|
July 20, 2002
Jacob Levich
"I
Was Schooled in Hate"
Confessions of a
Summer Camp Terror Tot
Thomas Croft
Augusta,
GA
Growing Up in the Deep South
Alexander Cockburn
The
Market Hogwallow:
Popgun Populism Isn't Enough
July 19, 2002
Abe Bonowitz / SueZann
Bosler
A Discussion
with Jeb Bush on the Death Penalty
Jonathan Power
No Need
for War Against Iraq
Rick Giombetti
Qwest
Death Watch
Kurt Nimmo
Of Mice,
Bullets & Bombs
M. Shahid Alam
Through
Racist Eyes:
Is Eurocentrism Unique?
July 18, 2002
Mokhiber / Weissman
Business
As Usual
Jerre Skog
I Spy: Now
Let's be Fair,
the USA Ain't East Germany
Ralph Nader
The CEO
Crimewave:
Corporate Socialism
Mahbubul Karim (Sohel)
The Rising Tensions
Between Spain and Morocco
Alexander Cockburn
Drivel
and Squawk:
Can the Times' Jeff Gerth
Save the White House?
July 17, 2002
Philip Farruggio
The
New Role Model:
Remember Jesus, George?
Zara Gelsey
Who's
Reading Over
Your Shoulder?
Behzad Yaghmaian
9/11 and
Fotress Europe:
the Drama of the New
Moslem Diaspora
Mike Ferner
War, Incorporated
Gary Leupp
Bush, Burqas
and the Oppression of Afghan Women
July 16, 2002
Pierre Tristam
Faith-based
Capitalism in
the Ruins of the Market
Kurt Nimmo
How My
35mm Camera Almost Became a Tool of Treason
Robert Fisk
The Kashmir
Distraction
Salam al-Marayati
When
is Terrorism
Not Defined as Terrorism?
Kathleen Christison
The
Image Problem:
Anti-Palestinian Bias
from Wilson to Bush
July 15, 2002
Gavin Keeney
In One
of Safire's Ears,
Out the Other
CounterPunch Wire
Nader in
Cuba
Ralph Nader
The Secret
World of Banking
Dave Marsh
Vincible:
Michael Jackson, Racism and the Music Cartel
Rahul Mahajan
Justice
for Bhopal
Jeffrey St. Clair
Seduced
by a Legend
The Return of Jimmy T99 Nelson
July 14, 2002
Bill Christison
The
DOA (Poem)
David Vest
I'll Never
Get Out of This Band Alive
July 13, 2002
M. Junaid Alam
A Process
of Dehumanization
Gavin Keeney
Go Tell
Karl Rove!
Matt Vidal
Corporate
"Ethics" Red Herrings
Ed Whitfield
Lessons
from Independence Day
July 12, 2002
Sean Donahue
The Other
Harken Energy Scandal: Oil, Death Squads
and Colombia
Walt Brasch
Sin Tax
Scam
"Psst. Cigarettes. A Buck Each."
Steve Perry
A Tale
of Two Twits
Wall Street Burns, Bush Fiddles, But Where's Wellstone?
July 11, 2002
Lloyd Marbet
Arrested
by the Chamber
of Commerce
David Krieger
Law vs.
Force
David Vest
Fountain
of Foo:
Strike Three Called
Irit Katriel
A Deep
Ideological Crisis
Richard Glen Boire
Dangerous
Lessons:
Public School Drug Testing
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
(Click Here to Order from CounterPunch
Online at 20% Off Amazon.com's price!)
INSIDE
EXCLUSIVE
TO
COUNTERPUNCH
SUBSCRIBERS
Published March 15, 2002
Read Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
Buy
This Explosive
New Book at an
Amazing Discount!
Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual
|
Weekend
Edition
July 20, 2002
Grave
New Urbanism
The World Trade
Center Burlesque
by Gavin Keeney
Now that the digital ink is dry
on the six plans released July 16, 2002 for the benighted World
Trade Center site, perhaps it is time to draw a few preliminary
conclusions while rehearsing some recent events and possible
future history. Any surmises at this point are purely conjectural
because it is in the nature of a master plan that everything
will change several times before the first new buildings are
actually assigned a footprint.
The plans were initiated by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation
(LMDC), a recently created quasi-public agency within the Empire
State Development Corporation. The master plan was awarded to
the New York City firm of Beyer Blinder Belle after an RFQ (Request
for Qualifications) was  released
earlier in the year. Beyer Blinder Belle is the firm that gave
us the renovated Grand Central Terminal, and is a highly capable,
if dull architecture and planning firm. The fact that Grand Central
Terminal is now a shopping mall on neo-classical steroids is
not their fault.
The LMDC was created by Governor George Pataki and ex-Mayor Rudolf
Giuliani. The race to complete the planning phase of the redevelopment
of Lower Manhattan ("everything south of Houston Street")
has a great deal to do with Pataki's 2002 re-election campaign,
now underway. As a result, this thing has to be 'perceived' as
placating everyone -- with the exception perhaps of architects.
But that is a matter that we will get to in a moment.
The WTC site is one of several big opportunities in NYC right
now for very big, very lucrative design commissions. The run-up
to this master plan was such a horrendous insult to the public,
insofar as everyone with or without a shred of design sense seemed
to have a plan. Plus, and perhaps more interesting, there were
visions and prophetic dreams ... Anyway, late last fall there
was an incredible surge of self-interest and grandstanding in
the architectural community best typified by an exhibition in
early 2002 at Max Protetch, a Chelsea art gallery, of ad hoc
proposals for the site. This was orchestrated by Architectural
Record, the big trade magazine for the architecture world
and also the house magazine for the American Institute of Architects.
This event was primarily an emotional outburst of the most hysterical
type and the designs that were exhibited were almost entirely
without merit. The exhibition has now been shipped to Venice
for the next Biennale and its installation is being underwritten
by the US Department of State.
For more than you'll ever want to know about this subject, and
for links to the WTC proposals released on July 16, see World
Trade Center Burlesque.
New York City is a climate where big fish generally monopolize
everything. The architectural firms that land large planning
commissions have to negotiate an incredible array of flaming
hoops in the form of regulatory commissions, community boards,
zoning laws, etc., etc. Only the big fish can play at this game.
It's very labor- and capital-intensive. The task of developing
city-owned property is usually consigned to a consortium of real
estate developers, planners, and architects (plus lawyers). This
process has been the preferred method since central planning
fell from grace after 1960s urban renewal gave city planning
in general a very long-term black eye. Today, in cities across
America, the public-private development model is the paradigm.
The recent makeover of Times Square is an example of a twist
in this game, as it is controlled by a Business Improvement District
(BID), another quasi-public authority but one permitted to solicit
funds on behalf of redevelopment from businesses within its boundaries.
BIDs were originally created to facilitate upgrading down-at-the-heels
sectors of Manhattan. Lately, however, they have become the favorite
device for businesses to take over and police neighborhoods,
or, as in the case of Central Park (which is run by a conservancy),
partially privatize public space. At best, city planning can
lay out a template and hope it is observed. There are few enforcement
options.
This is the shadow world or background animating what is going
on at the WTC site. The new master plan is actually an attempt
to pull together a large set of unresolved issues in Lower Manhattan
by capitalizing on this high-profile project. The main issues
remain: transportation, infrastructure, work/live neighborhoods,
waterfront access, and everything in-between (formerly known
as "public open space"). The dot.com boom was good
for Lower Manhattan insofar as it drew startups to the alleyways
of Wall Street, fostering what was until recently called Silicon
Alley. A glut of office space in downtown Manhattan also caused
a slow, but steady conversion of older office buildings to apartments
and condominiums. TriBeCa became the holier-than-thou arena that
it is now after SoHo became one continuous shopping experience.
Now that TriBeCa is "full", Chelsea (further uptown)
has become the new hot destination for art galleries and the
fashionisti.
Several major themes have emerged in the six plans for the revitalization
of Lower Manhattan, and, even if the six schemes look an awful
lot alike, they are different. To focus on the architecture is
in fact a mistake because these plans only represent massing
versus actual buildings. It is the spaces in-between that ought
to draw people's attention.
The former World Trade Center plaza was a disaster. It was an
inhospitable, wind-blown zone with the barest of amenities. Worse
than Lincoln Center! The stuff stuffed below the deck was primarily
shopping and dining facilities. The subway lines and PATH trains
coming into the underground station were grossly oversubscribed.
The one pedestrian link to Battery Park City required following
a labyrinthian path through the retail complex until you located
the overpass, which then dropped you into the Cesar Pelli designed
Winter Garden where you were again invited to shop and dine.
Once you exited the Winter Garden, to the promenade, your options
were to ogle the yachts parked in the boat basin (a few years
ago, one had a fake helicopter on deck) or stroll along the harbor
dodging the rollerblading public. (There are a few choice eateries
along the way.) If you walked all the way to the newish Museum
of Jewish Heritage, you might find a few small parks fenced off
and looking very spic and span. These represent the unbuilt portions
of the Battery Park City master plan (from the late 1980s) and
they are a means of "parking" land. They are the future
footprints of yet another piece of deluxe real estate.
Thus, New York City is in a quandry. It seems only capable of
building high-end real estate. Trump this, Trump that ... The
WTC master plan proposals all include the same amount of retail
and commercial office space that was lost with the collapse of
the two towers. It was required by the LMDC. The footprint
of the former twin towers is now (finally) accepted as sacred
ground, since it is a grave site, and nothing will be built upon
this hallowed piece of ground. There will almost certainly be
a design competition for a memorial, which everyone with a conscience
admits must be included in whichever of the big redevelopment
schemes is selected.
The six schemes have fascinating, if conservative landscape urbanistic
components. The one with the most potential includes a "promenade"
(a new Park Avenue) running north-south and linking up to Battery
Park at the very tip of Lower Manhattan. This would at the least
partially re-green another section of Lower Manhattan. But it
will become primarily another congested traffic corridor (even
if West Street is submerged). The fact that the promenade is
presented in plan as a Beaux-Arts folly is again something that
is provisional versus real. All the other schemes are primarily
variations on a cluster of mid-rise towers (some with embarrassing
stumps or masts attached to the top like a prosthetic signifying
"higher" aspirations). In the current climate of lowered
expectations the only loud noises demanding buildings as tall
as the former towers are emanating from the tabloids (the aforementioned
architects have mostly piped down).
New York has two other amazing things in the works that impinge
on this project in subtle but serious ways. One is the Fresh
Kills End Use Master Plan, the post-closure plan for the world's
largest dump on Staten Island. (Fresh Kills is also the place
where the rubble from the collapsed towers was taken and meticulously
sorted.) The second is the redevelopment of the West Side Railyards
behind Pennsylvania Station at 34th Street. This includes the
conversion of a monstrous neo-classical pile, the Farley Post
Office, to a new Penn Station. The latter project is a gift of
major significance to New Yorkers as the current Penn Station
at Madison Square Garden is one of the most loathed structures
in the city. New York's Senator Moynihan, just prior to departing
Congress, also made sure that a new train will finally link the
city to JFK (and it will depart the new Penn Station). The last
big deal is the 2012 Olympic bid. Yes, New York City wants to
host the Summer Games in 2012 and is pushing mightily to get
that plum "stealth" redevelopment opportunity. A decision
from the US Olympic Committee is due in early November.
For additional details on the Fresh Kills End Use Master Plan,
see Fresh
Kills - Capitalism's Golgotha.
All of these impressive activities have one thing in common:
massive private real estate ventures most often using public
monies, public land, and tax exemptions to proceed. The public
can at best hope for a few embellishments around the edges and,
in the case of the Olympics, a temporary upsurge in transportation
spending (including high-speed ferries which will "go away"
after the games close).
So, what might Manhattan (New York, New York, New York) look
like c.2012, if the Olympic bid is successful? In-between the
deluxe condominiums, the top-shelf new office space, and the
astounding assortment of shopping and dining facilities we find
several new temporary parks, yet another museum that cost so
much to build there's nothing in it, a renovated library or two
that are closed for lack of operating funds, several City Parks
Department designed dog runs with dog-styling boutiques, a tree,
a slightly wider sidewalk here and there (with barriers to prevent
jaywalking), very big (and pricey) parking garages, traffic jams
everywhere, city-licensed kiosks everywhere selling $2 (12-ounce)
bottles of tap water, air-conditioned tents for one gala event
after another, a special limousine-only lane to the FDR from
Wall Street, hundreds of statues of Rudolf Giuliani looking very
buff, artistic renderings in bronze of homeless men and women
(the real ones have been shipped out of state with the garbage),
one lonely coffee shop that is not a Starbucks, a couple of newstands
that have been in existence for more than two months, smoke shops
with $9-a-pack cigarettes (to help pay the Olympic-size bills),
another very expensive art installation by Jeff Koons and/or
Louise Bourgeois, a splendid new stadium behind the new Penn
Station (which will be given to the super-rich Yankees after
the Olympic games), the new Air Train to JFK (already overtaxed
and ill-equipped to handle baggage), high-speed and high-priced
ferries (rented for the occasion), an army of policemen and women
(many with two-weeks training), millions upon millions of tourists
and kazillions of daytrippers from New Jersey, Upstate New York
and Connecticut, and -- oh yes -- a handful of New Yorkers who
have not sublet their apartments and fled the city.
For a bibliography examining the fascinating world of Olympic-style
urbanism, including the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing, see Olympic
Urbanisms.
Synopsis
of the Plans (The Guardian
Unlimited, 07/17/02)
Gavin Keeney is a landscape architect in New York, New
York. and the author of On
the Nature of Things, a book documenting the travails
of contemporary American landscape architecture in the 1990s.
He can be reached at: ateliermp@netscape.net
Today's Features
Jacob Levich
"I
Was Schooled in Hate"
Confessions of a
Summer Camp Terror Tot
Thomas Croft
Augusta,
GA
Coming of Age in the Deep South
Alexander Cockburn
The
Stockmarket Hogwallow
Popgun Populism Isn't Enough
Abe Bonowitz / SueZann
Bosler
A Discussion
with Jeb Bush on the Death Penalty
home / subscribe
/ about us
/ books
/ archives
/ search
/ links
/
|