Yes, thanks Ray. Very interesting indeed. I remember hanging out in Bryant Park at the age of 16 -- summer of 1968, so this dates me. Also exploring Central Park -- all its wide open spaces like Sheep Meadow and nooks and crannies like the Ramble. Oddly enough, none of these places seemed sleazy and/or dangerous back then, although I'm sure they're much more civilized now. One of my favorite parks was Tompkins Square in the East Village. That same summer it was still full of aging East European immigrants reading their Bibles in Cyrillic text. Also hippie poets. Impromptu concerts. It went through a phase (in the late 90s? - I wasn't there) when it became a huge encampment for the homeless, who were subsequently purged in a major bust. When I visited a couple of years ago, it seemed much like it had back in the day.
Public parks, to wax poetic, are the living, breathing hearts of cities. But all of them are artificial creations. How can any of them be in fact "true public"? I suddenly have a vision of Robin Williams lying naked in Sheep Meadow and screaming at the top of his lungs in "Fisher King". -- Ross Bender http://rossbender.org/amos.html On 7/23/07, Anthony West <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Fascinating, Ray. Truly thought-provoking. Thank you very much. Fond though I am of park planning, and eager though I am to suck up to landscape architects in public if it'll shave 3% off their final bill ... still I suspect one reason Needle Park is no longer a crime-ridden vortex is not "because" it has been "renewed" as Bryant Park, but because the entire island of Manhattan has been relentlessly gentrified by overwhelming market forces over the past 15 years, if I read correctly between the lines of my New Yorkers. So it may be a case of planning following, rather than preceding, demographic changes in the neighborhood. Still fasinating, though. -- Tony West > the latest issue of penn's alumni magazine (the pennsylvania gazette) > has a fascinating cover story on laurie olin, penn's renowned > landscape architect, and the field of landscape architecture -- its > place in the public sphere. > > and then I read this passage, which I thought captured what so many of > us have been talking about wrt ucd, ucd's nid, clark park, the vision > of the anointed, citizenship as consumerism, etc.: > >>> [Olin:] "Part of our social obligation is to make places that are >>> safe and supportive of human activity, and in many cases >>> are background for other things. Sometimes the people >>> should be the flowers." >>> >>> There is no better example of this essentially >>> sociological approach to design than the renewal of >>> Bryant Park. Situated in midtown Manhattan behind the New >>> York Public Library, the four-block courtyard had by 1980 >>> become a crime-ridden vortex of urban abandonment >>> popularly known as Needle Park. >>> >>> "It was dangerous," Olin remembers. "It was run-down. >>> People weren't putting money into it. People were afraid >>> to go into it. It was deteriorating. People were killed >>> there." >>> >>> It is not often that society turns to a landscape >>> architect in hopes of preventing the murder of its >>> citizens, but Hanna/Olin's final design helped to turn >>> one of the city's most frightening places into one of the >>> safest and most popular. Their approach struck some as >>> paradoxical. By stripping away the barriers that >>> protected the park from the bustle of traffic on its >>> edges, they aimed to turn what had been conceived as a >>> peaceful respite from urban life into a busy focal point >>> of it. Forsaking grand gestures and concentrating instead >>> on tiny details like balustrades and folding chairs, they >>> refashioned Bryant Park stitch by stitch. >>> >>> "At first glance, the park looks almost the same, just a >>> cleaner, fresher version of the old," architecture critic >>> Paul Goldberger wrote in The New York Times. "But the >>> cumulative effect of small changes is to render it a >>> dramatically different place, vastly more open than >>> before, more tied to the street and the city around it." >>> >>> Here there was another level of paradox, for Hanna/Olin's >>> success in restoring the urban qualities of Bryant Park >>> stemmed from the partial commercialization of what had >>> previously been purely public space. The redevelopment >>> had been underwritten by the privately funded Bryant Park >>> Restoration Corporation, one of the first examples of >>> what are now commonly known as Business Improvement >>> Districts. By effectively taking over the municipal >>> government's responsibility for managing the park, the >>> BPRC won the privilege to use it as a venue for >>> entertainment programming, restaurant concessions, and >>> the like. Hanna/Olin's disciplined design was a critical >>> piece of this new vision. >>> >>> "In a sense, it tells you that it's controlled, that it's >>> not 'true public,'" says George Thomas. "It's sort of >>> like a mall, or the mall as a public space but under >>> private control. And as a result, people are expected to >>> behave in a certain way. You could almost make the case >>> that Bryant Park is a highly corporatized landscape, and >>> in its lack of freedom it tells you what it expects of >>> you. > [aka ray] ---- You are receiving this because you are subscribed to the list named "UnivCity." To unsubscribe or for archive information, see <http://www.purple.com/list.html>.
