRT, (1/2/3/4/5/6/7/9), the older models (the R-62’s; all the ‘Redbirds’ have been taken out of service) are much cooler in the center of the car. There are two vents that run the most of the length of the car, but stop well short of the ends.

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Capitalism: now safe, and attractive.

There is now visible progress of renovation underway on Broad Street. Undertaken to make permanent the security put in place after 9/11, the City and the LMDC commissioned Rogers Marvel (forgive their website — you can find the project in the ‘On the Boards’ section) to develop less intrusive security (right now it’s pickups and Jersey Barriers). The result will be retractable bollards, a likely unpleasant security gate, and a least one block (just south of Wall) will be covered by Eurocobble (which doesn’t look as bad as it sounds, though the problem isn’t the city’s ability to pave a street, but rather ensuring contractors do a decent job of repair when they cut and cover). The Rogers Marvel renderings don’t do such a good job of explicating the change. Their appeal derives from the effect of having unfettered pedestrian access to that intersection. I’ll hope for a nice fence (being somewhat of a fetishist for that sort of thing; draw whatever conclusion you will about my neighborliness), but barring even that, if those drawing are anything close to the end state, it will have been a laudable effort.

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Lordy.

All my yammering about what a piece of shit Scott Rednick is like to foist on to TriBeCa, and it turns out to be Foster. Yes folks, that there are the stylings of Lord Foster his bad self. You woulda thunk Rednick pimped this fact a little more when greasing the Community Board (except they got dinged for presenting a model, touting its careful massing and proportion, and they left out P.S. 234, so there wouldn’t be any relative scale for the casual observer). This detail via the Architect’s Newspaper. I’ve mentioned you should subscribe. You did, right? Cause you should.

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Move over Clock Tower.

That should tell you how cool I am: I have to reference DUMBO developments from five years ago. Anyway, if I was cooler, and had a better memory, I could link you up to the best opportunity to come your way (especially if your name is Ratner, Resnick, Rudin, Rose, or any other ares I’m forgetting) since, oh, whatever old building you bought yesterday and then announced a bunch of unfinished spaces that will sell for about a grand a square foot. This week (again, don’t hold me to this; Google’s no help about now, so don’t try it) marks the close of an auction to sell the Williamsburg Savings Bank building. You know it: the tallest building in Brooklyn, just across the street from the putative Nets arena. Up for grabs. For another day or so. So get an R in your name and plunk down $50 mil or so. The smart money says: condos!

UPDATE: Okay, the trusty ‘History’ command has rescued me. Cushman & Wakefield is handling the sale (no listing on their site), and the auction closes on Thursday (you really needed that info, didn’t you?). Info via the Times.

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The only thing missing from downtown: downtown chic.

Just as many of the critics in the Times are arguing that force-fitting a cultural district on downtown will be a bigger and badder version of the Lincoln Center, Alan Gerson is stumping hard for that very effort. This week, he
released a map to accompany a report issued earlier in the year that outlines a proposal for cohering the major existing nodes of arts activity into an over-arching ‘cultural district’ that will also encourage relocation of many organizations and artists much further downtown.

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Critical Art Ensemble grand jury and protest.

You may have heard a bit about this story (also here) last month. Steve Kurtz, SUNY Buffalo associate professor of art, and noted member of the Critical Art Ensemble, awoke a couple weeks ago to discover his wife had died of cardiac arrest during the night. He called 911, and upon arrival, the police noted the presence of several pieces of laboratory equipment, part of an exhibit slated to open at MassMOCA (and previously shown in Frankfurt). He was subsequently barred him from his home, the FBI confiscated the equipment (and his wife’s corpse, temporarily) and now a Federal Grand Jury will convene on June 15, to investigate charges that he “possess[ed] ‘any biological agent, toxin, or delivery system’ without the justification of ‘prophylactic, protective, bona fide research, or other peaceful purpose.'” To aid in his defense, a fund has been established, and protest is scheduled for the 15th. Details here (via Archinect).

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Muschamp phones it in.

I’m sure there are any number of days one could say this, but I would hazard this one will be hard to beat: today, Herbert Muschamp opines to the obvious effect that he finds critical thinking has no place in his job. The Times, with a strange neurotic glee, has asked its critics for programming ideas for the WTC site, as the LMDC drags it heels over the final winnowing of candidates for cultural development at the site.

Almost off-handedly, Muschamp announces he’s tired of thinking about it, given the dearth of good ideas, but instead of the rational conclusion of simply giving everyone more time to think, insteads admits he finds the ‘cop-out’ position of rebuilding the towers as they were is now the best solution:

Certainly, I’m prepared to defend reconstruction as a cultural act. It would be an offering to Mnemosyne, mother of the muses, from whom all culture flows.

There’s some classic Muschamp: a (very) little Greek erudition, the threat of real critical thinking that goes unacted on, and call it a day. The rebuilding folks, of whom there are a couple, having been gaining traction recently, including small mention in Time Out this week. In true Muschampian style (hey, if it’s good enough for the Times it certainly passes muster round these parts), I am not going to detail why this is such a phenomenally bad idea. I don’t even think it raises itself to the level of idea, but that sort of dismissive logic has bedeviled liberals in all sorts of areas for decades (you know the process; you think, do I have actually explain why racism is bad again?), and so I’m a little guilty of perpetuating poor tactics. All I’ll say is that if he thinks it’s such a good idea, maybe he should be symbolic Tenant One. It has a nice roundness to the gesture, and I’m sure that Silverstein will give him a discount for being a team player.

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421 E 6th Street

A typical lament of aging is the observation that the hallowed places are being uprooted by less authentic interlopers. One sad effect of modernity is that many of our landmarks are merely places of commerce from which spring material transactions that are the process of sanctification and meaning in a captial driven society. But, what then, are the amulets of days past? Temples to discarded belief systems. The evolution of postmodernity will inevitably be the erections of monuments to the process of nostalgia itself.

That I find fewer places each year to marvel at is an indictment of my own passing through youth, but also a real measuring of the continued development of lower Manhattan that will mandate the eventual elision of the spaces which resonate most with me, the forgetten, the interstitial. It sounds like bad hipster parody, and likely it is.

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