St. Louis’ Grand Center was one of the many ideas to revitalize St. Louis over the last three decades. It includes Powell Hall, the home of the St. Louis Symphony, the Fox Theater (Broadway), the Sheldon (chamber music) and the Pulitzer Museum (modern art). It is located between the downtown and the lively residential and retail center of the Central West End. Powell Hall recently underwent a $140 million renovation led by Snønetta. On a recent trip to hear the Symphony perform Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem, the outdoor public spaces were empty before and after the concert. The neighborhood is essentially a collection of unconnected institutions that people drive to.
But the headline is that the St. Louis Symphony is, under the leadership of Stéphane Denève, is one of this country’s finest. Like the Pittsburgh Symphony, it is the equal of any of the traditional “Big Five” American orchestras, except for the superlative Cleveland Orchestra (the other being Chicago, Philadelphia, New York and Boston), despite not being a member of that august group. The strings play with great warmth and cohesion and there appear to be no weak links among the wind and brass players. Even the often-problematic horn section went blatless during this monumental 90-minute work.
I hear the SLSO every year in the pit of Opera Theater of Saint Louis and, particularly under the baton of Maestro Steven Lord, they were one of the great assets of OTSL. But it has been decades since I had heard them in Powell Hall, their 2,700-seat home since 1968 – an adaptively reused grand movie theatre. In the 80’s the orchestra drove to the front ranks of American ensembles and national attention under Music Director Leonard Slatkin, who stood out as an American conductor who highlighted American composers. More recently, American David Roberston has cut a somewhat lower profile. Denève has led the orchestra since 2019.
Jack Taylor Center
The War Requiem calls for a large choir, a children’s choir and three soloists. All were superb in St. Louis and performed for a sold out, cheering audience. It is a demanding work for both performers and audience. Soprano, Christine Georke was scheduled, but withdrew and was replaced by Felicia Moore, who had not previously performed the work – and began learning the part on the Monday before the Friday opening (I attended the Sunday matinée). Moore’s voice effortlessly floated above the huge orchestra with an admirable absence of excess vibrato and pinpoint pitch. Ian Bostridge is the ideal tenor soloist in this work that features the savage poetry of Wilford Owen describing the horrors of the First World War battlefield with stark directness. The War Requiem is a shattering experience and with Bostridge, a noted scholar and writer, singing and declamation of text fully revealed Owen’s bleak, tortured world. Roderick Williams was a fine, dramatic baritone counterweight to Bostridge’s very English (reedy) tenor.
The choirs were astonishingly made up of amateurs, but this was choral singing that was a match for a professional choir anywhere. It tells us something (although I’m not sure what) that St. Louis can muster not only hundreds of fine adult choral singers, but a near perfect children’s group of a couple of dozen young singers (which sang from a balcony). This was a community event of the best possible sort. And while the War’ Requiem’s devastating, humanistic anti-war message is always timely, as a civic event it seemed especially pointed and relevant now. It was an exciting, thought provoking, satisfying event.
Denève’s work was admirably controlled and understated – in a piece that calls for wide contrasts of volume. The male soloists are accompanied by a chamber group of a dozen players. The choral sections, which set the extended form of the Latin requiem mass generally call on large forces, which Denève deployed with great restraint. As a result, moments of quiet reflection and passages invoking the colossal, swirling dark forces of hell had unusual impact. With all that was going on each of the sections, including the brass, played elegantly, rather than blaringly. Again, the emotional content of the string writing was especially moving.
The hall renovation is particularly successful in the pre-existing public spaces – where the lighting is sparkling, and mirrors and crystals have been buffed to a high shine. The paint color chosen for the main auditorium struck me as dull by contrast and gave off something of an institutional feeling, as did the conventional orchestra shell over the stage. The pre-concert projections on a screen at the back of the stage were tacky and low tech. The auditorium also features new carpets and seats, which give it a well-cared for feel. The acoustic where I was sitting in the orchestra section was very fine – neutral, leaning towards the clear and warm. Apparently, traditionally, the prime seats have been regarded to be in the balcony. While the orchestra seats were lower than the stage platform, limiting visibility to the first row of players, otherwise the experience was first rate.
Powell Hall
The Sønetta addition is odd. It appeared to me to be designed around addressing practical needs – more restrooms, elevators, backstage and educational spaces. The addition is shoehorned onto the side of the old theater facing a bleak plaza – why the squeezing with all that empty plaza space? There is a glassed-in oblong lobby with a compressed, open stair – again on the side, rather than in the back of the house. The ground floor elevator lobby is very narrow and also services a coat check and restrooms – creating a pinch point for patrons. I don’t get the logic behind the design of these cumbersome spaces.
The biggest question is why the empty, windswept plaza? The building, which has a traditional entrance facing the street and narrow adjacent sidewalk, now faces from the side onto the plaza. It doesn’t do anything to activate Grand Avenue – as might a ground floor restaurant or other retail use. I had lunch in a place that was obviously Black owned (all Black staff, images of famous Black musicians on the walls) across the street from Powell Hall that was nearly empty before the concert. Why was this? The food was fine. The service was friendly. Locals took me for dinner after the concert to a place in the Central West End. St. Louis remains one of our most segregated cities. White St. Louisans clearly chose to take their patronage elsewhere than Grand Center, other than for the performances and art exhibits. But the St. Louis Symphony is clearly well worth the trip into the city for.
The County of Queens is now the center of power for both the city and State of New York. Today, it is unlikely that any candidate for Governor or Mayor can be elected to office without the support of the voters of the borough – and particularly those in its southeast quadrant, within the 114-zip code. The current mayor grew up in the area, the Speaker of the City Council represents it, the local member of Congress is the ranking minority member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and is the county Democratic Party chair. Even the itinerant current mayoral candidate, Andrew Cuomo, grew up in the neighborhood of Hollis.
Most non-residents or non-natives know little or nothing about Queens, its neighborhoods or its history. Few know that Southeast Queens is the largest community of Black homeowners in the country or that in recent censuses Queens was the only county in the United States where Black household income exceeded that of white families. A friend once gave a tour of the borough to a senior City Hall official who asked, when driving through either Douglaston or Forest Hills, why anyone would pay more than $1 million to live in a home IN QUEENS?!!!! It is hard to imagine another jurisdiction of 2.5 million people in the United States that about which outsiders know so little. Continue reading →
There is a loft apartment for sale for over $2 million in an adaptively reused industrial building in the Mill District with a river view, near but not in, downtown Minneapolis (https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/700-S-2nd-St-W70-Minneapolis-MN-55401/61624273_zpid/). Just try to wrap your mind around that, my elite, coastal friends. Let’s unpack this a bit. First, this means that some broker, who presumably knows the Minneapolis market thinks they can get over $2 million for an apartment, not a McMansion, not even a house – but an apartment in a dense-ish urban neighborhood in the mid-west. It also means that there are likely at least a couple of dozen people in the metro who have the capacity to come up with, let’s say $450,000 cash and the income to support a monthly mortgage payment (without taxes and operating costs) of roughly $13,000!!!!! And those are people want to live in a loft and not a single-family home. And, not in New York, or even Chicago. This is true, in a city where the conventional wisdom has given the downtown up for dead in the wake of the pandemic and the reaction to the murder of a Black citizen by a white police officer that became national news. At the same time, walking around the Nicolette Mall, once the 100% location in Minneapolis (and only a few hundred yards from that expensive loft), it is obvious that it is no longer the city’s commercial center.
What, my friends, is happening here?
The Mill District
It’s nuts. The forces of 21st century capitalism have arbitrarily abandoned the traditional downtown, while market preferences have moved slightly, and only slightly, elsewhere. This is the destruction of hundreds of billions of dollars of real estate value on what can only be described as a post-pandemic whim. The action has moved only blocks away – with a couple of adjacent neighborhoods booming with activity. Some of this is as a result of work from home – with bobos (bourgeois bohemians) not wanting to get out of their pajamas and go to work in proximity with other people. Some of it is racism, in the wake of the George Floyd reckoning – a modern incarnation of white flight. What’s particularly interesting about downtown Minneapolis is the havoc real estate capitalism has wreaked on the historic downtown. There aren’t many office buildings downtown that date to before the 80’s. Most of the office building stock is quite modern (glass and steel). There are very few early 20th century masonry commercial structures left in the downtown. I would imagine part of the current market rejection of downtown is the characterlessness and soullessness of the efficient international style of commercial architecture from the period of 1980-2000. That emptiness of the exterior envelope is also reflected in the working environment contained inside these buildings – with most people employed in cubicles or open spaces. You certainly can’t blame middle management for wanting to abandon those white-collar industrial working conditions. Continue reading →
Why does everyplace claim to be “world class?” And what does that even mean? In introducing Wynton Marsalis’ tuba concerto, Aubrey Foard, its principal tubist, asserted that the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra was one of best in the world. Why did he feel the need to point that out? Why isn’t it good enough to be just a very fine ensemble. Baltimore is a really nice place, with some great neighborhoods and important legacy institutions – and it has clearly spent billions and billions of dollars on big projects trying to be a “world class” something. There is a sense it which the city elders appear to be trying way too hard, and don’t have confidence in the city’s virtues.
My first trip to Baltimore was probably in 1968 for Super Bowl III, in which the favored Colts lost to the NY Jets 16-7 (I remember being at the game, the details I had to look up). The business my dad worked for had printed the game tickets, as well as the Pennsylvania Railroad tickets we used to get back and forth to the game. I felt like a 12-year-old big macher. In the 90’s, the Downtown Baltimore Partnership was an early adopter of the Grand Central Partnership downtown management model, of which I was a part, and we visited then. Inner Harbor and Camden Yards were breakthrough urban revitalization projects at that time. The innovating commercial development urban revitalization firm, Rouse Companies was founded in Baltimore.
Baltimore is known for its neighborhoods of row houses and as the home of Johns Hopkins University, which is, among other things, a bio-medical behemoth, and the largest beneficiary of the largess of one Michael R. Bloomberg. Hopkins has annual revenues of around $7 billion. Baltimore was historically the major mid-Atlantic port, with access to the nation’s interior via the mighty Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, through the Harper’s Ferry gap in the Appalachians. The downtown has a fine collection of the majestic former homes of long-gone financial institutions. A couple of major finance firms continue to be headquartered there. Its population maxed out at about a million souls in 1950. The subsequent decades were not kind to the city, which, in additional to experiencing the same urban traumas as other eastern cities, became a satellite to the metastasizing center of the American empire, Washington, D.C. Continue reading →
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.
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 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?
The Adams Administration recently announced the appointment of a “Director of the Public Realm,” a newly created position. The idea for this post was advanced in recent years through the advocacy of civic groups concerned about public design, like the Municipal Art Society and the Design Trust for Public Space. The creation of the office became something of a (quiet) rallying cry during the last Mayoral election. The Mayor has appointed Ya-Ting Liu to the job, who, while not someone I know (not that it matters), seems well qualified for the role, with degrees from Berkely and MIT, and time spent at Transportation Alternatives and City Hall. Presumably, in the eyes of the public design and placemaking communities this is a professional who is both for the right things and is knowledgeable about the workings of city government, reporting directly to a Deputy Mayor. As someone who has worked on improving public spaces, streets and sidewalks in New York City for 30 years, including as the long-time chair of the Streets and Sidewalks Committee of the MAS, I can only wish her well.
Unfortunately, though, having a Director of the Public Realm probably isn’t a particularly good idea. It’s unlikely to contribute much to making public spaces better. It does give the civic groups (which during the Bloomberg Administration became quiescent) someone they can talk to in City Hall, and who would presumably be receptive to their ideas. However, based on my experience in City government, the office has a low probability having much impact, and over time will add to the bureaucratic dysfunction of city government as senior officials in City Hall lose interest in the initiative and/or are replaced by people who don’t see it as the priority Mayor Adams and Deputy Mayor Joshi presumably do.
The news rack designed by Ignacio Ciocchini for Grand Central Partnership. Ciocchini has designed most of New York City’s best street furniture
I experienced this firsthand in my time at the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DoITT, now Office of Technology Innovation, OTI). DoITT was a relatively new City agency, established as a home for the once important city cable franchises (after the elimination of the discredited Bureau of Franchises as a result of a charter change) and the new and growing in importance technological support functions for other City agencies. It grew into a sizable bureaucracy that included the City’s 311 service, its procurement of hardware, software and telecommunications services, with its own capacity to code software to meet the City’s routine needs and with the capacity to house and support redundant servicer capacity for data and software.
A parallel Office of the Chief Technology Officer was created during the Bloomberg Administration. A key strategy of Mayor Bloomberg in accomplishing his administration’s goals appeared to be working around existing bureaucracies, by setting up offices in City Hall focused on the Mayor’s policy priorities, like sustainability and technology innovation. I speculate that Bloomberg and his staff decided that working through the existing agencies would frustrate their initiatives, and that life was too short to attempt to reform the deep dysfunction in City operations, particularly with respect to procurement and human resources.
While the CTO might have had some viability when it was first established in driving new ideas in municipal technology, it became just another bureaucratic power center. After Bloomberg, in the De Blasio Administration, it was staffed by smart, committed advocates dedicated to closing the digital divide (I have previously written here about my skepticism as to whether there actually is a digital divide https://www.theplacemaster.com/2022/07/31/expanding-the-reach-of-the-internet-in-new-york-city/). The Bloomberg priorities became orphans. The De Blasio CTO announced lots of grand plans that never came to much. But more significantly, the CTO spent much of its time sparring with DoITT over turf, credit for accomplishment and the Mayor’s attention. All three of the Commissioners whom I served made clear that the CTO was an adversary and encouraged ignoring them and engaging in parallel projects. There was much energy wasted in sniping at each other. Personally, I tried to leverage the resources available at the CTO, swiping my best staff member from them and trying to improve the CTO’s work product when and where I could (including spending two weeks editing and rewriting the Internet Master Plan, which when it came to me was drafted by a consulting firm the City had hired in a language that only remotely resembled English). Recently, that Master Plan, a signal achievement of De Blasio CTO’s office was abandoned by the Adams Administration (in my view no great loss, despite, or maybe even because, of my contribution).
Ciocchini’s proposed design for the telecommunications kiosk. Far superior to the design approved by the design commission
In my experience, there is simply no substitute for hiring talented, dedicated, well-trained, right-thinking officials in the relevant agencies and empowering them to take risks and make decisions in order to enable the bureaucracies to “get stuff done.” Setting up offices in City Hall to coordinate policy and spearhead thoughtful new initiatives isn’t a thing that actually functions in the real world. It just doesn’t work, and over time because of the fighting over turf, makes the bureaucracy worse. Over time, the managerial vectors have moved in the wrong direction, with decision making power drifting up and being centralized in the Mayor. The order of the day in the agencies has become avoiding making mistakes and waiting for direction from City Hall.
In the design and public space realm in City government there have been agency staff who have had a positive impact on in making good design in public space a priority from both the top and middle management of agencies, some over and some under the radar. As Design and Construction Commissioner, David Burney created a Design Excellence Program, which has become partially embedded in the agency’s DNA – employing a wider range of architects and engineers, some of whom have established high design credentials. At the MTA, Wendy Feuer and now Sandra Bloodworth have made its Arts in Transit program a huge success. They created a gold standard selection process for artists that has produced outstanding results – most recently in the Times Square/Sixth Avenue subway connection and in the new Grand Central Madison. Wendy took her design sensibility to the City’s Department of Transportation’s Urban Design group, and, working with Commissioner Polly Trottenberg, successfully inserted design and public space management interests into DOT’s day to day work.
In my time at DoITT I sought out others in City government concerned about quality design in public projects and on the streets and sidewalks and tried to create an informal network of like-minded bureaucrats. At the same time, I attempted to imbue our DoITT team with a sensitivity to design issues and the impact of telecommunications infrastructure on public space. The first two commissioners for whom I worked were technologists who didn’t have design top of mind, and I was able to work under the radar. Later, we rammed through a number of utilitarian objects of streetscape, the implications of which are only now being realized (and resisted) and my ability to influence policy went to nil. Newly installed larger mobile telecom 5G transmitter enclosures on light and signal poles and very tall, utilitarian LinkNYC 5G structures (about which I have previously written) are now beginning to appear on the City’s streetscape.
A decrepit dining shed removed by the City
Best case, Ms. Liu seeks out those with design sensibility and expertise in public space programming in the agencies and provides support for their efforts, works to encourage the agencies to create centers of good design (and I can’t think of any agency that doesn’t have an impact on structures and streetscapes) and creates programs encouraging the incorporation of design and placemaking sensibilities in all of the City’s endeavors in public spaces and City facilities. To advance my own hobby horse, creating a striking, distinctive purpose-built telecommunications structure to replace the eyesores now going up all over town, would be a lay-up and great place to start. I’d also suggests securing resources to program DOT’s Open Streets initiative. The Administration’s excellent New New York Action Plan would be a good place to start to find worthwhile ideas for revitalizing commercial corridors and improving public spaces.
Ms. Liu’s initial assignment will probably to come up with rules institutionalizing the tremendously successful Open Restaurant and Open Streets programs created during COVID. As is typical with New York open space issues, there are loud voices seeking to shut those programs down, and to heavily regulate commercial activity on streets and sidewalks. Those forces need to be boldly resisted. My suggestion is to get rid of the dining sheds in the roadbeds, which have outlived their COVID pandemic usefulness, some of which have become derelict. Putting chairs and tables on sidewalks should be made as streamlined as possible – with the City getting a license fee per square feet occupied – calibrated by borough and neighborhood. Economic actors who use public space to generate revenue should pay for the privilege (that includes you, broadband providers!).
