Transfer

July 20, 2007

Ch-Ch-Changes

Its time to close the Transfer.
No transfer at this location.

Please take the Portage.

Posted by jmarston at 11:11 AM | Comments (7)

June 28, 2007

Rapprochement

There is something else there, and it took a long time to see.

Posted by jmarston at 04:04 PM | Comments (24)

March 23, 2007

Matta-Clark & other Unravelings

Its come to my attention that I dont need to draw any more attention to all the attention Moses is getting around town, but the Gordon Matta-Clark show at that Whitney is worth a note; and lots more Attention. Ouroussoff gives a nice review, with some plum pot shots at the establishment. Very fitting in New York's second Gilded Age of luxury ad nauseum. Abusurdity riots across the island. Its not that architecture has become another medal on greeds chest, another inbred lap dog for the fat necked financier. Its always been that. Its the lack of physical (lord knows theres enough theoretical) discourse that offers any alternative to Luxury or Fedder. I think that goes a long way in explaining the tremendous resurgence of interest in the short yet brilliant output of Matta-Clark. Ediciones Poligrafa released a wonderful book of previously unavailable writing this past fall. Apparently the CCA is finally allowing some access to their Matta-Clark archives, from which this book is a result. Brilliant. Heres to hoping for more Matta-Clark praxis, and less greasy carreer climbing (dash).

This city is flush with construction but flaccid with questions, is it any curiosity the nations largest builder of mcmansion tract housing has had a "hot hot year" in New York? We're suffocating under the weight of becoming what we've always been, a reflection of where Americas cities are today; bland replications and sordid hyperboles of what vibrant urban amalgamations might be - could be. Where have all Those people gone? I love J.Nouvel's 40 Mercer, R.Meier's Perry St, S.Holl's Higgin Hall, Shop's Porter House...but homes for the rich, halls for the matriculated. Is that it? Have architects become Nothing but executive assistants? Where is the Challenge, the Engagement of Urban form? Is urbanism dead to all but Planning Beaureaucrats? This is Gilded Age New York. We, as Lovers & Haters of the City & OF Architecture, demand more. More than the malling and gating of these grids, more than ticket blitzes and fedder fueled building booms. More than slick renderings and theoretical preening. More than Hadidism. More than well drinks sold as cocktails, more Praxis, less prattle. The rats have moved in and they want their city back. Destroy the Dynamism they whisper, build me a glass cul-de-sac in the sky, and sweep them to the side. Its more - more to the soul of where urbanism gets thought, where architecture gets manifested, who gets to be there. They are company men doling out company expectations on this city. Don't offend, they might get you a job, make you famous. Please Them. Quiet, controlled, cordoned, and quelled. My Old Lady won't die. She's watching, waiting.

Posted by jmarston at 12:04 PM | Comments (4)

March 20, 2007

Love New York, Fuck New York, Burn New York

"We can't accept market indicators, personal success, aesthetic fashion, some vague formal mysticism, indices of giddiness and titillation, or the mere expression of cultural differences, as the criteria for an appropriate, purportedly significant architectural practice in this age of incomplete nihilism."

- Alberto Perez-Gomez

Posted by jmarston at 02:54 PM | Comments (3)

March 16, 2007

Unrealistic Dreams for New York City’s Waterfront

Today’s news of the fate of the Red Hook container port – death – has sent my mind into a tailspin. Say nothing of the Port Authority’s siphoning of NYC tax dollars into Jersey’s coffers by killing this facility. It’s more about What is NYC’s waterfront. First it was the thought of a Battery Park on the waterfront in Williamsburg, now this. It’s enough to force me into writing a wildly unedited rant against all that is Waterfront Development in New York City. Perhaps I’m rendered ridiculous in my propositions, but at least its something against waterfronts becoming Sanitized backyards for Toll Brothers new cul-de-sacs in the sky.

In the unrelenting push to transform New York’s (fast disappearing) disinvested & derelict waterfronts into mini-gyms and leisure land, we blushingly spend millions on access upgrades, landscaping, and facilities. We can’t seem to line up the politicians quick enough; writers wax nostalgic about accessible waterfronts and sappy sun sets in front of security personal and Toll Bros condos; even planners & designers jump on board with slick renderings and soft stories of public space. Seemingly no one can say No to a new park, a new leisure site, semi-private playground for money managers. This climate is stifling. As New York City races to rezone, and regrade our waterfronts into rollerblade routes we might better ask ourselves some questions about the singularity of our imagination. About the futurity and fundamental benefit of miles of riverfront esplanades. The waterfront, in its many roles, is not a singular utensil in the amalgamation of real estate booty & reelection campaigns. There are ways to think about the city’s assets as more than just playgrounds. Here we are investing massive resources in snipping our economic link with the engine that built the city in the first place. In a fever pitched rush to capitalize on real estate dollars, we dump millions into (questionably) tasteful re-fittings. This is without mentioning the many fatwa, signed by Doomberg, against New York’s historical waterfront: paving of the graving dock, sugar factory destruction are just two that come to mind.

Manhattan; surrounded on all sides by water, at its widest 2.3 miles, and yet we refuse to utilize those waterways as anything but postcards? That, and we spend millions to give us access to that spectacle, but nothing on engaging it. Our rivers and bays are economic engines of transport and renewable energy, which could serve All New Yorkers in a myriad of ways. What might be imaginative development for one of the finest in transportation resources a city can be graced with? Take a simple farmers market. What would even a tenth of the freight tunnel monies provide in setting up waterfront farmers markets, where your produce is brought to you by sail? There are millions of dollars spent each year in inter-boro & regional truck transport, stressing our bridges, our streets, our health, our safety, costing everyone more than we might dare imagine, and an alternative stares us in the face. We locate nothing but Developer cash outs next to our waterways. What a shame. It would take tremendous imagination and an integrated effort on behalf the DOT, the DCP, amongst a litany of political wills. But the payouts are beyond the pale, beyond the joy of a new park under the shadows of some speculative lux-condo. Battery Park Shitty. What will the congestion charge do to your DAG grocery bill when the lettuce shipped from LIC is taxed to pay for it? New Yorkers will continue to be footing the bill as we deliver our goods to the city by heavy-truck. Yet we want to solve it thru big dig plans like the freight tunnel, only mitigating the issue so slightly – too the tune of billions of dollars in infrastructure. That’s all the while oil prices stay steady. Our bridges, tunnels, streets, pedestrians, are paying the price for Truck Traffic. A congestion charge will not change the need to have goods delivered into Manhattan. Queens based electricians don’t base their trips into Manhattan on convenience, but business. Of course the elite aren’t worried, they’re car service is already in Manhattan. What about human transportation hubs linked by waterfront; New Millennium Fulton Ferry, which is to say, Get serious about water taxis, water buses, and water ferries. They’re not viable because no networks exist at the terminus of the taxi, and the city has yet to think imaginatively about the resources of water-based travel around the city, or put any serious resources into planning and integrating them into existing networks.

Housing on the river, in the river, with the river. Low-rise row houses built out into the Hudson River. Engaging the edge, moving past the threshold of the shore. Where a garage stores a boat, which takes you up to Fairway in Harlem, to Beacon on a Saturday, to the Kips Bay theatre. Pick up your friend in Astoria, sailing over to Coney Island. We need to think about creating housing integrated with the riverfront and it’s varied uses, not just dumpy Trump towers scoping the Hudson-Jersey scene. Look at the Docklands project in Amsterdam, real docks, real integration, and real grace. Sign me up. Where are all the marinas? Wind Power based on our waterfront corridors. Water Power, i.e. East River, again natural geography creates profound opportunity for energy extraction, hitherto unused. Imagine the Water as Power. Strategies that utilize this maxim; Movement, Energy.

We don’t USE the water anymore; rather, we place ourselves next to it, by it, in relation to it, without exploring the USES of it. We stand on the edge of the spectacle. Imagine more than a Setting. More than a View, a Sports Club, a Feast of Skin and Sun; we may have hundreds of miles of it, but until this point we’ve built nothing But this. Much of the measure of success of cities today is in Parks – but at what point do leisure sites become so pervasive that they override their original purpose and erode the possibility of creating alternative sites?

Posted by jmarston at 05:30 PM | Comments (434)

October 17, 2006

The 501st Entry on Transfer

Just as America hits the three hundred million mark, Transfer heaves post number five hundred into the harbor. Some hits from the last 500 tea parties. Thanks for coming around folks, much love.

Kelo vs. City of New London
NaMing ScHemes and Other Infidels, Namely, Traffic
Cities and Kids
Architecture vs. Urban Design
Now & Then
Leon Krier
Flatbush's Tarnished Diamonds
Dubaious Hype, Dog-shit Planning & Mad Landscape Love
Nibbles & Bits & Bits
Not Fooling

Posted by jmarston at 01:24 PM | Comments (1)

October 06, 2006

Hell's Hundred Acres

taken from NE corner of Broadway & Spring

Before it was known as SoHo, before the birth of the loft, and long before Broadway became an impassable sludge of consumerist fantasy, it was known as the Cast-Iron District - Hell's Hundred Acres. Comprising some 250 buildings, built mostly between 1840-1880, these structures are a testament to cast iron construction, which heralded unprecedented opportunities as a building material. Stronger, cheaper, and more easily manipulated, it allowed for ornate architectural detailing, larger windows, and buildings could be completed in as short as 4 mos.

It comes as no surprise that a large number of Cast-Iron foundries flourished in NYC as these buildings were built and became home to the textile manufacturers of the day. Below are a series of photos documenting those foundries that built SoHo, who have stamped themselves on their support columns, sending a business card 130 years into the present day neighborhood of million dollar rents. Thanks for the beautiful buildings. Requisite reading: 101 Spring St, by Donald Judd.

Posted by jmarston at 05:54 PM

October 05, 2006

The Other Williamsburg Building Boom Part III

The final installment in Transfer's photo tour of the functionalist frenzy rising in the heat of the flourishing Satmar community (חסידות סאטמאר) of Far South Williamsburg Brooklyn. While architecturally drab, this vibrant neighborhood is a sparking jewel in the crown of Brooklyn's cultural vibrancy, and none of these tours should communicate otherwise. Part I, Part II.

Posted by jmarston at 06:07 PM

September 21, 2006

Boom Tour Part II

Posted by jmarston at 08:29 PM

September 14, 2006

The Other Williamsburg Building Boom

The Satmar Community of Brooklyn is flourishing, resulting in a sustained housing boom for the Far South Side of Williamsburg. But this building boom isn't luxury, or built by the Toll Bros. Although the media has focused on the recent scandals in the wake of the passing of Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum, the Satmar community is still the fastest growing Haisidic sect in the world, with the 4th largest school system in New York state.

Transfer's hard hitting investigative team explores this vibrant urban neighborhood, on the Shabbat. These selections are uniform in their variances and first in a series of architectural photo tours of the neighborhood. A triumph for functionalists everywhere, I guess.

Posted by jmarston at 09:40 PM | Comments (3)

September 11, 2006

I Love New York

In so many ways New York City, and I with it, have changed in the 5 years since a fanatical urban planner and 18 other misanthropic fascists made death the world's daily bread. Yet at the same time, and all too often at that, it seems like yesterday. How disgusting, and blood thirsty, their success has made all involved. Thugs and special eds now think it wise to blow apart their flesh daily. And our very own Bush will go stand where the pile once smoldered, that miserable twat. But lest we burrow down with the Islamists and their Neo-Con allies, we should put the hate, war, and death aside, and offer a dove & a prayer to those who've lost someone, and a call to all for a kinder & more beautiful city. For what is loss but a lesson of appreciation for what you still have.

Posted by jmarston at 03:04 AM | Comments (1)

August 26, 2006

Granulated, Ironed, Cemented, & Vaulted

Part of the Sense in the City series.

Posted by jmarston at 04:01 PM

June 22, 2006

Summer Read

Best new book for the summer reading season, Sense of the City: An Alternative Approach to Urbanism, published by CCA. An excellent collection of writings, photographs, and historical emphemera on the wholly understudied aspects of sensory city. Chapters include: Nocturnal City, Seasonal City, Sound of the City, Surface of the City, and Air of the City. Fantastic historical antedotes abound, such as New York's very own Society of the Suppression of Unnecessary Noise (SSUN), founded in 1906, by Mrs. Isaac Rice. The section I found most particularly interesting was Surface of the City. "A well-paved asphalt road is the greatest missionary of civilization at our disposal to-day" - Pedro Juan Manuel Larranaga 1926.

Surfaces in New York are a fascinating part of how different areas of the city are intuited sensorially. The sleek pitted slabs of granite, peppered with illuminated vault lights, and roughhewn cobblestone streets, all define SoHo's sensorial sophistication. The clanging of New York's ubiquitous steel sidewalk doors, the stickyness of a crosswalk on a hot New York summer day. Imagine the rural appeal of dirt roads in the West Village. Its mesmerizing to think about the variety of ways texture and surface are expressed throughout the city, and how they come to play upon our expectations. Some photographs of surface texture taken around NYC, all of which we feel with our feet.

Posted by jmarston at 12:00 PM

June 12, 2006

Chapter IV: History of Breuckelen 1628-1664

view of Brookland 1766

"Translation of a contract for the erection of a ferry-house, or tavern, on the Long Island side, for Egbert Van Borsum, the ferry-master, in 1655:

“We, Carpenters Jan Cornelisen, Abram Jacobsen, and Jan Hendricksen, have contracted to construct a house over at the ferry of Egbert Van Borsum, ferry-man, thirty feet long and eighteen feet wide, with an outlet of four feet, to place in it seven girders, with three transome windows and one door in the front, the front to be planed and grooved, and the rear front to have boards overlapped in order to be tight, with door and windows therein ; and a floor and garret grooved and planed beneath (on the under side); to saw the roof thereon, and moreover to set a windowframe with a glass light in the front side; to make a chimney mantel and to wainscot the fore-room below, and divide it in the centre across with a door in the partition; to set a window-frame with two glass lights therein; further to wainscot the east side the whole length of the house, and in the recess two bedsteads, one in the front room and one in the inside room, with a pantry at the end of the bedstead (betste); a winding staircase in the fore-room. Furthermore we, the carpenters, are bound to deliver all the square timber—to wit, beams, posts, and frame timber, with the pillar for the winding staircase, spars, and worm, and girders, and foundation tim. bers required for the work; also the spikes and nails for the interior work; also rails for the wainscot are to be delivered by us." “For which work Egbert Van Borsum is to pay five hundred and fifty guilders (two hundred and twenty dollars), one-third in beavers, one-third in good merchantable wampum, one-third in good silver coin, and free passage over the ferry so long as the work continues, and small beer to be drunk during work.

"It has often been claimed as a peculiar distinction of the Puritan settlers of New England, that their prominent aim, and chief care, in settling those desert regions, was the establishment of religious and educational privileges. Yet, although the settlement of New Netherlands was undoubtedly undertaken rather as a commercial speculation, than as an experimental solution of ecclesiastical and civil principles and government, we find that the Dutch were equally anxious and careful to extend and to preserve to their infant settlements the blessings of education and religion. It is true that, in the earlier years of roving and unsystematized traffic which followed the discovery of Manhattan Island, there seems to have been no higher principle involved than that of gain. But as soon as a permanent agricultural and commercial occupation of the country was undertaken by the West India Company, the higher moral and spiritual wants and necessities of its settlers were fully recognized."

All this juicy goodness lifted from CHAPTER IV: HISTORY OF BREUCKELEN 1628-1664, written in 1857.

Posted by jmarston at 09:25 PM

May 31, 2006

The First National City Bank of New York

415 Broadway. Founded in 1812, the First National City Bank of New York would go on to become Citibank, parent of multibillion dollar Citigroup. In 1919, eight years before this building on Canal St/Broadway was completed, Citibank had already accumulated assets of over 1 billion dollars. Now this great Deco structure lays abused by Sbarros, Payless, and counterfit bag merchants. A gem, gleaming, in the jostling density of Canal. Bring this beauty back from the brink. As C.J. Hughes pointed out last year in the Times, Banks can get good and profitable reuses in Manhattan. Forgotten NY has a great old bank page.

Posted by jmarston at 09:33 PM | Comments (2)

Geology with McPhee

"The towers of midtown, as one might imagine, were emplaced in substantial rock - rock that once had been heated near the point of melting, had recrystallized, had been heated again, had recrystallized, and, while not particularly competent, was more than adequate to hold up those buildings. Most important, it was right at the surface. You could see it, it all its micaeous glitter, shining like silver in the outcrops of Central Park. Four hundred and fifty million years in age, it was called Manhattan schist. All through midtown, it was at or near the surface, but in the region south of Thirtieth Street it began to fall away, and at Washington Square it descended abruptly. The whole saddle between midtown and Wall Street would be underwater, if it not filled with many tens of fathoms of glacial till. So there sat Greenwhich Village, SoHo, Chinatown, on material that could not hold up a great deal more than a golf tee - on the ground-up wreckage of the Ramapos, on crushed Catskill, on odd bits of Nyack and Tenafly. In the Wall Street area, the bedrock does not return to the surface, but it comes within forty feet and is accessible for the footings of the tallest things in town."

"The Wisconsinan ice sheet, arriving from the north, had come over the city not from New England, as one might guess, but primarily from New Jersey, whose Hudson River counties lie due north of Manhattan. Big boulders from New Jersey Palisades are strewn about in Central Park, and more of the same diabase is scattered through Brooklyn. The ice wholly covered the Bronx and Manhattan, and its broad snout moved across Astoria, Maspeth, Williamsburg, and Bedford-Stuyvesant before sliding to a stop in Flatbush. Flatbush was the end of the line, the point of no return for the Ice Age, the locus of the terminal moraine. Water poured in the white tumult from the melting ice, carrying and sorting its freight of sands and gravels, building the outwash plain: Bensonhurst, Canarsie, the Flatlands, Coney Island."

"Most of Coney Island is New Jersey diabase, Fordham gneiss, Inwood marble, Manhattan schist. The individual grains are characteristically angular and sharp, because the source rock was so recently crushed by the glacier. To make a well-rounded grain, you need a lot more time. Weather and waves had been working on this sand for fifteen thousand years."

selections from the most excellent book,
In Suspect Terrain, by John McPhee.

Posted by jmarston at 09:15 PM

May 29, 2006

Memorial Day Offerings

Good ole BB 64, USS Wisconsin, on inactive reserve. Recently visited the battleship who sits right off the historical Hampton Roads - tucked in on the Elizabeth River, Norfolk VA. War Machines on Tour.

The turrets are the center of the construction process.


Biggest of the BB Battleships, On Wisconsin.


Historical images of USS Wisconsin courtesy National Maritime Center.

Shouts to my sister at King George Hospital- Ghent, Norfolk, VA!

Posted by jmarston at 10:02 PM | Comments (1)

March 23, 2006

520 Broome St.

Begged for a Renovate Me back in July. Then Curbed covered its demise.

Now the old Deco decor is revealed. Take the shell, Zucker, make it the Don.

Posted by jmarston at 07:50 PM | Comments (1)

November 01, 2005

Renovate Me Victims

Back in early October I got sad news byway of a Curbed post about 520 Broome St, which I featured in my Renovate Me column back in July. A developer is going to trash the gem for some substandard bore... But

Now comes more sad news via Massey Knakal that my other fave canidate for proper renovation and restoration was recently sold - with 5,600 sq ft of available air rights. This art deco gem, 73 Lexington Ave, which I covered back in June, looks to be headed for history. Except for those 29 stablized units that stand in the way of condo glinted greed... Massey sale journal entry below...

Posted by jmarston at 04:46 PM

September 30, 2005

One Year and Two Days

Transfer quietly celebrates 284 entries, 1 year and two days of selfpublishing. Between the incoherent mutterings from my airshafted studio in Brooklyn and the Midfrown induced rages from a S.A.D office block, its nothing but Love Love Love. I think there are at least two or three people that come for more than the Anti-Sit. I hope you continue to come back as the coming year promises more more & MORE! Thanks, and please, if you do refer back more than once, drop me a note anytime.

Posted by jmarston at 09:52 AM | Comments (5)

July 29, 2005

Tunnel Garage

So long overdue, the second installment of Renovate Me. More on the way...

Holland Tunnel, the "world's first long underwater mechanically ventilated vehicular tunnel", is named after its chief engineer Clifford Milburn Holland. Construction began in 1920, and was completed seven years later, with some 51,694 vehicles passing through on opening day. Vehicles of course meaning horse drawn carts and motorized transport.

This little sweetheart, Tunnel Garage, was built five years before the first vehicle even passed through the Holland, in the grand tradition of New York real estate speculation. Surely one of the first parking garages in Manhattan, which at the time was polluted more by horse shit than the equally noxious automobile. A short but fascinating history of parking, from a 2001 issue of Architecture Week, can be found here.

But unlike today's boom, they built a speculative beauty. Scarred by contemporary signage, this gem is awaiting a good scrubbing and preservationist rehab, along with a new and fantastic use. Considering Transfer's biggest congestion style proposal is to tax the shit out of parking lots, thereby making it extremely costly to drive into Manhattan, this Garage would to good to apply for a different use permit. Thats of course after a detailed and accurate restoration of the existing facade. The cache this little building could kick, with its artful font, lead pane windows, small detailed touches, and rounded corner frontage.

Bring this beauty back from the brink. Certificate of Occupancy and Photos below.

520 Broome St
Completed 1922

Posted by jmarston at 05:14 PM

July 20, 2005

Flatbush's Tarnished Diamonds

Awhile back I opined about Flatbush Ave Brooklyn, in reference to a new building going up within the bounds of my specific chunk of interest: Atlantic Aves bisection and on up to the lovely - but utterly vehicle choked and virtually inaccesible - Grand Army Plaza.

I find it a slow incline (95 vertical ft according to the USGS) of joy - as varied topography always gets me. But more importantly, its how streets bisect the Ave diagnolly, creating a delighful variety of types, lots, styles, and vistas. Four small triangular parks, graced with gas lamps...

Two immensely graceful street clocks,

and a diversity of urban typologies are represented. Breifly freeing the mind of the real estate speculators infinitely divisible box. Relief from the oppressive New York grid. Meandering is a rare pleasure when you're on a circuit board, suffice to say that right angles tend to dull the mind in NYC. Avenues that greet varied grid schemes create a welcome respite. I also enjoy the way the Ave meets a certain social and racial cross section of BK, because as much as NYers loathe to admit, parts of residential NYC can be fairly segregated. There are lots of Ave's with astounding amounts of notable architectural variety - Washington Ave (btw Atlantic & Myrtle) in Clinton Hill is perhaps one of my all time favorites - but most don't serve as a commerical cooridors as well as the fact that many weren't originally built with middle incomes in mind. Which is not the case for Flatbush. Flatbush is also an artery of distinction, from the Manhattan Bridge, thru downtown, crossing Atlantic Ave and on up to Grand Army Plaza, Prospect Park, Brooklyn Central Library, and the headwaters of Eastern Parkway. At the moment the commercial mix is compelling, as our unhealthy obsession with zoning still plagues huge swaths of American cities, something about this little incline bucks a bit of that. So, on with a selection of some of the notables that grace this cut of Flatbush Ave. Buildings like The Providence, Montauk, Lenox, and Prospect View.

Posted by jmarston at 12:55 PM

July 13, 2005

NaMing ScHemes and Other Infidels, Namely, Traffic

NYTimes licks more developer ass with last Sunday's Real Estate cover story, Greetings from SoFi. Back in March Transfer covered the massive amount of lux hi-rise construction in this area, and Jokingly dubbed it I-SeS (In the Shadow of the Empire State). Here we are, mid-July, and the Times can't seem to engage in any critical journalism about this, other than polishing some CT based speculators beam & christening another obnoxious neighborhood name. Oh joy, SoFinished.

Richard Rogers, who has not only one, but a list of dream jobs: head of his own hi-profile firm, director of the UK's urban task force, and council to Barcelona's own urban strategy council. He's also been quite active lately in commenting and speaking on the general state of urban policy... Which is why it makes perfect sense that he wrote this piece in the Guardian about London's Olympic victory and, you guessed it, the similarities it has to Barcelona's thrust forward by hosting the '88 Games.

The EU, what bunch of backwerd twits, they think that by enforcing an EU charter that demanded "states to draw maps that track the level of noise from cars, planes, machinery and other sources in areas inhabited by more than 100,000 people. Busy intersections or traffic networks are also targeted." (and who are now in trouble for not acting upon that data) that they might make city life more enjoyable? Honk on Hummers, America Rulez!

Joe Scanlan wrote an interesting opinion in the summer edition of Art Forum entitled 'Social Space and Relational Aesthetics'. A talking point not so much for its art world critique, although interesting, but for the main piece of evidence he marshalls. A roundabout / rotary intersection in Holland designed by traffic engineer Hans Monderman. Scanlan uses it to illustrate the function of public shaming / humiliation / pressure in enforcing order on our streets and intersections. With incidentally has much better results for this particular traffic rotary then signs, curbs, signals, lanes -- all of which are nonexistent in Monderman's design... Gotta love those Dutch.

Got me wondering about how something even as remotely innovative as this would work in a city like New York, whose biggest crime is its homicidal motorized traffic. Partly due to context, and partly due to culture, I have no doubt something even close to this would be a tremendous failure. It might work in parts of the city where pedestrians, cyclists, and cars/trucks are more or less equivalent in number, e.g. LES. But most of the city is segmented by broad Avenues that serve as numbing speedways, where vehicles set an Indy pace to make the next light - or Bob's business meeting. Most cross streets are choked with delivery trucks, cabs, and maintenance vans. Have you ever seen a car pulled over, much less a truck, for anything other than a bomb check? How about a traffic violation? Its hardly humiliating to mow over a pedestrian or run a red light here, there is Business to be Conducted Folks! Surely the narrowing of streets and the lowering of curbs, both part and parcel to this approach, would be helpful in certain areas, but that’s about the extent to which New York could implement or innovate with this type of approach... We could start by putting CCTV cameras at stoplights. Perhaps by enforcing, ahem, speed limits? Use proven traffic calming measures. Get rid of Bloombergs horrible crosstown turn lane scheme in Midtown. How about decreasing at least a lane or two on one of the Aves. Perhaps, just perhaps we could put some bikes lanes in, enforce them. Enforce the bus lanes as well, and most importantly of all, follow the lead of London's Mayor Ken Livingstone and put in our own congestion charge; which John Massengale details quite nicely here. The congestion charge has been a massive success in London and in my recent experience there a brilliant success, politically and experentially. Aaron Naparstek has a nice piece on biking in this metropolis. In many ways I can't think of a more shameless Western city than New York at the moment, when it comes to circulation and transportation. Its ridiculous how quickly you can get 'around town' here, which has in turn made whole swaths of the city 'flyover country', and others, oversaturated novelty destinations. Its time to see the effects traffic is having on the city culture, as well as our health.

Posted by jmarston at 03:19 PM

July 09, 2005

Back in the New York Groove

Holidazzles have left the site to linger, as all sites should during the summa time, but its time to get Back, Back in the New York Groove.

My heart goes out to London, who will be featured quite regularly in the coming weeks. I managed to jumbo jet out 12 hours before a band of sick fucks thought it politically (or religiously) sound to kill people going about their precious lives, in all places, on London's glorious mass transit...at least the IRA had the secondary education to choose targets and give warning, these cowardly dolts leave their knapsacks on the bus. Scotland Yard has dealt far too long with bombings and will surely track these vacuous souls down. Paul Virilo was right about microwarfare but he didn't account for the type of retarded intellects who would carry it out, and the carnage it would reek on the innocent. London, surely we know you carry on with all of your gracious pride. Rude Pundit put it quite nicely, here.

Posted by jmarston at 10:01 AM

June 03, 2005

Temporary Architecture

One of the finest moments in Avalon Chrystie's life as a building was when the whole block of East Houston was a winding, twisting, undulating tunnel of plywood and netting, carving its way down the length of the site. It was a buffet of shifting sounds, sights, terrain, and experience, in many ways the antithesis of the actual structure. It was organic & situationist. Decontrolled and shifty. It was, in my estimation, one of the coolest temporary structures to rise and fall in recent time. Like shifting appendages, these temporary structures add drama, mystery, and a bit of devlishness to some of the most banal blocks in our fine City... Here are four recent examples, one of which is already history.

Posted by jmarston at 11:17 AM | Comments (1)

Renovate Me: Deco on Lex

New Category Alert: Renovate Me. Vast swaths of New York's once gutted rowhomes, crumbling tenements, and dried manufacturing shells have been rehabbed and retooled in the recent real estate upshot, some have returned to their spectacular former glory, while others have been given functional updates. But there remains a hellva lot of beauties sitting in disrepair, overlooked by the clamoring real estate whordes, perhaps even slated for demo to make room for a substandard 'lux condo' drawn up in a half a day, thrown up in half a year. Filling in New York's stately smile with cheap dentures. Here's to cleaning the plaque, applying the bridge, and bringing some of New York's finest gems back from the brink.

Our first installment is a stellar Deco tenement building across the street from the 69th Reg Armory on Lexington Ave in the 20's. Still listed as a rooming housing, with 6 apartments on each floor... This elderly and under cared for Betty has beautiful curving windows, a sleek Deco entrance, elegant ironwork (both on the window irons and on the fire escapes) and best of all, absolutely brilliant scale. The Deco touches and gentle curves speak sophisticatedly, in an understated tone, as one of the few Art Deco buildings with only a rowhouse footprint. Bring the beauty back from the brink. Certificate of Occupancy and Photos below.

73 Lexington Ave
Completed June 3, 1941
24'8" Front / 5 stories / 52'00" Tall

Posted by jmarston at 09:47 AM

May 23, 2005

Candyland, Now!

Sometimes its nice to forget about David Child's Faustian pact with Silverstein, to forget about sweetheart deals and taxpayer financed football/basketball stadiums, to forget about Bloomany hall and you know, that awful image of Trump's mouth gaping over 'his' WTC model...

To remember the glory days of glossy Daily News spreads on sweltering proposals from Hot looking Euro architects for, yes, the Olympic Village in LIC. Yes folks, its time to relish in those innocent, halycon days, of Slick Master Plans and unperturbed optimism at New York's ability to rebuild without Political Impotence, Developer Greed, and good ole' PowerBroker Ignorance.

SO - Lets relish in Candyland Dreamtime and leave all our Bags back at SOM's place...

Fact is, beyond the sheer escapism of this, I really want MVRDV to build something in New York... Really. So, hey Rich Developer Dude, Put up a MVRDV building and I guarntee it will sell out quicker then windowless box in Dumbo, or at least a leaky cement one on a highway in the West Village.

Posted by jmarston at 03:55 PM

May 03, 2005

Skirts & Skins Gone Awry

This Sullivanesqe 5th Ave Madam is nothing to really hoot about, but it is a nicely set and wonderfully sized against the CUNY Grad center down the street. But like many other buildings, e.g. here, the lower three floors are insulted and insulated by bad modern. Cheap modern.

Modern that seems to change its mind as it wraps around the cross street facade. Confused, its not sure how to deal with the columns. And the neo-classicalists say we aren't postmodern. How many bad pastiches do we need to show you?

Our next tasteless mini-skirt takes another 5th Ave gem and squares its lovely curves... Oh its street frontage is so sexy, until you see its legs have been squared in some sick retail joke. Poor thing.

But its so Edgy? No. No.

Posted by jmarston at 02:39 PM

April 15, 2005

Miami's Manhattanization

the darker the shade of red, the higher the population density. original map can be found here.

According to the City of Miami Large Scale Development Report, since 1995, 79 projects have been completed (or are close to completion) for a total of 18 thousand new residential units, and 2 million sq ft of office. There are 67 approved projects slating an additional 21 thousand residential units, and 21 projects in the application phase, for 3 thousand more residential. There are a whopping 87 in the preliminary phase, which would add 25 thousand more residential units. The sum of these: 4 million sqft of retail, 3 million sqft of office space, and 69 thousand residential units. With 37 thousand of these units being built in Downtown Miami, at an esitmated construction cost of over 12 billion dollars. Huge. Talking Hi-Density, Hi-Rise, Downtown, Tower construction. Another 8 thousand of these units, 52 of the total residential projects, will be built in Wynwood/Edgewater, most of which will be lower scale lux lofts and other semi-dense yuppie enclaves.

The unemployment rate in Miami-Dade is 7.7%. The average price for a condo is $254,365. The median age of a Miamian is 35.6 years. 25% of West Miami is over the age of 65. Per capita personal income sits below the national average ($29,000) at $25,320. The cost of living index, compared to New York's 232, is 106.4, just above Minneapolis's 104.2. American Airlines is the largest private employer in Miami with 9,000 employees, and the larget public employer is Miami-Dade public schools who employ 35,500 people.

Miami-Dade County has roughly 2.2 million people, the City of Miami has 362 thousand and the illustrious Miami Beach has just under 90 thousand. The metro sits at about 5 million. In 1910, Miami had 5,741 residents. Hemmed in between the Everglades and Biscayne Bay, Miami is a virtual island.

Interestingly reflective of the international flavor of this boom in investment is the 2000 census figure that puts 1.4 million residents of Miami-Dade as foreign born - 44 thousand of which are from Europe - 28 thousand of which are from Asia.

Apprehension is definitely bubbling, with lots of questions about how many of these units are servicing investors, "Company representatives said that "as much as 85 percent of all condominium sales in the downtown Miami market are accounted for by investors and speculators."

"I've never seen anything like this," said Miami historian Paul George, a professor at Miami Dade College. "I've studied the booms of the mid-'20s, after World War II, and other smaller ones of the late '70s and early '80s, and none of those compare to this in terms of dollar value, the volume and scale of things being built, and the amount of places being impacted."

But the Brokers and Agents are feeding like sharks in a sea of chum...(ps). Its no doubt a fascinating moment for this city, and the outcomes may spell prescient for other cities looking to drive upward, instead of entirely outward. America needs positive lessons in dense urban living, and Miami may or may not prove instructive. As the Fed inches up the rates, Miami also might well serve as a barometer to other cities booms... Like the upcoming Transfer commentary on Las Vegas. On with the structures...

Big name designers are getting involved with big name firms, the best and brightest being the recently approved One Icon project. An Arquitectonica building with a Philip Starck designed lobby, which is rendered below.

Arquitectonica, who already have a huge architectural presence in Miami, perhaps rivaling that of Morris Lapidus, are doing another project just up the block from One Icon, 500 Brickell. Two connected 43-storey towers with ultra-lux amenities, rendering below...

Arquitectonica are also doing Marina, the 60-storey project includes a 14th floor Skybeach, a beach sand amenities deck which spans from the east to the west side of the building rendered below...

Arquitectonica are also doing the 45-storey One Miami, rendered below... Perhaps one of ugliest of new batch... Flashy and Clunky. Rendered below that is Arquitectonica's Canyon Ranch, another, not so sexy contribution to the boom...

Which is down the block from the tallest of the new structures going up, the 65-storey 900 Biscayne Bay, whose nauseating website is a good introduction to the level of design, packaging, and money being tossed around Miami right now. 900 is rendered below...

Ten Museum Park is another supra-lux 50-storey hi-profile building pioneering a new master zoned area of hi-res/hi-rise towers, rendered below...

Onyx2, promises threesomes as part of their Cosmo-Hi-Definition-Lux-Living...pictured below.

Soleil presents itself as a more fit alternative to the hedonists at the Onyx2.

Finally, the Avenue is available to the smart, technologically engaged hipster - check the website if you think I'm kidding - offering real "urban living to new heights".

--Miami
--City of Miami Planning Department
--Miami-Dade Planning Department

Posted by jmarston at 04:13 PM

April 12, 2005

1960's Skin to Faux 1860's Skin

A long empty Madison Ave ground floor, once home to the sheesh bag retailers Koret and Walborg, will lose its vaguley 60's mod design in favor of a more conservative faux historicism. Although this faux gas light anklet reskinning would fit the structure, the Backer Building, more uniformly, there is something grossly appealing about he space age windows. 'Promised Facade Changes' for any new tenant, last photo provides a rendering. I would say a slick reno on the existing could create a pretty inviting new night spot... Hopefully we can look forward to Duane Reade, NOT!

The promised street level reskinning...

Posted by jmarston at 10:38 AM

March 25, 2005

Cities and Kids

The Times put cities on the front page yesterday, essentially pointing out the obvious and persistant fact, that our cities are still struggling to attract and keep middle class families - oh-so-especially in areas where immigrant or poorer families normally fill the school rooms. They are just priced right out of the entire city - e.g. San Fran. They point out, "having fewer children really diminishes the quality of life in a city." & "It's not so much a social problem as it is a demographic and financial problem". Surely everyone knows having a kid ain't cheap...

Such a problem that the 2nd UN-Habitat passed a somewhat feel good initiative to make cities more child friendly, because "The Conference declared that the well-being of children is the ultimate indicator of a healthy habitat. Ummm, no shit. How about addressing the underlying reasons cities are "unfriendly to children".

The Brookings Institute, in 2003, published an interesting interpretation of 2000 Census data on Seattle. Showing, as one would assume, that "fewer than 20 percent of city households contain children, and Seattle households are smaller than those in any other large U.S. city" & "Seattle's suburbs added over 100,000 households of all types over the decade." No new news...

In a similar article as the Times, the Blue Oregon chronicles the loss of children in Portland, noting, "1962, Portland had 81,000 kids in public schools. Today, enrollment stands at about 48,000 students."

Although, Fannie Mae, sees things more opportunistically, "In fact, the taxes generated by attracting childless households to the city can be used to improve school quality for families with children without adding any additional burden on school systems. Those who study housing impact find that the combination eases pressure on municipal budgets." One has got to wonder though, NYC has been throwing money at their schools for years. In many respects I see it as a diversity issue. Economic diversity amongst the students, not more money...

Even the suburban paper of note, USA Today, jumped on the kids and cities fray heating up the Metro news rooms, noting that nearly 15% of Atlanta's total population is college educated and aged 25-34.

Chicago has not sat out on the emptying, although "The City of Chicago gained population for the first time in fifty years because natural increase (the excess of births over deaths) was sufficient to offset losses from net out migration."

Surely one of the most quoted in the post election fall out was Joel Kotkin, apologist for Patio Man, and all around hack for suburban and exurban sprawl, stating, "Democrats swept the largely childless cities--true blue locales like San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Boston, and Manhattan have the lowest percentages of children in the nation--but generally had poor showings in those places where families are settling down, notably in the sunbelt cities, exurbs, and outer suburbs of older metropolitan areas."

Finally, the excellent folks at The Next American City put the cities & kids issue on the front cover of their January issue... looking at the issue from a number of interersting angles. Rec'd.

Posted by jmarston at 05:27 PM

March 18, 2005

Architecture vs. Urban Design

There is a lot of debate, and anger, between those who practice & follow architecture, and those who care and plan the built environment – not that there is, or should be, any Difference between the two, but... The assumed ego mania of Art-itecture, and their Star Architects, grates against the Public’s interest keepers – planners and urban designers who are not interested in the terms of capital A-rchitecture, and the practitioners of it, but in the smooth interaction between space and user. Insight garnered for and from the ‘public’. Maybe all that anger toward the ‘star architect system’, as it is pejoratively referred to, could be channeled at the highway appropriations bill, or county building boards, or *Gasp*, toward thinking more deeply about what type of Space & Structure honors the human experience better than Neat Shops, Scaled Streets, and Pedestrian friendly Corners. Albuquerque thought progressively about their downtown, and then hired a new urbanist firm who put forward a monster Rule Book of how buildings can and cannot address the space they inhabit.

While I like, in principal, the ease of "three rules", and its applicability in the exurban and suburban landscapes, even, at times, in the newly built urbanscapes, I find it frighfully weak and terminally simplistic in the consideration of Every Building at Every Site. As a lens of criticism it doesn't even begin to approach a work of architecture with any compelling rigor in its analysis of space, or the experience of it – except in its perimeter. It looks at the outline, and then condemns the center.

The hugely important move towards Urban Design is one I applaud, especially after journeying to places like the I-95 corridor of South Florida. This is the best place, and in my estimation, The Place this type of approach is necessary, productive, and applicable. The great cartopia wastelands needs hard and fast rebuttals, to what is a hard and fast space of alienation. But the ease with which Urban Design thinks of scoffing and leveling – absolutely discounting – architecture that doesn't treat its hard, simple, and derogatory regulation is simply candy fancy. I’m not arguing that we instill a priestly trust in a system of Star Architects. But the ire and anger America’s cartopias produce shouldn’t be channeled into architect bash sessions with the unruly newurbanist designer & bitter bureaucratic planner sanctimoniously charging Contempt in the court of the Passing Pedestrian. The constant condemnation of Rem's library is partly resultant from the idea that the pedestrian & their experience from the perimeter is above all the Singular drive in the design of any building, is mildly retarded at best. That, if it does indeed fail on that level then it was failed as a structure, is laughable analysis. Walk around Battery Park City, it fails to inspire anything but Ire in its well proportioned rule obeying NU plan. Great! Because architecture doesn't matter, right?

The ramming fascism of Glass Boxes has of course produced a qualified reaction amongst us, who never enter the boxes we’re towered over by. Surely the S&L's go-go 80’s of corporate office parks and searingly derivative Mies boxes has created an unhandled steam engine of angst towards our architects disregard for the pedestrian and the sick love for oil based transport... But.

But the current direction of so much bottled anger towards how we’ve produced our landscapes, what has taken precedent, and how much we’ve lost shouldn’t remit us towards burning the few sites of architectural luster we have, but towards the millions of developer built, cinder block suck holes going up every minute around the country, in every breath of wasted condemnation on folks like Koolhaas & Herzog. While I think much of Koolhaas’s work maybe theoretical bluster, laughable contradiction, and wholly inappropriate site handling, the preconceived prejudice so many have towards a building before they even experience it is downright sophomoric. What fucking building does Kunstler like? A Leon Krier sack of neoclassical derivatives? I hope not, he’s too intelligent for that...yet I think the anger birthed from our Oil based Suburban wasteland has clouded even the most astute.

It seems to me the trend is only gaining speed. As if the angry planners, who’ve aligned themselves with the urban designers, tired neo-traditionalists, and their new urbanist bedfellows, will finally get their Power back from those meddling artists of structure. Fuck the idea that every single building should follow some hard and fast Rules we’ve somehow cooked out of our banal little assessment of a stip mall. No shit the pedestrian should be considered, even worshipped, but fuck already. It’s deeper than that. I hope.

Posted by jmarston at 01:07 PM | Comments (1)

Around the Neighborhood

Like everyone with internet access, I've been browsing the New York Public Library's new Digital Gallery. Here is looking at the sites around my apartment and neighborhood...

Franklin at Eastern Parkway - 1910 (Bklyn Museum in the background)

Sterling at 7th Ave - 1937 (Flatbush in the background)

Brooklyn Museum - 1925

Flatbush - 1927

Posted by jmarston at 12:53 PM | Comments (1)

March 11, 2005

Kelo v. City of New London

Bruce Ratner and his rag tag group of real estate cronies (Marty, yes you) may be in for a precedent that will not bode well for their Brooklyn stadium bid. Either adding fuel, or releasing steam from fight against Ratner's Atlantic Yards. A US Supreme Court decision is due on Kelo v City of New London in late June. Let the 5th amendment interpretation gymnastics begin...

Slate gives a play by play of the oral arguements made before the court on Feb 22... "It doesn't look like the good folks of Fort Trumbull will garner many votes today at all—save for that of Justice Scalia, who channels the many libertarian amici in this case when he repeats that you can constitutionally condemn land and give it to a private entity—a railroad or public utility. "But you can't give it to a private corporation just because it might increase taxes."

The Boston Globe published a searing defense of the little guy where he quotes an earlier Supreme Court decision... ‘‘The despotic power ..... of taking private property when state necessity requires, exists in every government,’’ Justice William Paterson wrote in a 1795 case, Vanhorn’s Lessee v. Dorrance, but the state must not invoke that power ‘‘except in urgent cases.’’ He could not imagine any situation that would justify ‘‘the seizing of landed property belonging to one citizen, and giving it to another citizen. ..... Where is the security, where the inviolability of property, if the legislature ..... can take land from one citizen, who acquired it legally, and vest it in another?’’

The Seattle Times also published an editorial defending the interests of individuals against the desires of developers... "Since the landmark 1981 casePoletown Neighborhood Council v. City of Detroit, in which the Michigan Supreme Court ruled Detroit could condemn an entire community in the interest of giving its land to a new General Motors plant, abuse has been rampant. (The Michigan court has since reversed its decision, but the damage was done.) By one analysis, eminent domain was used more than 10,000 times between 1998 and 2002 to transfer title from one private owner to another."

While USA Today published an opinion by APA executive director, Paul Farmer in support of the developer's right to eminent domain..."Using condemnation only when a government entity will own the property — for example, for a highway or jail or to remove blight — unduly restricts a community's ability to manage growth and change." Ummm, BULLSHIT. Additionally, the APA published their take on Kelo v. City of New London.

Legal Affairs hosted an interesting debate on the Kelo case, where in a flash of libertarian angst I happen to agree with Prof Epstein when he states... "I know you may not agree, but if building up the tax base counts as a "public use," then no one's home is safe. After all, the local government only has to project higher revenues from the newer use, without having to substantiate the claim. Although New London's brief tries to gloss over the massive deficiencies of this ill-conceived plan, it's worth noting that this redevelopment project has thus far consumed $73 million in Connecticut money to perform feasibility studies, do environment cleanup, and install infrastructure. But New London still hasn't found any viable projects to put on the nearly 90 acres of prime property it already owns. Why it feels driven to take about 1.54 acres owned by Ms. Kelo and her neighbors is anybody's guess."

David Sucher, of City Comforts, notes... "In my opinion, justice demands the "public use" provision of eminent domain be clarified to exclude purely private gain." while he hi-lites some amicus briefs by famous urban thinkers, here, linking Jane Jacobs', and here, John Norquist... "But, taxpayers are now being asked to underwrite the risks of real estate-related economic development ... for speculative acquisition of real estate. This has resulted from the recently acquired taste for expediency among certain members of the private development community who hunger for government to speed up the development process and/or cut existing landowners off from the economic potential of their land ... Lured by proffered visions of tax base enhancement and upscale amenities, some local officials are supporting this sort of "corporate welfare," and it not only raises serious Fifth Amendment questions, but skews the evaluation of projects and their long range community impacts."

A resident of CT posts on Crooked Timber that... "I live in CT and have been following this issue for the past couple of years. The most unusual aspect of the “eminent domain” asserted by the Town of New London and supported by the CT Supreme Court is that the alledged future benefit to the town is particularly insubstantial...There is a true snake-oil, pie-in-the-sky aura to the whole development scheme, and if it seems crazy that the state supreme court has gone along with it, you should keep in mind that that court is largely the creation of our recently-departed, ethically-challenged kleptocratic Governor Rowland, who never met a developer he didn’t like (as long as the gratuity was adequate)."

Posted by jmarston at 01:29 PM | Comments (2)

March 08, 2005

Stone & Glass

"The symbolic value of stone resides in far more than its durability and permanence...the symbolism of stone - and of precious gems - is an essential element in the belief of many pre-christian religions and of early christianity itself. in the primitive view of nature, stone is not dead, it is a concentration of power and life... the true siginificance of stone lay not only in its immense age, its slow maturing over the millenia, but in its cosmic, extraterrestrial origin." -- John Brinckerhoff Jackson

So what of the symbolic qualities of glass? Has glass taken the role of stone in the vernacular of building symbol & monument. Not necessarily. Yes, in monuments to capitalism, power, and Good Taste, so they say... but we still build very many Monuments in a neoclassical vernacular. With, gasp, white marble, and gasp-gasp, doric columns. Except when mo(nu)ments of brilliance - Maya Lin, Daniel Libeskind - shine through the hollow attempts at aping 2000 year old strokes of meaningful architecture. Is it any wonder the WWII memorial has absolutley no significance, bordering on insult? We've been struggling with the WTC site... A confused hybrid Glass Monument to the sky, or a confused hybird stone Memorial below?

Are the qualities of glass, Transparency, Reflection, Penetration, Versatility, Erasure, Reparability, Perspective, Universality, and Insubstantiality, today's most significant symbols? It sure seems so. Hell, everyone likes sunlight, a view, and bringing the outside inside; so to speak. But I wonder what quailties a wood sheathed skyscrape would have, or a glass airplane.

Posted by jmarston at 05:11 PM

March 02, 2005

The Hotel Cavalier

Sometimes reskinning isn't done to upscale, occasionally it’s a good way to downscale a building or entrance. As was the case with Dr. Lock Shoes... which surely didn't have the same flair as this fine piece of work --

The Hotel Cavalier

Seeing as they don't rent as a hotel anymore, but as an SRO, and one of few still operating in Manhattan, perhaps they wanted to retool to their market. Surely they flew headway into any HPD regulations, and nothing says welcome to the Hotel Cavalier, then carpeted cement, corrugated steel, and a handy pay phone located right out front. I miss these browbeaten sites of downscaled, home-shabbed, and thoroughly shantytown DIY New York architecture. And then sometimes, I don't.

"This building was constructed as a hotel in 1888 by the real estate developer George R. Read, 9 Pine St. The architect was Bassett Jones, 49 Broadway. The building was a 5-story brick structure (estimated cost $45,000) intended as a hotel with "5 families each floor, 20 in all, first floor to be used as stores." these notes thanks to NYC Signs 14th to 42nd.

One side note, Basset Jones, who designed the Cavalier, also designed the Granliden Hotel.

Posted by jmarston at 05:50 PM

February 24, 2005

Updated = Downgraded

Why, why we cry, would one think mixing the banalities of painted metal and the pseudofuturism of steel tubing be the proper REskin or route to Upscaling?

Especially with highly finished stone work & well proportioned carvings, right above it? Another backfire on a building, coming off like a cheap skirt and a dirty pair of Sketchers.

This is one of those double categories, Skins and Hatin'.

Posted by jmarston at 03:02 PM

February 23, 2005

IOC in NYC

I wrote this last year while putting together an article on why the Olympics were a helluva shitty idea for New York. In celebration of the IOC's current stay at the Plaza in New York, I've highlighted my paragraphs on the IOC here. I imagine the myriad reasons why NYC2012's plan is a terrible decision for the city is common knowledge since the rail yards deal exploded in their face last week. But TIF scandals, Manhattan stadiums, and sweetheart deals aside, the decision will come down this July, heres to hoping for Paris2012.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) was first established in 1894 at an international athletics conference convened by Baron Pierre de Coubertin. The IOC was given the sole deciding responsibility for where the Olympics were to be hosted and to whom sponsorship and endorsement rights are given. The committee currently operates under the jurisdiction of Swiss law, where it is administratively based. IOC members are chosen by the IOC president, and an 11-member executive board, there are no formal democratic procedures for election or removal from the board. Those who are selected serve until the age of 80. It has been this way since, and in spite of Congressional hearings after an elaborate system of bribery and vote buyouts surfaced around the 1996 Salt Lake City games. These investigations ended up demonstrating an integrated and elaborate system of payoffs from candidate cities’ bid committees, to IOC officials. Votes indeed are for sale, was the hymn of the IOC – and Congressional officials uncovered that bid committees vying for the Olympic, joined in the chorus. Even in the jetsam following the investigations, many host committees’s cried ‘fair game’, for most Olympic bid committees – not cities – looked to make millions off being chosen to host – from tourism, construction, food services, and real estate. Or so the hope was.

Clearly, allegations were not restricted to the Salt Lake bid, even though US investigators started there. In January of 1999, about the same time as the hearings were taking place on Capital Hill, the Toronto bid committee published a 26-page report on their bid for the ’96 games. It exhaustively documented that in 1991, while showing Olympic delegates various sporting locales, IOC officials demanded money and jewelry. Amusingly, 18 of the 69 IOC members turned in their first class tickets to visit Toronto, for cash. There were also numerous documented complaints from organizers for requests by IOC officials for extremely extravagant special favors – scholarships to Toronto schools, extraneous vacation money, four-star accommodations, etc. As the reports from the Congressional hearings into the Atlanta bid, on the heels of the abhorrent conduct of officials and bid committees in Salt Lake, the facts took on nearly comedic scales. Tales of plastic surgery, lavish trips, and 5th Ave. shopping sprees fanned out on almost all IOC members, some much more flagrant than others.

Investigators uncovered IOC executive board member Jean-Claude Ganga, who came out the biggest victor in Salt Lake’s attempt to secure the bid, Jennings notes, “…[He] was the boss of all of Africa’s national Olympic committees. $250,000 in cash, free medical treatment, scholarships for all 10 children, cosmetic surgery for his wife, knee replacement surgery for his mother-in-law and $75,000 worth of prime Utah land.” However, it wasn’t conjecture that the Salt Lake committee knew what each IOC member had a fondness for (Ganga was by no means alone is his prizes, perchance just the magnitude). Salt Lake bid officials had hired public relations guru Patricia Rosenbrock. Exposed for selling her PR services to bid committees worldwide, she had constructed a database on each IOC board member, cataloging their tastes and personalities in order for bid committees to backhander them with the ‘perfect’ accoutrements. The file, as it released, looked like a psychoanalytic chart – likes comments on her beauty, shopping sprees, and nice jewelry. He enjoys good land deals, first class eco-tours, and spending cash. She had done it successfully for Sydney and would end up doing it successfully for Salt Lake, getting them the bid they so coveted.

Marques de Samaranch, the former sports minister for General Franco of fascist Spain, was president of the IOC for 19 years, until he ultimately resigned following the Congressional investigations into the Salt Lake scandal. Samaranch had turned the IOC into an out-and-out gentlemen’s club of close associates – an ex-head of the South Korean CIA, a former member of the Stasi, and Boris Yeltsin’s former private tennis coach, Shamil Tarpishev. One of the most disquieting episodes that arose from further investigations into Samaranch’s unbecoming appointments was on one particular IOC member (in addition to being a executive member of the World Track and Field Committee), Bob Hasan (formerly Kian Seng) of Indonesia. For many IOC insiders it was common knowledge, notwithstanding closet knowledge, that President Samaranch had a soft spot for dictators. But it was his choice of Bob Hasan, under the gentle recommendation of General Suharto, which was too many, unequivocally reprehensible. Under the blood-spattered reign of Suharto, Bob Hasan was the Trade and Industry Minister, managing to amass over 3 billion dollars in personal fortune from a long list of ‘development schemes’, unsurprisingly in cahoots with a number of large American corporations.

In addition to stacking the board with questionable figures, Samaranch transformed the Olympics into a corporate cash cow, opening them in 1983 to company sponsorship, which was notably in opposition to his presidential predecessor’s wishes. Avery Brundage, IOC president previous Samaranch, had organized the ‘Protection of the Olympic Emblems’ to stop the games from being overly exploited by sponsorship and advertising. As Bill Shaikin notes, “The IOC itself earns money by marketing products with Olympic symbols world wide and pockets additional profits from the payments of television networks and corporate sponsors.” A veritable explosion of licensing and merchandising came back in the 80’s when Samaranch opened them up to endorsement and sponsorship, making the Olympic brand an absolute bonanza of big money. The current figures more than speak for themselves. For the Atlanta Games of 1996, the IOC gave Coca-Cola sole ownership of the flame and GM sponsorship for domestic trucks (huh?), with 30 luminous monsters rolling through the opening ceremony alone. In fact, to purchase space for a company logo on a medal stand in the 2002 or 2004 games, costs over $55 million – 10 times what it cost in 1984. In 1988 nine corporate sponsors paid $100 million for marketing rights, at the 1996 Atlanta games this cost $4 billion. NBC recently spent $3.5 billion, in a deal with the IOC, for broadcasting rights to all summer and winter games from 2000 to 2008.

Posted by jmarston at 06:42 PM | Comments (2)

February 18, 2005

Upscaling

Februrary figures put the average price for Class-A* office space in Lower Manhattan's Financial District at about $33 per square foot, and Class-A office space in the Midtown/Grand Central District of Manhattan at $57 a square foot. This hot-hot a-go-go real estate market has sparked alot of interesting (& nauseating) Skin and Entrance upscales on existing structures; with owners hoping to lure higher paying leasees while trying to compete with the explosion of new Class-A construction.

So let it be announced, Transfer begins another new era in architectural browbeating, Skins. They'll be some crossover heat with Hatin', but surely there will be equal measure of good and bad.

Architects Moed de Armas & Shannon are big at Reskinning and Retooling existing structures in the Midtown area to get higher paying tenants into older buildings. Big proponents of glass casing and transluscent accenting, with splashy entrances. Moed have made a mint modernizing elder 1940's stone behemoths and mid-1960's brick bores with slick casings and even glossier entrances.

Two current Moed projects presently taking shape in Midtown are the reskinning of the Hippodrome, and the newly completed entrance at 350 Madison Ave, which will include a reskinning as well.

This is the squat Hippodrome, this little tart in the process of its fierce reskinning.

Hippodrome getting reskinned 02/2005

Old and new skin.

New and old skin detail.

Moed de Armas & Shannon next project, of which only the entrance is complete, is an upscaling of 350 Madison, which looks like any other boring brown brick office building, remarkable in its unexceptional presence. Interestingly enough, the old tenant of 350 is Condé Nast, who headquartered there before they got their hot new digs at 4 Times Square. Fox and Fowle's awesome 48-story LEED masterpiece. So, doing what any good building owner would after losing your main money, they applied for an addition, a project by SOM to add 26 stories to the structure. Thakfully it was killed in 2001. SOM, proud whores to corporate philandering, are always utilizing the sorcery of their fallen angel, David Childs, to build Monstrosities all around town (and the planet). Nothing as bad as the hideous Worldwide Plaza on Manhattan's westside, mind you, or surely nothing as bad as Child's Bastardization of Libeskind's freedom tower, but I wouldn't put it past them to outperform themselves.

Corner of 46th and Madison.

From Madison.

The completed entrance modification is quite good. Has that whole smokey-glass translucent-slick-schtick going. Translucent is what mirrors were in the 70's, currently the most popular option (where available) in opening up small spaces.

Here you can see the flooring whose cubes glow your path right up, its a nice use of the small shaftway between the buildings where Graydon Carter probably used to park his vintage MG while Vanity Fair was still a tenant.

So be sure to back with Transfer's Skins category to keep up with all your upscaling gossip. We'll be sure to report ole 350's continuing presence on the reskin scene.

*Class “A” Space – The most prestigious buildings competing for premier office users with rents above average for the area. These buildings have high quality standard finishes, state of art systems, exceptional accessibility and a definite market presence. (Source: CB Richard Ellis)

Posted by jmarston at 03:05 PM

February 10, 2005

Rooftop Housing & Rooftop Gardens

Here at Transfer, its not always about Hatin' New York City's garbage architecture. There are in fact millions of things to love here in the dirty apple. Sometimes, yes, once in a while it even seems appropriate to talk about them, if only as a talking point to why there aren't enough examples of lovable architecture.

Take rooftop housing for instance. Here are two examples from the Transfer archive that demonstrate the kind of imaginative implementation of residential architecture so Uncommmon in these parts lately.

Of course everyone knows the Brilliant application of Rooftop architecture that is SHOP's Porter House in the meatpacking district...

Mayor Daley (yes a Daley is still in power) of Chicago has made it has hallmark to 'green' the city with LEED buildings and the like... But his most interesting, remarkable, and applaudable contribution has been his push for rooftop gardens. In perfect political grace, Daley put the first rooftop garden on a municpal building, by constructing one on top of City Hall. Hanging gardens of Babylon? Not yet...

In addition to the spatial and aesthetic benefits, the environmental impacts are lovable... "green roofs reduce stormwater runoff, insulate buildings leading to lower energy use, clean the air, and control local climate, lessening the formation of smog." According to a Chicago city official, "the city expects to save $4,000 per year in cooling and heating the building due to the insulating capability of a green roof." In addition, "Green roofs can last fifty to a hundred years as opposed to a fifteen-year roof,"

Here is the City of Chicago's Guide to Rooftop Gardening and Penn State Center for Green Roof Research.

Posted by jmarston at 10:15 AM | Comments (2)

February 09, 2005

NYC2012

Some quotes, fodder, in prep of the forthcoming short history of IOC bid city corruption I'm posting here at Transfer. A prep as IOC reps head to NYC for their final appraisal next month. The host city for the 2012 Olympics will be chosen in July of this year.

“Geography is too important to be left to geographers. But it is far too important to be left to generals, politicians, and corporate chiefs. Notions of ‘applied’ and ‘relevant’ geography pose questions of objectives and interests served. The selling of ourselves and the geography we make to the corporation is to participate directly in making their kind of geography, a human landscape riven with social inequality and seething geopolitical tensions.” –David Harvey

“The Atlanta boys had studied the Olympics blueprint. First, choose a neighborhood with no sports venues. Set up your committee of politicians and businessmen and announce your Olympic campaign, motivated by love of country and municipality… Talk a lot about Olympic Idealism…Pass dream laws giving yourself power to seize property for commercial redevelopment – in the public interest. Mix public and private money, divide up the contracts between your friends. Get rich.” -Andrew Jennings

The Olympics would “trigger a cataclysmic change in an area that’s essentially worthless”
-Daniel L. Doctoroff New York Times, November 3, 2002

“It’s a working class neighborhood and a service neighborhood. The fact that there are garages, carpentry shops or auto showrooms does not mean that they are expendable.”
-Simone Sindin, Chairwomen of Community Board 4 New York Times, November 3, 2002

“Neighborhood by neighborhood, land use vacancies and re-zoning are created to make more room for luxury housing and office space without forethought to the comprehensive impact on our cities total economic base” -Hell’s Kitchen South: Developing Strategies.

Posted by jmarston at 12:19 PM

Happy Chinese New Year

Year of The Cock

It appears as if we're screwed (i'm a '76 baby, 1976 that is) with Bush's newest illidea to pump the remaining shards of social security into the stock market. the last vestiges of the New Deal, collapsed by Rove-ing plutocrats. i thought this qoute was well on point...

“Market ideology assures us that human beings make a mess of it when they try to control their destinies and that we are fortunate in possessing an interpersonal mechanism – the market – which can substitute for human hubris and planning and replace human decisions altogether. We only need to keep it clean and well oiled, and it now – like the monarch so many centuries ago – will see to us and keep us in line.” – Fredric Jameson

Posted by jmarston at 11:26 AM

December 17, 2004

Hiatus

The sun is setting on this chapter of Transfer, as I won't be posting for a month or so, but I'll be back, I hope you will too. The site will be even bigger and badder. Till Then...

Posted by jmarston at 12:43 PM | Comments (1)

December 16, 2004

2004 In Music

My postings here have fallen off some, they will return to their Normally Scheduled Levels in the new year.

Onward to the, boom-boom-boom, Best of 2004 Music List. Now this is only the full length top 10, as I couldn't possibly back track through every 12 inch & list them here...

1. Black Dice: Creature Comforts

Nothing argues better for New York's relevance then this sublime slab of vinyl. Earth noise for Feral Animists. Beaches and Canyons was good, This is Great. Creature Comforts (or as I have come to label it, Where the Wild Things Are) expertly plods through forests of sinuous noise, bubbling and popping with organic life, warm but gritty - not too thick. With it's textured meanderings and interplays, its an epic piece of the animist puzzle, spelunking between the cracks of disparate outputs without making us hoof it through requisite ironies and platitudes. Sadly, this is the last recording featuring percussionist Hisham Bharoocha, perhaps this played a factor... As MF Doof says, All that glitters isn't fish scales.


2. Fennesz: Venice

The Austrian Jimi Hendrix of lap-toppery came back this year with a much more subdued exploration of his otherworldly sonics, but oh-so-pleasing nonetheless. Warm textures with enveloping waves of boundless sound, its gaze firmly horizonless. One of the most important figures in electronic music evidenced by this stunning edition to the Fennesz lexicon. Long rule the unrivaled Touch label.


3. Animal Collective: Sung Tungs

More Feral Animists from New York. Another etch in this groups brilliant totem of earthly shaminism, with depth, color, and a decidedly brighter vocal sheen on this journey. Hand it to UK based FatCat for continuing to release top musics, bringing this sound to the much wider audience it so heartfully deserves. F'in important music. Thanks for the intro JB.


4. The Streets: A Grand Don't Come For Free

What more can be said about Mike Skinner that hasn't already? Kid put together everything on the A Grand Don't Come for Free, his sophmore effort, and has nearly topped his hugely celebrated debut. Brilliant. If you haven't watched the banned Blinded by The Lights video, its sadly accurate accompaniment to achingly beautiful song. Mmmmmashed.


5. Bochum Welt: Kissing A Robot Goodbye

Perhaps the most undercredited & underrated genius of the Richard D. James/Mike Paradinas/Tom Jenkinson/D'arcangelo school of music. It's Gianluigi Di Costanzo, and he continues to bring the amazingly deep, rich, and warm analog goodness with it's signature melodies and socking electro tinged beats. Respect is due.


6. Aphrodite's Child: 666: The Apocalypse Of

Holy Shit does this album kick ass. 70's ProgRock at its very finest. A concept album of 24 tracks, such a spectacle, you have to hear it to believe it. Originally released in 1972, it was rereleased this year, & please, all of you should indulge in this masterstroke. Perhaps the finest expression of bloated proggy genius ever.


7. Various Artists: Kompakt 100

100 releases eh Kompakt? You sexy bitch you. Chug-Chug-Chug. Kompakt asked each artist on the comp to pick their favorite track from the back catalogue and remix it. How pimp of them. Thanks Cologne, for all the wonderful music you've given us. Thanks to the visions of Wolfgang Voight, Michael Mayer, Riley Rheinhold, Mathias Schaffhäuser and others, dance music is as vital a form as ever. We owe it to that little town on the Rhine, do we ever.


8. Slowdive: Catch The Breeze

I will never love a conventional rock outfit, as much as I love Slowdive. They came right at that moment in youth where a band is forever yours. This two disc set takes songs from their 3 full lengths, & comes highly reccomended to those who don't want to track down the Creation releases - which can be difficult to find these days. My old roommate from Minneapolis, Jesse Ross, introduced me to Slowdive, and went schitzophrenic 2 years later. I want to thank him & wish him well.


9. Masta Ace: A Long Hot Summer

Skilled hip-hop that bypasses the bling, and circumnavigates the suburban backpack bunch - Masta has to be the most underrated NYC MC. An original member of the legendary Juice Crew, he's been around for quite along time, although the fickle media has kept him just under the radar. A prolific mic controller who recruits the fabulous 9th Wonder (of Little Brother), for one of the years best singles, "Good Ol Love" - and a fantastic album to boot.


10. Mr Vegas: Pull Up

Mr. Vegas, in my opinion, had the dancehall single of the year with "Pull Up", which Lil' Jon remixed late last summer (in addition to the burner of a hit "Under Mi Sensi"), all of which appear here on his big Stateside Splash via Delicious Vinyl. He's a talented singjay and a serious toaster, who manages to astonish time and again. There will be much more from this seminal Jamican talent, as dancehall continues to fatten the American pop diet. I mean, who could make crotch rockets sound so cool, but a fellow they call Mr. Vegas, Big UP!


>>Also this year: Ricardo Villalobos, John Fahey, Brian Eno, Madvillain, Death From Above 1979, Moodyman, Excepter, The Roots, The Arcade Fire, Dead Texan, Pete Rock.

Posted by jmarston at 12:14 PM | Comments (2)

December 06, 2004

DFA '79

Holy Shit. I saw Death From Above 1979 at Rothko Sat night. Rock. Hard. So F'in Hard. A two piece, that has the tightly wound energy and destructive force of a 4 piece, or more. This ups the bar. Way up. Jesse Keeler & Sebastien Grainger have done it, broken any pansy dreams at rocking, by rocking harder, with less. Its hard not to gush on and on as their live performance is so expert. The Glory of their hutzpah is amped by Jesse's ability to play his guitar with such density, like a TB-303 at times... for Sebastien's ability to structure the building energy with percision, drumming and vocalizing in tandem, into exponential bursts. It makes you want to explode.

Gotta hand it to Vice Records, I'd thought they'd peaked themselves by getting The Streets (Mike Skinner - who is nothing short of brilliant). But they have. Damn them. I'm sorry I'm so late in jumping on this wagon, by the looks of Saturday's turnout, the Big Bang is near. Dropping a bomb on Rothko Sat night would have wiped out New York's scruffy male hipster population, at once. I'm beginning to feel patriotic about this pair of Canadians.

Posted by jmarston at 10:08 AM | Comments (1)

November 23, 2004

Bloggerville Musics

Gotta thank the MP3 bloggin' massive for pointing me in the direction of some new (to me) & amazing music. Although not in the realm of electronic per se (or obscure workings thereof) - 'cause frankly I've been trying to get my hair unstuck. Maybe thats what Fall does. Although, speaking of which, the new Johann (even according to the wildly inane navel gazers at Pitchfork) on Touch is phenomen-onal. But I really needed some new music, singer/songwriter party Americana, and the past week has delivered some gems. I can't tap out enough keys in praise these three...

1. Shearwater
2. Grizzly Bear
3. United States of Electronica

There are some really amazing folks putting together some pretty cool MP3 blogs out there...

I've mentioned this one before, but I have a huge heart for the music of West Africa - Senegal & Mali particularly - so another deserving pitch for Benn Loxo du Taccu.

Part of the Stylus online magazine, StyPOD, posts from everywhere on the gamut of interesting music, even guesting writers for the column. Great stuff.

He's always putting together interesting posts, on the history, or situation of some London Massive music. From Coil to Dizzee. A big pitch for Gutterbreakz.

Anyone that loves Goodie Mob (with CeeLo) is a friend of mine... Old school and new school, Cocaine Blunts.

A fantastic hip hop blog who declares today, "Television is like what music will become- too available to need a review." Stroll over, Hip Hop Blogs.

A big player, who gave the best ODB RIP of anyone I read in blogland... The Tofu Hut. This fellow has the Sam Prekop pre-release, nuff said, Scissorkick. Great crate digger, from all over the place, lately Peru, Soul Sides. And the more electronic focused, Dozer.

Oh Lord, I've always hated the NYTimes weddings section, if you've ever seen them, you'd hate them yourself - the blogger in question has put it well: "superficial, pretentious, pseudo-aristocratic vanity". This blogger has taken the section, and all those annoying people that put their Vows in the paper, to task - with hilarious percision. So Funny, Veiled Conceit.

Posted by jmarston at 10:27 AM

November 17, 2004

To Minneapolis, With Love

Because I’ve spent so much time there, formative time, and even more so because my parents have left the area (for FL), I have a strong affinity to the simultaneously Forward and Backward thinking of Minneapolis. Especially in terms of it’s Urban & Architectural Heritage & Vision. I’ve been living in Brooklyn, watching from afar, that scraggy cosmo town on the cold windswept prairie. Making both great Advances, and continuing with myopic blunders. It is from that, and from here, that I write this love letter.

Minneapolis is a northern Midwest river town. Not quite a Great Lakes city, not quite a gateway of westward expansion. Owing itself to one of the 19th century’s greatest economic engines, the Mississippi, it was incorporated in 1856 with a population of only 1555, but grew to a population of 143,000 by 1887. It did so, nearly single handedly, by harnessing St. Anthony Falls to become the country’s leading flour producer, with the great mills of Pillsbury and Gold Medal Flour.

St Anthony Falls & The Stonearch Bridge

The Twin Cities are HQ for such biggies as 3M, Cray/SGI, US Bank, Honeywell, UofM, Prince, Target, Wellstone [RIP], Replacements, Medtronic, the world’s first heart transplant, and the Walker Art Center. Minneapolis is home to a theatre district that claims more theatre seats, per capita, then New York City. Home to a huge Scandinavian population & a long-standing African American community, it has also has become homestead for Somalis, the Hmong (on lead from Lutheran churches) & more recently, immigrants from Mexico. Yet its population sits at 370 thousand – less then the 540 thousand that lived there in 1950.

It sold the largest street car network in the country, to Mexico City, and bought into General Motors bus racket. The Gateway Project, as it was dubbed, cleared more blocks for 1960’s urban renewal than any other US City. Having long suffered, from being unhindered by natural boundaries, it has lost dollars upon dollars to the suburbs - for it seems a millenia. Is it any wonder the first totally enclosed shopping mall, Southdale, was built in a suburb outside Minneapolis?

Edina, MN

Yet, it has had a picturesque capturing of the right industries – technology and creative – which translated to a boom at the right time, in the harsh transition away from small farms and Great Lakes Region union factory jobs.

Perhaps it was the ability of boosters to always differentiate the "Twin Cities" from definitions of other regional midwestern cities. It has always seemed more Copenhagen or Stolkholm - than St. Louis. A northern outpost, but never on par with the gritty mine towns of the Iron Range, or the harsh lumber towns that built Paul Bunyan. By any standard the Twin Cities are huge, in geographic circumference, but the metro area tops just over 2 million persons. Making it still a mostly suburban 2nd-tier Midwestern metro. But with the cosmopolitan sheen of Northern Europe, & just enough gritty urban imagination to be resolutely Great Lakes.

The perfect combo for young creative dreamers who dot the Midwest, abandoning their seemingly simpleton small town upbringings for the regional heart of commerce in the tri-state area – which always makes for interesting culture.

Now the lofts have come to downtown, and Fingerhut is trying its damnedest to shut down First Avenue. Crime rates still heat the poor neighborhoods, and Minneapolis police are still notoriously bad despite media attention. While suburban aggregation eats the surrounding farmland at gargantuan rates - and the sucking sound continues.

But these issues aside, amazing new projects arise. Minneapolis’s Int’l Airport, MSP, (Northwest Airlines HQ’s), was just expanded and enlarged, and will be connected to downtown by, *finally*, the Hiawatha Light Rail Transit line. The Minneapolis Park System is the largest of its kind in the world – 6500 acres – with a record 15 million visitors in 1999. The Guthrie is closely approaching the completion of their Jean Nouvel masterpiece on the Mississippi, a new Central Library by Cesar Pelli (who also did the delightful Deco Norwest Center), and of course the newly expanded Walker Art Center, by Herzog & de Meuron.

Walker by Herzog

Guthrie by Nouvel

Library by Pelli

Yet you read articles like this, from the Star Tribune, about wholly uncompromising boards and remarkably impetuous design reviews. Only to be expected when it comes to residential architecture, this leads to my biggest gripe with Minneapolis, density & residential construction.

"The firm's all-glass design for Parc Centrale, a 21-story "Vancouver-style" residential tower in Loring Park, went down in flames this fall after a slew of neighbors opposed the height. It has redesigned the project as a six-story building inspired by the nearby classical Loring Park Office Building."

Admittedly most of the city center neighborhoods are many times beautiful, home of some of the finest residential examples of Prairie, Shingle, Richardson Romanesque, and Chateuesque homes – not to mention the fine-looking Queen Annes in South Minneapolis, and the eclectic Lake of the Isles. Yet Minneapolis residents beg for investment in areas like the Phillips neighborhood. Indeed loft conversation & construction continues, catering to returning wealthy suburbanites or child less professionals. A start, but a very one-dimensional development scheme.

A plea, to Minneapolis, to recognize your great feats as a city, as a Midwestern jewel of forward architecture and economics, and lay off the petrol, and retro low density housing, cause I miss not coming home to her over the holidays.

I love prairie construction – but let’s try it in row home form, and condo towers, lets look at metro planning more. Take a chance on moving beyond those great blunders of the past – and embrace a vision of residential living, that is architecturally and urbanistically intelligent.

Posted by jmarston at 04:57 PM | Comments (4)

November 03, 2004

Values and Vancouver

BC is looking really very nice this afternoon.

All of the post-election coverage has been focused on the issue of values. Values a