Detroit has received lots of positive attention in the urbanist community for a wide range of positive developments. On my first overnight trip to the city post-pandemic I found lots of evidence of good thinking — but at the same time not many people. Yes, it was Friday and the weather was cold and wet, but the streets were empty
Here are some photos I took on my walk.
Yes, Detroit remains car-centric.
Walking down Woodward Avenue, there was no easy way to get to the Riverwalk. You came to a hardscaped park, with few amenities.
It seemed great when the book “Tactical Urbanism” was published in in 2015. Here were a bunch of placemaking ideas that were easy to understand and implement. The first chapter was a promising summary of the principles of placemaking developed over the prior three decades. The rest of the book felt kind of skimpy – the case studies it described weren’t terribly impressive or interesting, but they were certainly a step in the right direction. And then tactical urbanism came to my block.
During COVID, New York City’s Open Streets program arrived on 103rd Street between Central Park and Riverside Park. Two metal barricades appeared at the end of each block each morning with signs noting that no through traffic was allowed, and that the speed limit was five miles an hour. 103rd came to a T intersection at each park – limiting its utility to through traffic. While no one was using the street bed to hang out in, and the street closing complicated bringing a Zipcar around from my local parking garage to my front door, I did enjoy the additional open space for walking the dog. I noticed over the years an occasional lame event advertised for the street being put on by “Park to Park 103/Open Streets.
Clyde Warren Park in Dallas works. A recent visit, more than ten years after its opening, showed it to be heavily used and reasonably well managed. On a weekday afternoon the park had quite a few visitors, including lots of children. The park has most of the elements that make public spaces successful:
Shade – essential in the southwest
Playgrounds. The one here is very cleverly designed and attractive – including fun water features
Lawns
Food kiosks and restaurants
Water features
Regular programming
Movable chairs
Adequate maintenance
As we have written ad nauseum, there are so many new public space projects, and so few of them are successful. Clyde Warren was built over a highway culvert – a category of assignment that has proved particularly challenging for public space planners over the last couple of decades. Building over a highway cut can be an essential move in re-knitting a downtown together. But doing it right is a tough assignment. The designers of Clyde Warren, The Office of James Burnett, got what animates a public space on a deep level that seems to elude almost all landscape architects and public officials. After ten years, Clyde Warren is still performing well – attracting a broad swath of users. On the day we visited a large portion of the park was closed for a private event – but there was still quite a bit of space available to the casual visitor.
A good contrast with Clyde Warren is another public space in the southwest, Santa Fe’s Railyard Park of about the same vintage – which remains virtually unused, despite quite a bit of interesting development around it. The arts district of downtown Dallas is not the most promising or hospitable of environments for a public space. Downtown Fort Worth is way more walkable, human scaled and attractive. The surrounding streetscape to Clyde Warren is towers and institutions set back from the street – essentially bleak, unwalkable and car oriented. Prominent among the high design structures of the arts district (Rem Koolhaas, Norman Foster) are a large number of parking structures. But somehow, pedestrians find their way to the two large blocks that constitute Clyde Warren — most likely from the offices and residential towers that overlook the park.
The nonprofit that operates the park, The Woodall Rodgers Park Foundation, has an operating budget of around $15 million. The biggest challenge for public spaces with water features is keeping them running. And the features at Clyde Warren are complicated and fun to watch. The Foundation seems to have the resources to keep things running. The water features are open for kids (and adults) to splash around in – which is just great, and unfortunately not standard practice. These water features are complex and they work. Kudos to the park’s managers.
That not-withstanding, the Foundation appears to contract out for the park’s maintenance, and it shows. Outsourced maintenance is never as detailed oriented and perfectionist or as highly motivated, well-compensated internally managed staff. The park demonstrates a lot of wear from high use and is not kept to the high standards of Bryant Park. The lawn panels are need aeration and reseeding. The horticultural elements are designed for low maintenance and aren’t well maintained even given that. They don’t have the kind of visual pop that a public space of this caliber really ought to have. Some of the arts institution facilities in the district have much more imaginative and appealing plantings nearby.
Big Belly trash receptacles are in use – which are a bête noire of mine. They are a mark of managerial laziness. The design is awful – they are a squat box. The labor they supposedly save, is labor that the park really needs. Staff dumping out the trash bid are a visible mark of social order. Visitors want to see people working in the park – maintaining the horticultural elements and emptying the trash bins. It contributes to the perception of public safety.
But those issues aside, Clyde Warren Park, is a clear model for others to follow as to what makes a park lively and attractive. The built environment in downtown Dallas makes creating lively public spaces a challenging task, and so the park’s success is even more a particular achievement.
The hostile environment of a highway overpass, makes the success of Clyde Warren even more of an achievement.
The fabulous water feature amidst the forbidding neighboring towers. One of them was once famous for hostile reflection of the Texas sun into the neighboring sculpture park.
A close up of the water feature.
Contract worker — looking disconsolate.
The lawn is beat. Needs aeration and reseeding.
Low maintenance shrubs. Boring.
The dreaded Big Bellies. Ugly and bad.
And…movable chairs.
A shade structure. Essential in the southwest — along with the trees.
Signs of consistent programming. Probably not enough though to really contribute to the space’s animation. In a space in a downtown of this size, daily programming is essential to energizing the park.
Fantastic playground, even though its play equipment is liability lawyer-proof in design.
Wonderful climbing structure.
An adjacent dog park. A great move!
Shade and movable chairs contribute to the attractiveness of the space.
Among American cities, Charleston and Santa Fe have unique characters – and not surprisingly are both important tourist destinations, as well as significant housing markets for second and retirement homes. They are in such high demand because they have maintained a remarkable sense of place, in a country with a limited number of great places urban places. As I have been maintaining, American needs more great places in order to attract people from more expensive locations to less expensive ones – lowering housing costs while at the same time promoting economic development and equity. What can be learned from these two attractive places?
I have been going to both cities annually for decades. Charleston, which had a population of 70,000 in 1980, now has 154,000 people. It hosted 2.2 million visitors in 1976 and 7.25 million visitors last year. Of course, Charleston had the benefit for more than two decades of one of America’s best mayors in Joe Riley, who skillfully leveraged the city’s substantial assets to make it both a desirable place to live and a favored destination. At the heart of those assets is a dazzling collection of well-preserved and restored 18th Century homes, a large number of which are available for tourists to visit. Those homes are physical evidence of Charleston’s place as a successful port and agricultural and religious center in Colonial America, one of the colonies’ largest cities. Charleston is also an important site for Black America, being a hub of the slave trade, a home for successful plantation and slave owners and the location of the opening salvos of the Civil War. It is also the location of the recent racially motivated mass shooting at Emanuel A.M.E. Church.
Joe Riley Waterfront Park
Charleston is the site of the Spoleto Festival USA, the largest arts event in the South, with dozens of performances of music, theater and dance, with the adjacent Piccolo Spoleto adding scores more of smaller performances and art displays for several weeks in June each year. Charleston is also, perhaps, the country’s fourth most interesting dining destination (after, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago), punching well above its weight in eating excellence. The dining scene was established by the late, great Louis Osteen, initially at the restaurant at the then new resort, Charleston Place, and later at his own establishment. That legacy was continued by Sean Brock at his Macready’s and Husk – who has recently decamped his principal operation to Nashville. Add to that the adjacency to wonderful beaches and historic plantations, and you have an unparalleled number of authentic attractions. This has generated a huge tourist draw, a luxury housing market (a house in downtown Charleston goes for around $1.4 million. Here is a typical “single” style house on the market for $4.5 million: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/13-Church-St-Charleston-SC-29401/10904815_zpid/), and most recently a great deal of new multi-family housing development.
The Santa Fe Opera. Photo may justify the cost of upgrading to an iPhone 14
I spent the summer of 1977 living in Santa Fe. At the time it was a quiet, dusty town of old adobes, with a long history of artists and galleries of Western Art, a noted market for the arts and crafts of local indigenous people (particularly pottery, weaving and silverwork) – and the more recent establishment of a major opera company and chamber music festival. The city had a laid-back, counterculture, hippie-ish vibe, with a large highly visible white clad and turbaned group who called themselves “sikhs.” Ten Thousand Waves, a former marijuana farm, turned Japanese style spa was (and continues to be) a major attraction (with nighttime hot-tubbing a blissful experience). The opera performed during the summer in an unusual outdoor theater and was led by the remarkable John Crosby, one of our greatest cultural entrepreneurs. Santa Fe is also located in a region of incredible natural and cultural richness. Day trips can be taken to a number of notable pueblos of tribal nations, including Taos and Acoma – which provided the inspiration for the unique local adobe-based architectural style. The Sangre de Cristo and Jemez Mountains provide a spectacular backdrop for both walking and driving adventures. Particularly unusual is the drive from Toas to the pilgrimage village of Chimayo, the famous High Road to Taos (actually, better driven from Taos, to get the best views as you drive downhill), with unparalleled vistas and fascinating small hamlets with a unusal religious observance, along the way. Distinctive about North New Mexico is a rich cultural history of native peoples going back centuries, with settlements like Bandelier and Puyé available for visits, over-layered with Spanish colonization dating to the late seventeenth century. There are few more interesting places in the US. The population of the city grew from 40,000 in 1980 was to 87,000 in 2020, with the number of tourists at 2.25 million in 2022.
As in Charleston, at the center of Santa Fe’s appeal is the preservation of historic structures – both commercial and residential. The Santa Fe style is an international phenomenon, with the construction and decoration of distinctive homes a major local economic generator. As in Charleston, standards for historic preservation are stringent. In addition, new development is required to conform to the prevailing architectural context. The downtown is chock-a-block with stores selling stuff to ornament an adobe home with appropriate accoutrements – as well as to adorn oneself with regulation western wear – boots, silver necklaces and belt buckles, along with the essential hats. When in 1977 I stood in the Plaza, which is the center of Santa Fe and looked out towards the deserts and mountains, I saw stars. Today one sees a myriad of lights from the thousands of homes built in the former quiet landscape and rising up rugged mountain slopes.
When I later became a regular visitor, our home base was Rancho Encantado, a kind of scruffy Ralph Lauren-esque ranch, with a horse corral and trail rides at its center – way outside of town. The rooms were in casitas (small houses), which were rustically decorated with locally made blankets and wooden crafts. The cuisine was that of New Mexico, for example enchiladas with either red or green chili – or both, washed down with a Margarita. The local New Mexican cooking is different than that in Mexico and Texas, and a treasured tradition. We were heartbroken when the Rancho was sold by the family who were it long-time owners. It was empty for a number of years, and then torn down a replaced with what is now an ultra-luxury Four Seasons resort.
Eldorado Hotel, Santa Fe
We’ve hopped around among hotels since then – including a long stretch at Bishop’s Lodge, also outside of town, but closer to the Plaza, and on the historic hacienda (also with a stable) of Archbishop Lamy, made famous by Willa Cather in “Death Comes for the Archbishop.” But it ultimately met a similar fate to Rancho Encatado – being substantially upscaled. This past summer we stayed at the Eldorado, once the premier luxury property in Santa Fe, built by the Zeckedorf family in the 1986, when the Bill Zeckendorf Jr., whose spouse, Nancy was closely associated with the opera, found that there was no modern, comfortable place to stay. The property is now owned by a local group called Heritage which advertises itself as being in the “cultural tourism” business. With the creation of a number of other higher end hotels in Santa Fe, Eldorado has been repositioned. But it has the best pool in the downtown (a major feature given New Mexico’s consistent hot, dry weather), and large comfortable rooms. The property features displays of local art – pottery and weaving— sourced directly from native people. Heritage’s business model for its ten New Mexico properties is to feature the art and food of the region. A magazine available to guests describes the chain’s local sourcing of pottery and weaving for display. The magazine had eye catching graphics and quality writing about some of the most worthwhile destinations in New Mexico. One fascinating article was about the importance of plazas as places in New Mexican towns. Heritage appears to have built its business on the distinctiveness of New Mexico places.
Both cities’ appeal is built on a foundation of historic preservation – and the creation of a sense of cultural authenticity. While the programs to preserve these assets is unusual in these places, many places across the country have the potential to make the most of their special cultures – if they were to choose to take that path. It seems to me that foregrounding the authentic distinctiveness of cities is a far more stable and cost-effective endeavor than building a convention center or sports stadium to attract visitors and new, economically valuable residents.
Building on the historic character of Charleston and Santa Fe, a local food culture was created, based in the one case on historic southern cooking and on the other on the wonderful Spanish colonial food culture. This isn’t necessarily about haute cuisine or Michelin starred restaurants, but more about high quality, unique local places. Although, fancy, expensive places can become the capstone of places with rich offerings based on local produce and traditions.
It’s also not about building grand hotels to attract visitors. Santa Fe has a number of mid-century modern motels (with matching neon signs) that attract both families and hipsters, as well as small, distinctive places without a lot of amenities in historic buildings. The grand dame of Santa Fe hotels is La Fonda, just off the plaza – which has lovely, atmospheric public spaces and small, simple charming rooms. Charleston did kick-start its status as a premier destination with Charleston Place, a large mid-rise property, with extensive ground floor retail. While originally developed as a mid-price hotel, with the popularity of Charleston as a destination, it has been repeatedly been repositioned and upscaled with changes in ownership.
Both cities have also promoted distinctive retail with a local flavor. The historic centers of both cities have small structures and small spaces – unattractive, for the most part, to national retailers. Lower King Street in Charleston, though, has both Ben Silver, a local haberdasher and probably the most high-quality retailer of traditional men’s wear in the country, and the recent influx of more of the usual national suspects – resulting in a dynamic mix of both well-known brands and local offerings. North King, long neglected, and long ago the area center for home furnishing and appliance retailers, attracted quirky restaurants in the 00’s, and has become something of a victim of its own success, with a rowdy night-life scene, that the City is now working to bring under control.
Santa Fe’s downtown has moved more and more upscale over the years, with local art galleries, jewelers, purveyors of native American art and jewelry, and western wear – driving out most sellers of tourist trinkets and similar shlock. Large format national retailers are relegated to shopping strips and centers outside of the historic downtown.
Theodora Park, Charleston, S.C.
Public spaces in both places are something of a mixed bag. Charleston sports the recent large and impressive Joseph Riley Waterfront Park as well as the small and near perfect Theodora Park. But generally, its Parks Department is underfunded, and places like the Battery & White Point Gardens are insufficiently well maintained and programmed. Santa Fe has one of the country’s most ill-conceived new public spaces, the Railroad Yard Park, which is lightly used. The Plaza, the city’s historic zocalo, right in the center of the old town, is extremely popular and hosts near continuous spontaneous programming (buskers, food vendors) – but appears over-used and shabby. One might conclude that these small cities have such strong identities and generally excellent built environments that high quality public spaces don’t need to be a part of their brand.
The character of Santa Fe and Charleston make them great places to visit. Because of its easy access to outdoor recreational activity, Santa Fe is particularly attractive to families. Both cities have brought historic preservation to the forefront, and have created formal and informal, public and private structures to maintain their characters and enhance their brands with significant results. Part of their success is no doubt due to the uniqueness of their historical appeal and the scarcity of other cities with similar strengths. But I have no doubt that the over-tourism of certain locations about which there is substantial and justifiable complaint (Venice being the prime example) is a result of there just not being enough great places to visit. Most other cities around the country, both large and small, have historical and/or cultural assets that they should be able to foreground. But getting there takes serious, comprehensive, thoughtful leadership. It is not just putting up a few signs or having a cute trolly running around town (and certainly not building a huge hotel or conference center). A historic district of character needs to be identified, preserved, maintained and expanded over time. The more authentic and unique, the more likely it is to become successful. The brand needs to be leveraged with appropriate cultural activities that create critical mass (not the occasional folk concert or once a year parade). But anyone visiting Santa Fe can see that the demand is there both among tourists and second/retirement home buyers for the kind of experience the city has carefully curated.
“characterized by the predominance of the curve over the straight line, by rich decoration and detail, by the frequent use of vegetal and other organic motifs, the taste for asymmetry, a refined aestheticism and dynamic shapes;”
rather than this:
“an architectural movement or architectural style based upon new and innovative technologies of construction, particularly the use of glass, steel, and reinforced concrete; the idea that form should follow function (functionalism); an embrace of minimalism; and a rejection of ornament.”
The first describes “modernisma,” a design practice present in Barcelona from about 1890 to about 1920, very similar to Art Nouveau in France and Belgium, Jugendstil in Germany, Vienna Secession in Austria-Hungary, but deeply intertwined with Catalan nationalism. The most famous practitioner of moderisma was Antoni Gaudí, whose work from photographs prior to my traveling to Barcelona never spoke to me. In addition, the use of the term modernisma is confusing, as it has little to do what Americans call modernism.
A recent trip to Barcelona, however exposed me to the work of Lluís Domènech i Montaner, something of a predecessor of Gaudí, whose work I found beautiful and engaging. His spectacular Palau de Musica, Barcelona’s concert hall, got me to thinking about the humanism invoked by the foregrounding of natural materials and high craftsmanship. The Palau wows you with its masterly use of highly worked stained glass, tile, woodwork and plasterwork. It radiates the sense that sophisticated culture happens in this place. It speaks of the labor and skills of the many masters who shaped that plaster and carved the wood.
Ornate plasterwork at the Casa Batilló
How different this is from what became the International Style, which eliminated craftsmanship from its vocabulary, and backgrounded materials to the big ideas of its designers. Glass, steel and concrete were reduced to their basic functions, and manual working of materials was made to disappear into the overall design. At the same time, the contemporary backlash to modernism has been a regressive promotion of a return classical orders – as evidenced by the controversy created by the Trump appointment of a retro-classicist to the position of Architect of the Capitol. That politization of design seemed political and degenerating on its face. But what about looking back to an architectural style that highlights the human elements in the details of the implementation of design.
The Palau isfilled with color, shape and elegant forms. It draws the interest of the viewer into its details. It creates a welcoming and comfortable atmosphere. It promotes a sense of calm, civility and ease. Also significant is that must have employed scores of highly trained and skilled crafts people who contributed to its success and could take pride in their work. It speaks of place, rooted in that Catalan nationalism.
What’s interesting is that while Gaudí gets all the attention, Domènech seemed to me the greater artist. Gaudí’s works are among the principal tourist attractions of Barcelona. Most famously his massive church of Sagrada Familia, but also his Güell Park, Casa Batilló and Casa Milà, among others. But while Casa Batilló includes many beautiful details of wood and plasterwork and Casa Milá has some fascinating structural elements (particularly catenary arches in the attic space), a funky roof space and an undulating façade, Gaudí appears to have fallen victim to his celebrity and created overwhelming, chaotic designs. The Sagrada Familia in particular is gigantic in its crazed ornaments and abundance of novel architectural details. The whole business is exhausting. It is far from a contemplative, spiritual space.
Domènech seems to have quietly stayed true to his craft and sense of place. While the Palau is a jewel box, his Hospital de Sant Pau, is a graceful campus that speaks deeply of healing. It is a collection of 12 pavilions, connected by underground galleries and surrounded by landscape. Not all of the buildings have been fully restored. Some are in use as offices. Others are open to the public. All are decorated by extensive tile work and are flooded with light and color. Both the interiors and exteriors display the kind of hand work that marks modernisma. Everywhere there are facets to delight and engage the eye.
The Hospital of St. Pau
Domènech’s work was a revelation. What if New York’s essentially new $500 million concert hall were more like the Palau de Musica, bathed in colored light and couched by curvilinear, floral wood and plasterwork and less like a modern Hilton? Yes, Carnegie Hall is a 19th Century plaster box – but it is a relatively simple, inornate auditorium, with cramped public spaces. But what a pleasure it would be to attend concerts in a space like the Palau that emanates human warmth, art and culture.
We did also go to the Liceu Opera while we were in town. The auditorium, located on La Rambla, is a conventional European 2,300 seat one from 1864, embedded in a 1999 renovation following a fire in 1994. I found the sound surprisingly hollow and unflattering (thought it should be noted that the show we saw featured a small on-stage orchestra, rather than one in the pit). The programming is comparable to opera houses at the highest international level (with respect to conductors, directors and casting). It does have a tony adjacent opera club, which we were delighted to be able to visit.
Barcelona itself is overwhelmed by tourists, who are drawn by Gaudí and a lively street and night life. It has very attractive mid-rise residential neighborhoods, some of the streets of which are being pedestrianized. Barcelonans live life outside, and as in the other cities in Spain which I have visited, there is eating and drinking on sidewalks and streets everywhere late into the evenings. Even the residential side streets have ground level retail. A good many of the stores in Barcelona (and not just the high-end ones) are elegantly presented. Barcelona was designed with broad avenues, some with wide pedestrians walkways down the middle (like the famous and tourist infested La Rambla). Many of the blocks were designed with shared green space at their center.
St. Pau interior
Barcelona is a seafront city, with broad Mediterranean beaches making up its entire Eastern edge. Those beaches as well were jam-packed (but with locals) on the weekend we visited. The city has an active cultural life, with a major orchestra and the opera company, as well as galleries and art museums. It is the home to two universities. It is famous for its public markets (which have also, unfortunately, turned a good deal of their attention to the tourist trade). It is clearly a desirable place to live – what with the attractive built environment (particular the many, many solid midrise buildings of substantial residential flats – the best of which are influenced by or the product of modernisma), the climate, the many places to eat and drink and the beach.
The attractive, oldest parts of town are particularly crowded with tourists – and the draw is clearly eating, drinking and partying – which is remarkable since Barcelona was regarded as a failing post-industrial city at the time of Franco’s death in 1975. Locals attribute the city’s rather recent turnaround to the hosting of the Olympics in 1992, which is unusual since Olympic programs have generally been regarded as economic development failures. Barcelona, though, has been a remarkable success, of which it is to a certain extent now a happy, overwhelmed victim. And there is much to be learned from its distinctive, high profile design history and its place-based, human scale successes.
The Hilbert Cycle Theatre on Monument Circle, home of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra
The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra
While in town, I attended a concert of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. The orchestra did a program of Beethoven, Bartok and Schumann, conducted by Markus Stenz, with Zoltán Fejérvári as soloist. Neither of those performers are box office draws, and only the Beethoven Leonora Overture No. 3, is a known crowd pleaser. It was ambitious of the symphony’s management to put on such a program and selling it to any audience would be challenge. But it was a splendid concert, and it was disappointing that it drew so small a crowd – filling less than half of the seats. Fejérvári was entirely new to me, and while I didn’t at first recognize Stenz’ name, upon reading the program biography, I realized I had heard him excellently conduct Kurtág’s “Fin de Partie” last year in Paris.
The orchestra plays twenty classical programs a year in a restored movie palace on Monument Circle – so right in the center of the downtown. The auditorium is very much like the one I recently visited in Pittsburgh –with classical allusions in its decoration. The room is large, and the sound is neutral – making it a fine place to hear a full orchestra. The concert appeared to be something of a love fest between the conductor and the players, and it may have been a try-out for the orchestra’s open music director position for Stenz, Krzysztof Urbański having left the orchestra during COVID. Stenz is a pro. He conducted from memory, without a baton and doesn’t feel the need to beat time, but instead indicates cues, tempo and volume changes, phrasing and articulation with gesture. While the playing of the orchestra was a little, shall we say, enthusiastic during the Overture, the remainder of the concert was compelling – particularly in quieter passages. The violin section work in the second movement of the Bartok was especially beautiful.
Fejérvári is tall and gangly. He was in full command of the technical challenges of the concerto. He coaxed a sweet sound from the Steinway in Bartok’s 3rd concerto. Bartok is conventionally thought of as a percussive, “modernist” composer, but in this performance the lyricism shone through. The orchestra listened carefully to the musical lead of Fejérvári and followed suit. It was a moving, handsome performance. His lovely and unusual encore was the third movement of Jancek’s In The Mists. The performance of Schumann’s 2nd Symphony was straightforward and engaging. The orchestra’s playing, while perhaps not the most nuanced or precise, was fresh and fervent. There was a lot of smiling going on the part of both Stenz and the players (many of them young), and that sense of pleasure was contagious. The audience was equally enthusiastic, occasionally applauding, apparently spontaneously, between movements, and with a standing ovation at the concert’s conclusion (which seemed genuine, as opposed the now routine standing response at Carnegies Hall at every performance). It was an altogether satisfying musical evening, particularly impressive from a part-time band, in a city without a major music conservatory from which to draw (although Indiana University, about an hour away, does have one of the country’s leading music schools).
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, Gunnar Birkerts, 1988
Columbus. Indiana
Columbus, Indiana is not to be confused with Columbus, Ohio. It is a town with a population of 50,000 about an hour south of Indianapolis. The town is famous among architecture buffs for its collection of structures designed by leading architects of the last hundred years. Wikipedia provides a good summary of what Columbus is all about:
“Columbus is a city known for its modern architecture and public art. J. Irwin Miller, 2nd CEO and a nephew of a co-founder of Cummins Inc., the Columbus-headquartered diesel engine manufacturer, instituted a program in which the Cummins Foundation paid the architects’ fees, provided the client selected a firm from a list compiled by the foundation. The plan was initiated with public schools and was so successful that the foundation decided to offer such design support to other non-profit and civic organizations. The high number of notable public buildings and public art in the Columbus area, designed by such individuals as Eero Saarinen, I.M. Pei, Robert Venturi, Cesar Pelli, and Richard Meier, led to Columbus earning the nickname “Athens on the Prairie.”
In a word, I was underwhelmed. A map sold at the visitors center lists 97 buildings and public art works located in this town of 50,000. The best work is mostly that which was commissioned by Cummins for its own use. The rest is generally not the most outstanding work of their designers. Often this appears to be the driven by limited funding resulting in inferior finishes and craftmanship. Some it seems like the starchitect didn’t take seriously a commission in the boonies. The projects are spread out around a large area – some a twenty-minute drive from the middle of town. All of the projects stand-alone – none are knitted into the small town’s fabric. They’re not urbanistic in any true sense of the word. The landscaping by the likes of Dan Kiley and Michael Van Val Valkenburgh was private, and mostly parking lots, or public, and not particularly well maintained.
The view up Washington Street.
The downtown reminded me a bit of Corning, New York, another company town with a philanthropic, design-oriented family in charge – but the main commercial street was not as well curated as in Corning. I had a tough time finding a place that was open for lunch on a Saturday afternoon. None of the work by renowned architects is on the main drag, Washington Street. The Miller family has been much celebrated for its patronage of high-end architecture (presumably using the money of Cummins shareholders to fund the Foundation). But the commissions seemed performative and attention seeking, despite all the blather in promotional materials about inspiring creativity and making Columbus a great place to live. The whole business felt like something of a stage set and not baked into the town’s planning and social fabric.
Actually, there seemed to be a lot of disinvested housing in the center of the town, and the adjacent areas were populated by tract house development and McMansions. Notably, just outside of downtown were the usual mid-western strip malls and regional malls featuring the standard national brands. As in Indianapolis, there just didn’t seem to me to be a deep commitment to making Columbus a vibrant place. As much as I love the work of William Rawn, a Bill Rawn boxy, conventional brick recreation center, is still a boxy, brick recreation center – even if his name is attached to. A Deborah Berke bank in a shopping mall – was just a drive-in bank branch. And I went hunting for the Hugh Hardy designed health center and found a grassy lot. Was it torn down? Was Hardy not famous enough to have his work preserved (his elementary school project for Columbus was far from the town’s center and I didn’t get there). A gigantic Robert Stern designed hospital complex was just plain odd – and was likely over-built for local needs – the extensive parking lots were empty on a Saturday afternoon. There was altogether too much banal Kevin Roche work done for Cummins facilities for my taste, the conventional modernism of which is not holding well up over time.
The interior of St. Peters
Was there anything I liked? The most impressive spaces I saw were actually interiors – in the stunning, elegant Sanctuary of Gunnar Birkerts St. Peter’s Lutheran Church and the light filled reading room of the Hope library branch, some distance from downtown Columbus. But interior designs do not directly impact public spaces. There is a Charles Gwathmey multifamily affordable senior project that struck me as quite elegant, and an effective use of a narrow site. The Dan Kiley Irwin Conference Center Landscape somewhat anachronistically makes use of the Bryant Park FERMOB tables and chairs – but how could I not like that? However, on the day I was there they were effectively props – no one was sitting in them, like in the Cummins commissioned public space in Indianapolis.
Indianapolis and Columbus place in high relief the difficulty in making great places – even with the most favorable local conditions. They both seem to have had progressive-minded civic leaders who wanted to ensure the future of their towns, and who commanded the resources to implement their plans. But plans and capital projects don’t make great places. To oversimplify, placemaking requires operating rather than capital funds (generally, much more difficult for government to come by). Activating public spaces is the result of the aggregation of many small interventions over a moderate period of time.
The Dan Kiley landscape adjacent to the Eero Saarinen Cummins Conference Center, added to by Kevin Roche
Indianapolis certainly has a lot of the right elements to create a vibrant downtown – by supporting a critical mass of street level activity – through outdoor eating and drinking, markets (the downtown City Market is just a rather forlorn food court needing substantial attention), pedestrianizing a few streets, presenting a consistent schedule of public events, foregrounding its historic structures (toning down signs for national retail) and encouraging modestly scaled mixed-use projects – all the usual moves.
There is a serious question as to why the city might want to do that. It is the state capitol, with all the activity that generates. It is a regional office center. It in an in-demand convention venue. Very few people live downtown. The creative class certainly has the option of living in a number of close in neighborhoods – if those are the people employers need to attract. Who would benefit from a walkable downtown with actual walkers? Living in such a place, is certainly my preference. There is something to be said philosophically for places with unique identities, that is that have soul. I’m of the view that in our polarized culture, drawing people together in attractive public places engages them in civic life and can provide an important unifying social force. Americans across the country need to be less atomized, drawn away from their screens and more engaged with each other. Quality public spaces (including elevating cultural events), with distinctive interesting programming (broadly defined) can provide that kind of collective experience.
But are there enough Hoosiers interested in that (or in attending the symphony) to make it a viable policy (or a sustainable orchestra)? A lot of people like, P.F. Chang’s – but that is not to be confused with the benefits of visiting a vibrant Chinese-American community.
Interior of the Deborah Berke Hope, IN library 1998
The view from the State House down Market Street in Indianapolis.
What is one to think about a state capitol city where the streets have the names of other states? What comes to the mind of a non-Hoosier when he or she thinks of Indiana or of Indianapolis. Yeah, probably not much. Also, what is to be made of a Potemkin Village of high-end architecture, much ballyhooed by the architectural cognoscenti, that has a dull main street, many of the high design projects are far flung, and most are, to be truthful, pretty pedestrian? This card-carrying member of the Eastern elite’s teeth were set on edge by a sign at the edge of the town of Columbus, Indiana bragging that former Vice President Michael R. Pence is a native son. That, notwithstanding, I think I was able to maintain an open mind. There certainly is much to like about Indy (not including the dopey colloquial shorting of the name, which does the city no service). Not the least of which is a truly excellent symphony orchestra, which put on an interesting program during my visit, albeit to a far less than half full house.
Indianapolis
The city is bigger than you might think, with one million inhabitants and a metro of twice that size. That, though, is still only about a third of the state’s population. Indianapolis is a geographically large, sprawling urban center in a deeply red, rural state. Sources I checked indicate that there even remain quite a few farms within the city limits – and that isn’t exactly what urbanists are thinking about when they discuss urban farming. The downtown is quite compact, with only a few skyscrapers. But it is easy to see that the 60’s through the 80’s were not kind to downtown Indianapolis. With many soulless, indistinctive midrise office buildings having replaced the city’s historic fabric – which dates back to the early 19th Century. There are some architecturally interesting structures left amid the brutalist colossi – but there aren’t many intact blocks of vernacular design. Oddly, the older, more distinctive buildings seem backgrounded by the newer additions.
It appears that the city fathers wanted to make sure that Indianapolis was up to date with the latest trends – both good and bad – right up to the present. Today, the city has a downtown management organization, a fancy schmancy system of bike paths (called the Cultural Trail), wayfinding signs, extensive scooter and bike sharing options, the modern street amenities for a walkable neighborhood downtown. But here’s the rub – there is nowhere worth walking to. The people in charge have made the moves, but don’t seem to get the essence of placemaking. There aren’t many of the features of a downtown that draw people to the center. It’s a city that made a big bet on the car and is organized around that. It has a huge parking structure on many blocks downtown. Like Kansas City, it is a place you drive to, to go to work, and drive out again at night. You’re also likely to drive to shop, dine or party. Because of the parking garages and the brutalist mega developments, there is little continuity of activity along street walls.
The Omni Severin. To the left is the original structure. To the right is the addition.
My hotel, the Omni Severin is an interesting example. I booked it because it is a member of the Historic Hotels brand of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. It is a classic early 20th century property, built adjacent to the old intercity train station. Modern additions were made when Omni bought and renovated the structure in the 00’s – leaving some of the historic façade visible. But the additions obscure a good deal of the exterior character. The modern port cochere, on the rail station side of the building, appears to have moved the original main entrance away from the downtown facing side of the building, which is now locked from the outside. The public spaces and rooms in the older parts of the building are entirely characterless. Why bother with the adaptive reuse when the resulting project is drab? Little is left that makes the hotel distinctive, other than a few historic photographs and prints. Surely the National Trust can find a more interesting member in Indianapolis (perhaps Le Meridian around the corner, which seems more stylish).
The rose window of Union Station.The restored waiting room of the former Union Station.
The train station, just across the plaza from the Omni has been adaptively reused as a Crown Plaza Hotel – much in the spirit of Union Station in St. Louis, with windowless rooms built into the interior of the elevated former train station. It has considerably more historic character then the Omni, but is odd. The former grand waiting room of the station, which has a splendid rose window, has been turned into an event space. Part of the project has been made to recreate the atmosphere of the track waiting areas. There are even sleeping rooms in an old train (or a replica of one). The whole thing is very cleverly designed, but the lack of external windows and sunlight in the sleeping rooms probably makes it a hard sell. And the impressive waiting room is difficult to access from the rest of the project or the street. The whole place seems kind of dark and peculiar. One piece of advice to management – light up the rose window at night. It’s bad enough you can’t get into the waiting room directly from the street, but the window could be a beacon, activating the area around it.
The Cummins HQ, the garage to the right, the plaza in the center, and the Deborah Berke office buildings to the left,The Cummins HQ.
Emblematic of the issues of Indianapolis is the most appealing piece of architecture I visited in either Indianapolis or Columbus (more on Columbus’ famous collection of architectural projects in my next post). Like the buildings of Columbus, the Indianapolis standout was commissioned by Cummins (formerly The Cummins Engine Company). Cummins is probably the most publicized and prolific patron of high-end architecture in America. Its downtown Indianapolis HQ was commissioned from New York/New Havener, Deborah Berke (who also did bank branch and a library in the Columbus area), with landscape design by local firm, David Rubin Land Collective. The Cummins HQ is a knockout. It’s an elegant, distinctive addition to the Indianapolis skyline (except that it is responsibly mid-rise). The landscaping around it is a combination of undulating greensward (incorporating all the mod cons of water management and native species) – and even utilizes the Bryant Park/FERMOB chair. The greenspace is adjacent to the Cultural Trail bike/pedestrian path. The ensemble is spirit lifting.
But. The tipoff is the bespoke garage, connected to the office building by a skywalk. The office building was not made to be walked to. It was meant to be driven to. The Friday I was there the lobby and the park were empty (it was admittedly cold and raining). The project sits by itself, with its front (which nobody is going to walk up to) facing the landscape, and the back facing the street. It sits at the edge of the downtown and doesn’t connect to anything else. I suspect that the tables and chairs in the park are used on the occasional nice day for lunch by Cummins employees (but how many warm, sunny days are there in the Mid-West – and shouldn’t public spaces be designed so that they can be used even dicey weather). It is unlikely that anyone will walk there (other than this crazy New Yorker). Adding insult to injury, there is no indication of the identity of the designers (true also in Columbus on the many significant structures there). When I asked the building staff about the architect, they didn’t know and had trouble accessing the information (kudos to the kind man at the front desk who came out to me in the rain, while I was walking around the park to identify Berke). There were informational signs lauding Cummins’ forward-looking commitment to sustainability and respect for local landscape conditions. But I have to suspect that Cummins’ decades of art and architectural patronage are more about demonstrating the taste, sophistication and generosity of the Miller family that has run Cummins for a few generations, then actually being committed to improving life for the people of either Indianapolis or Columbus. This theme runs through both places.
A mixed use hotel/office/retail project in the downtown.
There seems to be only a very few downtown residentials buildings – and why would you want to live downtown, when there is so little street life? There is not much that makes for an interesting neighborhood – little local retail (or dining), few art galleries, not even a department store. The garish signs for the national retailers and restaurant chains overwhelm the street and give it a honky-tonk feel – obscuring the handsome historic facades. The near-in northside residential neighborhoods of one family homes are leafy and attractive. The housing stock is from the first half of the 19th Century – mostly wood construction (with plenty of gay pride flags flying from neighborhood porches). While the lots seem narrow, many of the homes are larger than 3,000 square feet. Prices appear to be between $500,000 and $750,000. Not inexpensive by any measure (southside neighborhoods, with similar housing stock, seem substantially less well kept). If you can live in a four bedroom, 3,000 square foot house a five-minute drive from downtown, why would you want to live in a downtown loft or tower? Only if it was a real mixed-use neighborhood, which, right now, downtown Indianapolis isn’t.
The fundamental question is raised: what makes a great place – a place where people want to be. It seems that the hard part about placemaking is understanding that’s it is not about great design and spending on capital projects. It’s about igniting the spontaneous generation of human activity – the release of creativity and the stimulation of connections. That is, the creation of a community that celebrates its inherent uniqueness and strengths. Building stuff doesn’t make that happen by itself. Successful placemaking requires humility and careful observation of how people behave in public space and supporting and catalyzing connective activity. This is generally the opposite of what local grandees are about. They want to be adulated and eulogized. Humility and understanding the needs and desires of other people, and patiently and carefully programming public spaces, just isn’t in their DNA.
The Arts Garden from below.The interior of the Arts Garden.
Two other connected, wrong-headed projects also stand out in Indianapolis as grandiose failures. One is something called the Arts Garden. It is a social/performance space built over a major intersection. It is a glass winter garden with a high ceiling connected to the city’s skywalk system (almost never a good idea – diverting activity from street level) set up as a performance space. It must have cost a fortune – and why is it there? It also dominates what otherwise would have been a main downtown intersection. In order for such a thing to be successful, it has to be constantly programmed with high quality events. I’m talking every afternoon and evening, just about 365 days a year. That is management intensive and expensive. That didn’t seem to be happening – and the venue appeared to be underused for public events.
The Circle Center mall.
Attached by the skywalk to the Arts Garden is the Circle Center Mall (Monument Circle being the 100% location in Indianapolis) – which appears to be deeply ailing, with many empty stores – and few visitors on either a Friday or Saturday. Some mall passageways were literally dark – without stores or light. The mall includes some adaptively reused buildings and massive parking operations. Simon sold out its interest in the failed project last year – and someone is losing a bundle of money on the development (likely a good deal of which is the taxpayers’ of Indianapolis and Indiana). The project is too big, off the street and generally ill-conceived. It is no substitute for creating a real place.
[And while we’re mentioning Monument Circle, may I respectfully suggest that whoever is responsible for the music piped out of loudspeakers around the monument turn them off and take them down. I love Mozart as much, or even more, than the next person, but recorded music does nothing to contribute to the attractiveness of a public space, and its canned nature contributes to a feeling that the people managing the space are desperate for a good idea.]
The handsome Columbia Club on Monument Circle. Membership is down from 3000 to 1000 members.
Clearly, there is lots of cash around in Indianapolis to execute ambitious projects – some of which likely because it is the state capitol and has access to state funding. This is clearly a wealthy, successful community. Indianapolis has a huge convention center, with a dozen big convention brand hotels (Westin, Conrad, a couple of Marriotts). There’s an entertainment district near the center that on a Friday night was drawing a lively crowd to bars and music joints downtown. The City and the BIDs attention needs to be drawn away from capital projects and towards public space activation, if they are serious about making the downtown more livable. The place needs more outdoor food service designed for three plus season use (space heaters, enclosures). They need to foreground their landmark structures with more imaginative lighting and better controlled retail signage. They need to highlight local retailers. Leasing brokers and building owners likely think that national brands like McCormick & Schmick’s, Ruth’s Chris and P.J. Chang, with their garish signs, add to the profile and pizazz of the downtown (and are a draw for conventioneers). Here’s a newsflash – they make the downtown generic and indistinctive. That creates a downtown like everywhere else, without a distinctive sense of place – without a soul. Indianapolis needs to take pride in its identity and individuality – beyond the mass market products of the Pacers, the Colts and the 500 – if it wants to be a great place. On the other hand, civic leaders may be happy with what it is – a successful 5 day a week generic office district and convention destination. I should make clear that there is no shame in that. But the question is definitely raised, why have an extensive system of bike paths, an outstanding (if underappreciated) symphony orchestra and distinctive building and public space architecture? They have created an economically successful, but grey, one-dimensional state capitol, commercial and conference center. Many people (residents, business leaders, real estate owners) are likely happy with just that. But, there is certainly something important missing.
More on the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and Columbus, Indiana in next week’s post.
The new Grand Central Madison Train Station is a success. The Moynihan Trail Hall is not. Why? Because GCM is a useful, efficient train station. Both had the challenge of fitting new railroad equipment in between decades of development of urban infrastructure – a near impossible task.
Moynihan is an inconveniently located facility, with clunky access to the western end of the former Pennsylvania Railroad train platforms. By contrast, GCM can be accessed to the street from a number of nodes between 42nd Street and 48th Street. There are somewhat squirrelly passageways that lead both to Grand Central Terminal and the Times Square Shuttle Platform. There is a huge amount of space in the new station to accommodate commuter movement. The new GCM track cleverly goes to an East River tunnel through two double decker tubes, creating four new platforms with service to Jamaica Station in Queens, where one can make the proverbial “change at Jamaica.” It should be a boon to Long Island commuters, once they figure out how to use it, and overcome their innate resistance to change. It greatly expands access for Long Island commuters to Manhattan transit centers.
It’s a stroke of brilliant engineering that much of this thing has been squeezed in underground to the WEST of the current Grand Central. I had always assumed that the East End Access project would be EAST of Grand Central. But, no, the engineers have put the concourse deep under Vanderbilt Avenue. Given that the track tunnels were dug into the Manhattan schist, there is no sunlight to the concourse, mezzanine and platforms – unlike the skylit Moynihan, which is that facility’s best feature. But the station is decorated with a number of mosaics and other displays from the MTA’s essential and successful Arts in Transit program – which pop and contribute greatly to the bright, active atmosphere of the project (as they also do somewhat less visibly at Moynihan).
And, no, it does not take a long time to get to the platforms – which is the first comment I heard from early users. I clocked it at nine minutes from the information booth in Grand Central to the platform, including the time to purchase a ticket from a concourse machine. That’s probably less than half the time it takes walk from 7th Avenue to Moynihan (the worst feature of which is the cumbersome need to go down and then up stairs to get under 8th Avenue to reach the train hall). GCM is smack in the middle of town. And the corridors and vertical transportation have been designed for relatively easy access to the capacious and well-lit platforms.
The problems: there are quite a few. First is that after years, actually decades of delay, the project was delivered on the tail of the COVID pandemic which has decimated commuter rail ridership. Was this $11 billion investment wise given the changes in commuting patterns? It’s impossible to predict the trends in future LIRR customer use, so we can’t know now (and couldn’t have known about the pandemic before). Given, that social patterns tend to regress to the mean over time, and the likely population growth in Queens, Nassau and particularly Suffolk counties the answer could be “yes.” We’ll have to wait it out. $11 billion is a big number.
As in Moynihan, there is almost no place to sit. That is a mistake. Public spaces should not be designed around an inability to program, maintain and police them. Adequate resources should be expended on programing, maintenance, social services and public safety sufficient to make waiting comfortably for trains possible. It’s just not that difficult – and is essential to make this gigantic investment successful.
Grand Central Terminal and Grand Central Madison are run by two different railroads, which should be invisible to the commuter – but it’s not. When I asked a Metro North ticket seller in Grand Central Terminal how to get to Grand Central Madison, he told me that there was no such place. The wayfinding signs and nodes of interconnection between the two stations are not obvious or seamless. There are many street entrances to GCM, but to get from Metro North Grand Central to LIRR Grand Central, you go down the stairs on the west side of the Terminal to the food court. You do a 180 back behind the stairs you just came down, down a shortish escalator and through a set of the kind of skanky doors that one finds at Penn Station and Atlantic Terminal to get to the GCM Concourse under Vanderbilt. The big drop in depth is on the escalator from the Concourse to the Mezzanine and Tracks deep below Park Avenue.
The lame entrance from the subway to One Vanderbilt
Another, personal gripe, is the small, hard to find entrance from the subway (and GCM) to S.L. Green’s new One Vanderbilt skyscraper adjacent to GCT on 42nd Street, which was locked when I tried to use it. I reported same to the excellent MTA boss, Janno Lieber, who was very kind to look into it. Once, it was considered an amenity to have direct access from the subway to the Greybar, Chrysler, Chanin, Pershing Square and Lincoln Buildings – but I guess not to the asset managers of S.L. Green, who don’t want the hoi palloi in their cold, quadruple height, 30’s Italian design lobby. Of course, one change in the world due to Zoom and COVID is that very few people are visitors to office buildings they don’t work in.
As I write, the ever predictable, but factually unreliable New York Post, has stirred up complaints about the transfer situation in Jamaica. Commuters to Brooklyn have been quoted to be incensed about the changes in service between Brooklyn Terminal to Jamaica and points East. The new service is something former LIRR President Helena Williams called “The Scoot.” The idea was a frequent shuttle between Brooklyn and Jamaica’s downtowns to a dedicated platform in Jamaica, replacing more occasional service to Far Rockaway and a couple of other LIRR eastern terminals from Atlantic Terminal. On my visit to Jamaica from GCM, the Scoot system didn’t seem to yet be fully operational on the new platform serving tracks 11 and 12 (at the south of Jamacia Station near AirTrain), which are devoted to only Brooklyn service (there is also an art installation next to the stairs down to the new platforms. I had a great experience as a member of the committee that selected the artwork [about ten years ago!]). Brooklyn service was still leaving from track 3 going west-bound. Once this change is fully implemented it should be yet another improvement for LIRR riders with no downside; like the new Midtown East option at GCM.
So far the “Dashing Dan’s” of the LIRR (a long retired moniker) seem to be a pretty inflexible, change resistant and crabby bunch. Billions of dollars have been spent to ease their commute to Manhattan, including on the not yet completed third track of the main line, on top of their highly subsidized daily ride (more per ride than on the NYC subway). Long Islanders – talk less, smile more!
The big issues arising out of the billions spent on East End Access, Moynihan Station and the Second Avenue Subway (among other mega-projects) is what to do about heavy rail projects in the 21st Century, given that heavy rail is a 19th Century technology that has become absurdly expensive to build. An old friend of mine, one of the country’s leading railroad attorneys, coined the term “FRN” – fucking railroad nuts – to describe a species of human being with an irrational attachment to heavy rail. These people think that trains are the solution to every human problem from curing cancer to solving who killed Judge Crater. They want to build high speed rail from LA to San Francisco and solve upstate New York’s economic problems by expanding passenger service on old New York Central and Pennsylvania Railroad rights of way. The numbers never work, mostly because squeezing new rights of way and tracks in between existing development faces tremendous (even overwhelming) political, cost and engineering challenges in a world that is already built out. They point to Europe which has great inter-city train service where there are dense networks of in-place rights of way that have either never existed in America or were replaced with highways decades ago. And they point to China, which has built out extensive systems of high-speed rail in recent years. The Chinese projects have been built without much regard to pre-existing property rights, sensitivity to environmental issues or concern about the welfare of construction workers. They have also experienced calamitous issues of construction quality once operational. Rightly, those circumstances will never fly here. Personal idiosyncrasy doesn’t make for good public policy – no matter how often and articulately expressed by otherwise “serious people.”
Heavy rail projects in the United States, particularly in the dense Northeast, seem to make sense either to maintain existing routes (like the Gateway project, replacing antiquated rail tunnels under the Hudson) or to efficiently expand on in-place assets (presumably like the LIRR third track). The decisions to proceed with such super-expensive service expansions need to be made with care after serious analysis of their projected economic (as opposed to political) benefits. Does Grand Central Madison pass this test? I, for one, don’t know. But that decision was made at least two decades ago, and the engineers for the MTA have made the best of it. Long Islanders, show a little gratitude, will ya?
We live a couple of blocks from Straus Park, a large traffic triangle, dominated by a lovely fountain dedicated to the memory of Isidor and Ida Strauss who died on the Titanic. In the spirit of the revitalization of public spaces in the 90’s, a neighborhoods group took over the programming and maintenance of the horticulture of the park – and they do a lovely job. This little space is a terrific neighborhood amenity.
Six months before the onset of the pandemic we got a dog, and part of my regular dog walking route was through the park. As a result, I came to appreciate the parks virtues all the more. I enjoyed the sparrows splashing in the park’s fountain. In the spring, the bulbs planted the prior fall are a colorful pleasure. The vibe from people reading, eating and just relaxing on the many benches speaks to the virtues of urban life, bringing together people from many backgrounds to enjoy sharing a public space.
When I first started my dog walking routine in 2019, I noticed that the park had several “BigBelly” trash cans. There are large rectangular structures of utilitarian design, which are advertised to compact trash using solar power, enabling pickups from them to be less frequent. One of the cans in Straus Park was not functioning and was conspicuously wrapped in black plastic bags. It is worth noting, but not worth dwelling upon, that I have long found BigBellies to be the pirates of street furniture and was dismayed that the Parks Department thought it appropriate to deploy them (in large part because the emptying of trash bins is something to be encouraged, as it provides activity in otherwise dormant public spaces, creates “eyes on the street,” as well as the low skill, entry level employment so much needed in New York). But, jeez, if DPR is going to use them, they ought to at least be maintained.
Every day, sometimes several times a day I would walk by this piece of junk, and it would annoy me. It came to a point where my wife demanded I stop talking about it. The pandemic came and mostly went, and four years later the damn thing was still there. This was important because non-working features of a public space are an indication of disorder – suggesting to users that anti-social behavior is tolerated. That i) leads others who are so included to engage in anti-social behavior and ii) gives other the idea that anti-social behavior is possible/likely in that space – leading to a perception of lack of safety there. In Straus Park there were lots of other ques that the park was being well maintained and that there was an understanding among park users about certain standards of behavior: the horticulture was highly and visibly tended, the fountain worked, trashed was routinely picked up. All kinds of people used the park – and clearly subscribed to the social contract regarding conventions of acceptable behavior. The broken BigBelly itself wasn’t a tremendous problem – but it could have been the first incline on a slippery slope to neglect.
In the fall of 2022, I finally decided to try to get it fixed. I took pictures of it. I emailed a request that it be repaired and removed to 311 on October 27th with the photo. I got back a service request confirmation from 311 and then nothing happened. On December 28th, I a sent a copy of the service request confirmation to our local City Council Member, the Riverside Park Conservancy (which in the past has taken some responsibility for Straus Park), the Parks Department general email box and the Parks Commissioner (I guessed at her email address). The email to the Parks Commissioner bounced back. I contacted former Parks Commissioner, Adrian Benepe, our neighbor, who pointed me in the right direction and gave me an attaboy for trying. The Commissioner, who I don’t know personally (unlike most of her recent predecessors) I have only heard referred to a Sue Donoghue, uses Susan in the Parks protocol email address.
I also called the BigBelly corporate office in Boston and tried to persuade them to fix or remove the thing. They told me to buzz off, as the can belonged to Parks and they weren’t responsible for it.
I then left for a month in Hawai’i.
Three weeks later, while in Waikiki, given the magic of mobile phone technology, I got a call from a Parks Department employee (at 5AM local time). I later returned the call. The Parks employee acknowledged receipt of my request to the Commissioner’s office (not the original 311 request) and told me removing the BigBelly from Strauss Park was now on his “to do” list as the district manager for the park, and it would likely be removed in the next few months. I zealously advocated with this nice person that DPR should be embarrassed that this broken piece of equipment had been open and notoriously existing in Straus Park for at least four years without repair or removal. Given my knowledge of DPR operations, I suggested to him several ways of getting the resources (like a Riverside Park pick-up truck) required to get rid of the can. We ended the call amicably and he said he would see what he could do.
Upon our return from the Mid-Pacific, I made a beeline to Straus Park to see what was up – and the can was at last gone. I felt a smug sense of accomplishment and returning home, sent around a thank you email to all concerned. I doubt anyone else noticed. And it certainly wasn’t a big deal. But it does tell us two important things. First, that the Parks Department does not have sufficient resources to do basic park maintenance, which has been obvious for some time (as evidenced by routine overflowing trash baskets and un-mowed turf in Riverside Park).
311
But more importantly it is an object lesson in the failure of the City’s 311 system – which has become a data collection program, and not a way to improve delivery of services. In my time at DoITT, I was excoriated for not routinely closing out cable complaints as had been done by my predecessors. We closed out complaints only when issues had been resolved to a customer’s satisfaction, or when we had made a determination that the customer’s issue wasn’t susceptible to satisfactory resolution. My team was rebuked for not meeting our SLR (service level requirements). In my experience, 311 requests do not result in effective and appropriate city action. Requests get routinely closed out by the bureaucracy because its internal standards for resolution have been met – which has nothing to do with actually solving the problem. 311, with all of its elaborate software and hundreds of employees taking calls, appears to be a Potemkin Village. While the Annual Mayor’s Management Report may record and report the number of type of requests, it does not reflect the actual resolution of problems in the real world outside the bureaucracy. It is virtually useless as a management tool, as far as I can tell.
My original service request said that I would receive a response within thirty days. I’m still waiting. [Note to spouse: sorry about this post. It’s now out of my system. You won’t hear about it again.]
