Good Article

See, I told you architecture matters:

Revolting High Rises by Christopher Caldwell

Moynihan Station: Not Quite There

Yesterday, New Jersey Transit announced that they would become a tenant at the new Moynihan Station west of current Penn Station. While this is great news for the development (after all, what's a station without any transit?), this just falls short of everything Moynihan Station could be. Amtrak, this summer, already declined to be the anchor of the station, and the LIRR decided to stay put in Penn Station as well. I'm not going to delve into any Jersey-bashing, this isn't about that. NJ Transit is important to New York. This demonstrates the fact that New Jersey, whether we like it or not, is crucial to the development of Manhattan.

When Moynihan Station was first announced, I was excited by the fact that New York would once again have a great, beautiful train hub on the West Side. I've only seen old Penn Station in pictures, but I know that today's Penn Station is a disaster in comparison to its once glorious days as a symbol of the city. The problem with Moynihan Station as it is now planned is that it would only contain one mode of extraurban transit. The station will not be a hub, but instead an endpoint for NJ Transit. The benefit of having several modes of transit in one place is that this adds to the "usability" of a city. It is not only convenient to house Amtrak, New Jersey Transit, LIRR, and the subway in one location, but it creates a new place for some sort of social gathering among people from all over who share at least one thing in common: Manhattan, and the commute to Moynihan Station.

Travel Hack #1,563

Tired of being in some fabulous new city and, despite your best efforts, you get laughed at because of your unavoidable tourist tendencies? Next time, try this: bring a dog. If you have a dog on a leash, everyone will think you're a local. No tourist has a dog.

Don't have a dog? Borrow one. I'm sure you know someone with a pooch he or she can part with for a bit. Steal your neighbor's dog. I don't care.

Try this. It just can't fail.

My New City

Inspired by a podcast by Merlin Mann over at 43folders, here are a few things that I would want in my new city:

• Affordable housing
• Mixed neighborhoods
• Sidewalks that are just wide enough...not too big, not too small
• A kickass light rail system
  
• Walking! Everybody walking!
• Friendly shop owners and clerks
• Specialty stores galore
• A balance of natural beauty and built beauty

What do you want in your new city?

Venezia

I wasn't expecting to love Venice as much as I did. Its charm cast a spell over me, what can I say? I've heard a lot of bad things about Venice- people saying it's too overrun by tourists, that it's dirty and poorly maintained. In my trip, these issues did not overwhelm the beauty of the city. Yeah, there were tourists, and I guess it was dirty, but the city was just too beautiful for those things to matter. Maybe it's because I'm used to the dirtiness of Florence (you can see the pollution on the duomo), or maybe I just lucked out with my timing by going at the end of October.

I think what I liked about Venice was its ability to manage modernity without abandoning its past. It helped that the biggest activity I did was attend La Biennale, a great contemporary art show. I think what else is also the key to Venice is its inability to ever really modernize. It's a city of canals. Yeah, you can put motorboats on those canals, but motorboats are nowhere near the annoynce level of traffic and noise with cars and scooters.

But then again, I was in Venice for about thirty hours. The three times I had visited Florence before being here for a semester, I didn't see a single flaw. Now I do. I'm sure it's the same way with Venice. With any city, really. But, in the end, its the flaws that give our cities character, and it's the flaws that give us something to work towards.