I Heart....New York State?

Not that tourism commercials ever make sense, but the latest from the New York State tourism board make even less sense.
It takes the "I Love New York" song made famous by the post-9/11 commercial (okay, that tourism commercial made sense) and jazzes it up and plays it in the background. The infamous I[heart]NY logo is on the lower left corner. Yet in the entirety of the commercial, the city is not shown at all. It is all shots of golf games, beaches, boats, and the tooliest of tools, Governor Pataki proclaiming, "I love New York in the summer!"

I understand that the rest of the state is plenty pretty and great and all, but the logo has always and will always mean New York City and the "I Love New York" song will always symbolize a city coming together after devastation saying that it's still the place to be.

To tie this back to urban policy, this just shows that Pataki could give two shits about the city. No wonder why he constantly stiffs city agencies such as the MTA in his budgets.

Ultra Rich? Try Ultra Gentrification

In this week's New York Magazine, there's an interesting article about what they call the ultra rich. It's a bit long, so I'll sum it up: In New York, there is a growing number of super-rich people, and their lifestyle "requires" certain things such as chauffeurs, private jet transportation, and $19 hot dogs. Thus, the article says that the top 1% of the New York rich sustain about 153,000 service jobs, and many of these jobs receive six figures.

Now I have a lot of problems with this. Of course, the article doesn't just say this is the greatest thing to happen to New York ever, but it understates how much it really affects the makeup of the city. The ultimate effect will be a sort of super-gentrification of the city. Nothing will be affordable any more because the rich will just keep driving real estate prices upwards, as well as everyday goods (the CPI here has been growing at a rate 30% faster than the rest of the country, according to this article). So what people see and love in the vibrancy and life of Manhattan will no longer be attainable by average joes.

This, as the article explains, creates New York outposts, former edge cities now drawing like-minded people who want the New York experience but can no longer afford it. What is unfortunate though, is however many restaurants, parks, or urban-hip dwellers Hoboken might get, it will never get the cultural advantage that Manhattan enjoys today.

Why? First of all, New York simply just has a historical advantage. It takes many years to develop a vibrant city culture. Plus, who do you think supports things like the Metropolitan Museum and the New York Philharmonic? The super-rich.

So New York does need them. We need them for supporting our culture and their creation of jobs (though we can't stop there with job creation, but that's another post). But to bring back a point I have made several times, all this luxury housing is just making New York harder and harder to live in, and is taking away just as much culture as it may be adding. While the ultra rich may be a economic neccesity, their place in the city must be limited.

When Decent Architecture and Bad Urban Planning Collide

If you've been around the Western East Village, then you've most likely seen the Astor Place tower going up. I've been feeling very conflicted about this building for quite some time now, and I think I've figured out why. It succeeds, or seems like it will, architecturally, but fails miserably in what I (uneducated on the matter) consider to be good planning.

Architecturally, its seamless, smooth glass facades recollect those of Mies van der Rohe, while its undulation recalls Alvar Aalto's Baker House and even Auguste Perret's Rue Franklin apartment house in its attempt to get the most from its views by extending the facade's length within a certain footprint. Just down Lafayette is One Kenmare Square, a more understated version of the same idea. The window rhythms are not not simply redundant but have smaller rectangles topped by larger rectangles, and the main bulk of the building seems (or will seem, according to drawings) to float above the base.

Even so, there are just too many things wrong about this building to consider it an appropriate use of the space. First of all, look at the buildings around it. It makes no references whatsoever to the historical aspects of that site. It just dominates the older, shorter buildings that surround it. Its glass reflects the surrounding buildings, almost making a mockery of them.

Secondly is its name, simply "Astor Place." This is the name of the street. It is as if no other building on that street is significant any more. The building not only towers above everything else physically, but it erases all other Astor Place addresses.

Finally, and this is something I've been noticing more and more, is that it is luxury housing. Does the city really need any more of that? Regular housing prices have risen enough, why do we need to create places that will just drive up surrounding values as well? From a street life perspective, your typical luxury resident does not add much to the vitality of the streets. Not to generalize, but while many moderate income residents will spend a lot of time walking around their neighborhood, taking the subway, luxury residents are more likely to take taxis, personal drivers, and will be less inclined to walk around the East Village which they may find dirty or just too young for them. The emphasis here is on downtown cool without having to be too downtown, and views.

This isn't the only place where luxury housing is going up either. All over the city, loft residences are being created and sold for millions of dollars, while the waiting list for a low to moderate income project, such as Penn South can be up to twenty some odd years.

My Kind of School

So I was walking down East 22nd today and passed by The Epiphany School.

I envision a class of students just sitting around, gazing into space, then all of a sudden a student leaps up and exclaims, "Ah ha, I've got it!"

Liveblogging the Seaport

5:06- Sitting on the third floor deck of Pier 17 with free wireless.

5:10- It's really nice up here. Fairly quiet compared to the rest of the Seaport. Unfortunately a little dark for using my computer, but I'll live. Who knew I could be reclining on a chaise lounge in the middle of the city without being at some overpriced health club?

5:14- While this is great, I don't advocate it in our parks. Could you imagine Central Park full of people on their computers? Parks should be more organic than that.

5:21- These chairs are surprisingly comfortable. A group of annoying people left. Phew.

5:38- A Circle Line boat just went by, you can hear the tour guide's voice. That is all.

5:54- Just saw a Circle Line boat going in the other direction...pretty sure it wasn't the same one. Do they have a clockwise and counter-clockwise option available? If so, which is better and why?

6:00- There is always a helicopter in the air around here it seems.

6:01- I swear there's some sort of Circle Line parade. A lot of them are empty.

6:26- Back home. They like turned off the wireless or something. That was fun, I'll have to go back since I live across the street. I thoroughly recommend it, computer or not.