This blog only represents the views of the author and does not reflect the policies of the City of New York or its Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications.
Is urban “revitalization” a mere expression of cultural preference – reflecting white, upper-middle class predilections? Was the pre-revitalization 42nd Street somehow a more authentic expression of something before it, and Bryant Park, became “Disney-fied.” Essays in “Deconstructing the High Line: postindustrial urbanism and the rise of the elevated park,” edited by Christoph Linder and Brian Rosa (Rutgers, 2017), suggest that prior to its re-visioning as an urban public space, the High Line of gay cruising and wild, invasive plants was authentic, organic and more correct. In an essay in Deconstructing the High Line, Darren J. Patrick even argues that the pervasive and self-seeding, but non-native, Ailanthus altissima, had more of a right to live and thrive in the along the abandoned elevated rail line than the artificial more native, highly curated plant selection that distinguishes the High Line now.
When we were working at Grand Central Partnership and Bryant Park Restoration Corporation, we were occasionally surprised to learn that there were academics, like Sharon Zukin, who thought that we were engaged in a misguided attempt to destroy the complex, authentic social ecology of “The Deuce.” We couldn’t understand how someone might prefer the porn theaters, prostitution, unpicked up trash and three card monte of 42nd Street of the 70’s and early 80’s to what we were envisioning.
Similar issues have arisen for me recently in thinking about the regulation of motion on advertising on street furniture in New York City. Motion on retail signs, called “flashing signs,” is prohibited in most of New York City under the zoning resolution. According to the terms of the street furniture advertising franchise agreements, franchisees are granted limited rights to display motion in advertising subject to the approval of the relevant City Commissioner. Egregious full motion advertising has led us to try to develop a rubric for motion that was measurable and non-arbitrary.
When I was the co-chair of the Streetscape Committee of the Municipal Art Society in the 90’s, we took a hard line on moving images and flashing signs outside of midtown Manhattan. While it was our position that back-lit panel advertising added light and color to the street, movement contributed to visual disorder and detracted from the quality-of-life, particularly of residential districts. But during our internal discussions of this issue in City government, some of my colleagues expressed surprised that there would be any problem with moving images on signs in public spaces, particularly if they generated increased revenue for the City. And I have to confess, that I had a very difficult time articulating a rationale for a consistent standard for the consideration of aesthetics and high design standards in public spaces. In the De Blasio administration, where issues of equity and access are central, it is particularly important to construct arguments for placemaking that tie it to benefits to underserved individuals and communities and disconnect it from displacement, gentrification and the preferences of the privileged.
This is all by way of introduction to an analysis of the conditions in the public spaces of Downtown Brooklyn. My general opinion, having spent almost a year working downtown and as a result constantly living and walking in the space is that it is generally unappealing and unattractive. My argument is that well-ordered attractive public space is important to enabling people to have a perception of safety when occupying it. Downtown Brooklyn seems to me dingy, dark and uninviting. But while Flatbush Avenue is often deserted, Fulton Street is almost always bustling. Neither feels particularly unsafe.
Until the consolidation of New York City in 1898, Brooklyn was a separate political entity – a major city by itself. With the completion of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1883, the City of Brooklyn was no longer completely separated from the City of New York by the East River. Subway service between Brooklyn and Manhattan began in 1905. While Brooklyn Borough Hall was completed in 1848, most of the major structures in the Downtown appear to date to after World War I. So, even after the consolidation, Brooklyn remained as a major commercial and civic center. The subway service here is dense, with many lines and stations in the Downtown. Commuter rail serves the Downtown at Atlantic Terminal. The building that was long the Abraham & Strauss department store (now Macy’s), was first built in 1883 and grew and expanded over the years as the anchor to an important retail center.
The Downtown thrived through the fifties and began to change character during the 60’s, along with downtowns across the country, reflecting the impact of the car, the move to the suburbs, demographic changes and the decline of the Brooklyn waterfront as an economic center. That change in character has arguably endured to the present, despite a range of revitalization efforts, including the development of Metro Tech, discussed in my last entry. The Fulton Mall was rebuilt as a transit-way in 70’s – like Jamaica Avenue in Downtown Jamaica – and as in Jamaica one of the city’s first Special Assessment Districts was established to maintain it. Those improvements were replaced over the last two decades, with car traffic reintroduced. Other BIDs were established, including one for Metro Tech, and the Bloomberg Administration merged those into the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, which was placed firmly under the wing of the Deputy Mayor for Economic Development. But the essential character of Downtown Brooklyn has remained essentially the same in recent decades, with one significant exception.
In 2004 the Downtown was the subject of a major rezoning – aimed at creating New York City’s third office district (besides midtown and downtown Manhattan). Much of the Downtown was rezoned with a C6-4 and C6-4.5 designation, with a floor area ratio of up to 12. The motivation for the rezoning was stimulating office tower development. According the website of the Department of City Planning, “C6 districts permit a wide range of high-bulk commercial uses requiring a central location. Most C6 districts are in Manhattan, Downtown Brooklyn and Downtown Jamaica; … Corporate headquarters, large hotels, department stores and entertainment facilities in high-rise mixed buildings are permitted in C6 districts.” Mixed-use buildings might include commercial or retail uses at the ground level with residential use above. Given the demand for residential space in New York City, and the recent “hotness” of a Brooklyn home address, along with a lack of demand for office space in Downtown Brooklyn, the Downtown has now found itself with a plethora of residential tower development in a commercial office building zoning form. By my rough count, there are about two-dozen such towers either completed or now under construction in the Downtown.
In addition, that construction (and demolition in anticipation of construction) has led to a sea of construction scaffolding in Brooklyn, which dominates the streetscape. It seems like every block front in the Downtown has at least one sidewalk bridge. Those sidewalk bridges have a deleterious effect on the pedestrian experience. They tend to be narrow and dark, and limit the scope of a pedestrian’s view. The adjacent construction is at least noisy and often dirty as well. A walk around the Downtown is dominated by the experience of walking from construction site to construction site. In the long-term, new construction certainly isn’t a bad thing.
Landlords and retailers have demonstrated a preference for as much glass as possible on the first two levels – with a particularly negative effect on the facades of pre-war structures. In my judgment, a street wall lined entirely with glass – while far superior to a continuous brick street wall, tends to be cold and undifferentiated. It obvious that both landlords and tenants are making money from the current situation in the Downtown. There are very few empty stores. It is difficult to put your finger on exactly why walking down the Fulton Mall doesn’t seem like a very pleasant experience – and it’s certainly possible that my perceptions are culture bound and others might think differently. The large number of sidewalk sheds are a major contributor to the sense of chaos. There are few street trees. The sidewalks are wide and the street is narrow. There are benches on many blocks, and three or four plazas have movable tables and chairs as well as food kiosks. There are also some distinctive street furniture elements – like signature street lamps. There are no sit down restaurants along Fulton Mall, and certainly no restaurants with outdoor dining. This combination of components makes the Mall feel like an efficient, characterless area in which to shop. It just doesn’t have a distinctive sense of place. There are, though, very few empty stores.
From a placemaking perspective, Flatbush Avenue from the Manhattan Bridge to Lafayette Place is much more challenging. It’s a wide street with a planted median. Quite a few towers have been built along it – but they are irregular and don’t create a continuous street wall. Ground level retail is also discontinuous. Attempts have been made to soften the streetscape with plantings here and there. There are benches and moveable chairs at some triangles (without any other programming). These elements don’t create a sufficient critical mass to change the experience. Walking along Flatbush feels a lot like walking along a highway. The walk from my office to Brooklyn Academy of Music along Flatbush is direct, but one I generally try to avoid.
Some fixes to the Mall might include more well maintained garden beds and planting trees large enough to provide actual shade – but subsurface conditions may make that impossible (the subway runs underneath it). In the summer months, umbrellas should be added to the movable tables. The areas with tables and chairs probably need more food vendors and an increased level of programming – like street performers or chess and other table games. The areas with the movable tables and chairs are not within line of sight of each other, and as a result don’t create synergistic effects – being too far apart. Encouraging one or two property owners to restore the facades of their first two levels is likely to drive other owners to do the same. For some reason, the presence of the Macy’s store seems hidden from the street, which may have something to do with scaffolding. The exterior of the building needs to be marked in a way that announces its presence as an anchor to the neighborhood. Creative lighting of the façade might help. It would be good to start a program for imaginatively painting the sidewalk bridges in a thematic way – turning these liabilities into assets. The artistic power of Brooklyn might be put behind such a program – using the sheds to advertise and promote the Brooklyn “brand.”
As to Flatbush Avenue – I’m at a complete loss. The towers in plazas development scheme limits pedestrian activity – and the un-programmed plazas remain empty. The internally facing retail (as at The Point) has a similar effect. A “thing” in Downtown Brooklyn seems to be the food hall – with a large number of vendors selling food to go, with some tables and chairs spread around inside for customers. At The Point, the food hall is in the basement. There is one door to the Hall on each side of the building and the retail activity is invisible from the street as a result. The width of the street, compared to relatively narrow sidewalks and the speed of the traffic also degrades the pedestrian experience. In the renderings done in connection with the rezoning there weren’t any people — and there aren’t any today (http://www1.nyc.gov/assets/planning/download/pdf/plans/downtown-brooklyn2/dwnbklyn.pdf., esp. pp. 10 & 11).
But is all of this just an expression of my personal preferences? How do we articulate why a well-ordered, well-designed public space is better? If we use economic development arguments, we end up being criticized by detractors on the grounds of gentrification and displacement as is extensively (and persuasively) documented in “Deconstructing the High Line.”
To use the most obvious example, I often make the economic case regarding the positive outcomes from the revitalization of Bryant Park. But isn’t there also a “soft” good in public space revitalization and activation in improved quality of life. Most importantly, the activation communicated to a broad audience that the park, midtown Manhattan, and even the City of New York were safe and attractive and that empowered people to feel more secure about their environment. That improved perception encouraged people to re-engage with public spaces more generally. The revitalized park gave tens of thousands of people a pleasurable and improved experience of public space in their visits to the park, and that’s a good unto itself. It actually drew people to the park and encouraged them to engage with public space. This is particularly important at a time when many people feel disengaged from the public sphere, perhaps because they spend so much private time involved with their screens (for a particularly dystopian view of this phenomenon, written way before it happened, I recommend Gary Shteyngart’s “Super Sad Love Story”). There were also similar secondary effects in areas adjacent to the park, where people’s visits there were safe and happy.
To carry this over to Downtown Brooklyn, to “improve” conditions here would be to enable people to have more pleasurable experiences in the Downtown, to encourage them to spend more time here and engage in public, rather than private activities. All of these things would arguably improve their quality of life in a material and important way, for those folks, even if there are a substantial number of people who are happy with Downtown Brooklyn the way it is. However, I’m uncertain that I’ve made a very good case for this and would welcome better arguments from others.
