On Sun, 29 Dec 2002, Trei, Peter wrote:
> > R. A. Hettinga[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] wrote:
> >
> >
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > Hash: SHA1
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> > I wonder what people, especially from New York City, think about the
> > new proposals for Lower Manhattan and World Trade Center site that
> > came out this week.
> >
> > <http://www.lowermanhattan.info/rebuild/new_design_plans/>
> >
> >
> My qualifications: I lived in NYC when I was a little kid, and in
> Manhattan from the end of college until I moved to Massachusetts
> 14 years ago.
Qualifications:
Born and raised in NYC. Was a full-time, original occupant in
Battery Park City (across the street from WTC) for about three years, kept
part-time digs there until the early 90's. I was married on the roof of 1
WTC, and my new bride managed to barf all over it when the building swayed in
the wind unexpectedly (for her - I was quite used to it).
Background discussion:
I remember the early still-birth of WTC, and I remember it's
"completion" (a non-thing if ever there was one). I vividly remember the
pain that WTC brought to NYC with it's collossal footprint and complete
disregard for everything that was not WTC. I remember the WTC
"community" [Battery Park City] being born: White Flight and Nothing Else.
WTC was, in spite of it's disregard for everything non-WTC, still a
very New York kind of place. It's core was the Art of Stark
Efficiency. From the design of the towers themselves to the layout of the
cities beneath them, the place just screamed efficiency. No corner was
unnecessarily adorned when the "beauty of efficient use" could make a
statement on it's own behalf. Efficiency was *everywhere*: Path trains
terminating New Jersey commuter runs in the basement; local (to WTC) police
departments; food concourse layout which maximized retail space while
minimizing walking to it; elevators which were sorted and laid out for best
use of resources; interconnections of *everything* in a maze of tunneling
that not even a drunk could get truly lost in... Obviously, a city so
hell-bent on maximum-use and unadorned sterile efficiency would be offended
by many of the proposed rebuilds. I know I am.
Individual Projects:
Project: Foster And Partners - The Weird Crystalline Cathedral Thing
Assessment: Complete Loser
From the very first moment in their slide show, you just *know* these
guys are not from New York. Remember, on 9/11/2001, the very day of the
actual collapse, every single New Yorker I know was already cracking jokes
about the now defunct towers. This is not a city filled with a lot of tear
jerking philosophical moments where the band strikes up a warm melody for you
to cry over. This is the Efficiency Capitol Of The Universe, where dead
towers need to be cleared out, NOW GODDAMNIT, because they are BLOCKING
TRAFFIC.
They start out with this big, well, *huge* dreary memorial that
nobody in the city of New York is going to give a rats ass about (of course,
the politicians will just love it all to hell and back). I'll even go as far
as to predict that within five years of it's opening that memorial would
specialize in muggings and rapes after 6:00pm.
As we move on into our preview, we find this really strange
growing-thing overlooking what seems to me to be a cheap imitation of the
Vietnam Wall. The building itself is just *awful*: a kind of cross between a
strand of DNA trying to grow into something useful, and an echo of the now
DEAD towers trying to reassert their existence. Neither works. The original
towers are dead - let it go. The Crystalline Catherdral begs us to make
penance to it - to somehow go and seek it out for some kind of worship to the
past. Again, neither of these work. New Yorkers are not likely to give a
rats ass. In summation, the building itself has an intolerable ego, and the
"memorial" is disgusting in it's pompous disregard for the facts of life in
the city it is supposed to be *living* in.
Project: SOM, SANAA, et al. - The Vertical City <groans>
Assessment: Please take this project to Los Angelos, where it belongs.
First, allow me to give credit where credit is really due here. This
team has actually managed to capture what the WTC ended up becoming, although
not what it was originally envisioned as being. That said, this project is,
unfortunately, still a complete loss - may it rest in peace, FOREVER.
Starting in slide 3 we get what this team is all about, with the
quotation "The city, as one finds it in history, is the point of maximum
concentration for the power and culture of a community". And they'll be
Goddamned if They are going to have to SHARE it with anyone outside of the
[new] WTC. Yeah. Riiighhht... I hate to be the one to break the news to
these guys, but one of the very few things that makes New York actually WORK,
is the free and open dissemination of The Arts (whatever the hell that
is). It's our ability to go wherever the hell we want, and look at whatever
the hell we want, without some guy with a machine gun telling me I am not an
Authorized Visitor to these here "artsy facilities" (soon to be the New and
Improved WTC). Strike one.
In Slide 4, we are told how"the vertical city will be xperienced at
many levels" (the visual making the not at all subtle point that "levels"
here refers solely to vertical distance from the ground), "... a dense
choreography of commuters, New Yorkers, and memorial visitors". Well, at
least they got the order of importance right, huh? This project will never
have ANY "dense choreography" of peoples, as it will be a fortress. Want to
take odds at how much DNA you'll need to leave at the door in order to just
ride an elevator? This design is about power, and it's visible separation
from those who do not weild it directly. Ironically, these are the very same
issues which brought the original towers down in the first place.
Just because they went to the trouble of designing a building for
this nightmare, I suppose I should comment on it as well: In short, it is
everything that it's surrounding city, and former [WTC] buildings were
not: ungainly, flashy, efficient, and, most importantly, the property of
EVERYONE.
Project: THINK - The Simple Update To The Dead Towers
Assessment: This one might fly: I just wish they'd dump the theme park.
True to both the old WTC and the city which hosted it, this is a
simple, clean, and glaringly efficient design. In fact, it's essentially the
same design we started out with, just tweaked here and there to bring it a
little bit current. The fact that the old WTC had several million feet too
many has not been lost on this design team either - it's just been
conveniently ignored, in the finest of New York traditions :-)
From the beginning, we see that this team is willing to reuse
existing resources without scrapping the entire area to start over - this is
a very big plus when you realize how long the build will actually take, and
the tremendously unpleasant consequences of the build on the surrounding
"communities". New York has already rerouted a gargantuan amount of
pedestrian and vehicular traffic in order to accomodate the old WTC, and I
personally appreciate the new design team using this to minimize my future
pain.
The updates features of this design include many of the things that I
bitched about in other designs: open area "theatre" facilities (which will
without doubt be made good use of); open access to every area that cannot
inherently justify closure to the public; the deliberate placing of
"cultural" areas such as parks, stores, etc., in places which cannot be
easily closed to the public, etc. I do want to state up front though - I
think the "Cultural Center" towers are ButtFuck Ugly, and I wish they'd
reconsider the exterior look. Again, you need to have this project integrate
with it's surroundings in order to work.
This design IS the city it lives in. I am also sure that it drives
the non-New-Yorker out of his or her mind with it's simple reuse
design. Don't like it? Too f**ing bad. The people making all the wailing
noises don't actually have to LIVE in New York - they commute from the Safe
White Neighborhoods, and as such, their vote simply doesn't count (with me).
Project: Richard Meier - The Waffle House / TIC-TAC-TOE design.
Assessment: You really NEED me to say this out loud? I didn't think so...
The first time I saw this "proposal", I was laughing so hard I
couldn't see straight. Now, it's not so funny. These guys have some serious
drugs, and they are NOT sharing...
What exactly is the point of this design?
It doesn't integrate into the surrounding area. For that matter, it
doesn't integrate into the known universe.
It's ugly. I mean, REALLY, *TRULY* UGLY.
It will actuall *hurt* the surrounding city areas by blocking light
from many angles, and imposing it's obscene "presence" on everything within
several miles.
This dog has got to die. Period.
Project: United Architects - The Weepy Cathedral, Redux.
Assessment: Would do well in Chicago - they should try remarketing it there.
This is a vast religious and paternal panorama of weepy
"remembrances" that just will not fly here. New York is not a place where
you beg Daddy to Watch Over You (the basic theme of this design). It is a
place where you go out, do your own thing, and get your ass kicked if you
open your big mouth in an inappropriate venue.
I am deeply offended by this design. I mean it: genuinely offended -
and that takes a LOT of work. If they build this, I will personally take up
the collection plate for the next Human Guided Missile Attack.
From the "Sacred Places" of "filtered light" with "a curtain of
protective united towers" where "the pilgrimmage is complete", yada, yada,
yada... Spare me. Praise the Lord, and pass the Ammo - if they build this
monument to American Soap Operas then they DESERVE to be nuked.
Project: Studio Daniel Libeskind
Assessment: Shoot this "architect", and do it soon.
Yet another "protective filter" with "precise timing" of "the event",
etc. Hey look - these people are DEAD. Let it GO.
This design would be even more insulting and offensive than the one
from United Architects were it not for the very obvious: this "design" is
really just an blatant attempt to grab as much of the money as quickly as
possible before someone notices. AT least he's acting as a True American
Hero in his greed and corruption. For proof positive, let's take a quick
look at the notes scrawled on his "presentation":
Slide 2: We see the Lady In The Water With The Torch. Ahhh yes,
gotta get that All Amerikkkan Jingoist blood flowing before we start reaching
for the Sacred Wallet, right?
Slide 3 through 7: We get treated to hand scrawled notes like
"1776"; "Protective Filter and Open Access to Hallowed Ground" [hallowed
ground? Spare me.]; "Heroes Park", etc., etc.... Reading these first few
slides made me want to puke. Or get a job with this guy, since this crap
might actually win...
Project: Peterson/Littenberg - The Neo-New York WTC
Assessment: Has a chance. Tied with THINK.
My biggest complaint with this one is that it looks like a bigger
badder version of the Chrysler Building. Let it be itself, there's no need
to try and outdo some other already magnificent work.
I like the reuse of space and form, as I have expressed above in my
review of THINK, and I appreciate that there is a lesser amount of Hero
Bullshit spread over this design (all the better to slide down the gullet of
the Men With Money Who Want To Give Speeches On The New WTC Deck).
I like the tighter integration of the surrounding structures than the
other designs attempt, and I appreciate, in a slightly twisted kind of way,
the nod to it's forebears, the original WTC in its side-by-side dualism.
In short, this design "feels" New York'ey, whatever that is deep
down. It's simple, easy, has the necessary number of bells and whistles
required to get someone to cut a check, and overall, I would like to see them
try and integrate this witht THINK and come out with a real live winner for
the rebuild.
Closing Notes.
I am not one of the people who has been convinced that the WTC
actually *needs* rebuilding. It was never able to support it's own financial
weight, and never supposted anyhting in the community either (including
Battery Park City which went off in it's own direction). I am convinced we
will do it however, if for no other reason than to provide good Pork for the
Slime We Elect To Positions Of Power.
I trust this has answered your curiosity though...
--
Yours,
J.A. Terranson
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
If Governments really want us to behave like civilized human beings, they
should give serious consideration towards setting a better example:
Ruling by force, rather than consensus; the unrestrained application of
unjust laws (which the victim-populations were never allowed input on in
the first place); the State policy of justice only for the rich and
elected; the intentional abuse and occassionally destruction of entire
populations merely to distract an already apathetic and numb electorate...
This type of demogoguery must surely wipe out the fascist United States
as surely as it wiped out the fascist Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
The views expressed here are mine, and NOT those of my employers,
associates, or others. Besides, if it *were* the opinion of all of
those people, I doubt there would be a problem to bitch about in the
first place...
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