OCULUS: EXTRA Off the Cuff : On the Web
Updated Jan 3, 2002

DEC 2001 ENDPAPER:
by AIA New York Chapter President Margaret Helfand, FAIA
(click here for PDF version)

NOV 2001 ENDPAPER: POSTCARDS FROM NEW YORK
by Rick Bell, FAIA (click here for PDF version)

A hole in the ground of the nation's largest and most populous city. A site described as the heart of the city going back to its earliest days. The home of a major tranportation network where millions of city-dwellers and suburbanites pour into the city through the underground station. A site adjacent to the city's major financial exchanges. A site created by the destruction of extraordinary structures.

The site was Les Halles in Paris, for which in January of 1980 a jury including Diana Agrest and Philip Johnson reviewed six hundred proposals. None of these designs were built. The commercial center that today fills the hole left by the demolition of Baltard's pavillions is not much loved. The memorial is a fragment of the old marketplace, removed to La Villette.

One extraordinary entry to this competition was by Charlie Moore and the Moore Grover Harper team he graced with his wit and sparkle. They proposed a lake, a series of lagoons, islands, and interconnecting bridges. An American Venice on the Seine. The details of the scheme do not resonate at the World Trade Center. What is significant is the means of communication of its ideas.

The entry was presented as a series of postcards. Images were small in scale, the size of mementos. Descriptive text was postcard language, written on the flipside. Messages were about visiting the site of Les Halles, the strangeness of being there, and about what made the new design special.

I cannot yet write about the World Trade Center site. I can barely spell the words without emotion halting the flow. But I can write about the communications received at the AIA New York Chapter from architects and non-architects all over the world. Some offered to help with the rescue and relief efforts and were forwarded. Some offered insight into pain and loss. Some suggested paths to hope and commemoration. Others were sent to ask who was alive, or to tell us that they were OK.

The need for communication was and is a measure of the loss. The parkland memorials, the train station bulletin boards, the paper messages adorning sidewalk barricades, all testify to our need to speak with each other, to write to each other, about our feelings and the transference of void.

In the days immediately following Septermber 11th, I noticed New Yorkers buying tourist postcards of the Twin Towers. People surrounded the postcard turning-racks and stood two deep at the newstands.

The postcard I send is a map of New York, a map of the future New York, not just the remembrance of our lost pavilions. On its back, I would scrawl a few lines from a poiem called "The Map is of Another World" by Renee Ashley, recently published in the Kenyon Review:

And the sun with its serious red - every dark
Is not a shadow the dead cavort in. And yes
The living stumble but stumbling is the least
Of what could come.

The Last Word (Oct 2001)
by AIA New York Chapter President Margaret Helfand, FAIA
(click here for PDF version)

In the wake of the World Trade Center tragedy and the destruction it caused to much of Lower Manhattan, our profession has an unprecedented opportunity to shape the future of the City. Much current thinking before September 11 had focused on expanding major new development beyond the traditional hubs of Downtown and Midtown. This concept has acquired a new sense of urgency. A symposium had already been planned and this column written before the attack occurred.

Once upon a time, there was a booming human settlement comprised of a series of towns and villages scattered among parts of three islands and two peninsulas adjacent to the harbor of New York. Because of the success of these towns and the burgeoning economy of the area, there was a movement to consolidate. In 1898, the communities of Brooklyn, the Bronx, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island (then Richmond) united to become the country’s first metropolis—a dynamic, collaborative economic, political, and social venture.

New York City’s economy, its institutions, its culture, and its people have become preeminent in the world. But the city has become a victim of its own success. The boom and its benefits have in recent years been concentrated largely in Manhattan, often to the detriment of the island’s sister boroughs and now also to the detriment of Manhattan itself. At the start of this new century, we are searching for ways to accommodate continued growth and more equitably distribute benefits. The obvious solution is to look again at a decentralized model.

To promote this new model for fostering social, cultural, and economic growth throughout the city, the AIA New York Chapter is hosting an all-day symposium on November 16. One=Five: Creating a Multi-Centered City is the inaugural event of the Chapter’s Center for Architecture at Baruch College’s new vertical campus on Lexington Avenue and 25th Street. We are very pleased to bring together many thinkers and to promote dialogue about the form and implementation of a new multi-centered model.

The symposium will examine initiatives across the five boroughs of our city, which are intended to leverage future development of neighborhoods, commercial districts, and cultural nodes. We’ll address the Bronx Center Plan of 1993, which was a framework for commercial, cultural, and sports development in the center of the borough. We’ll hear about the Brooklyn Academy of Music Local Development Corporation’s plan for arts-based neighborhood redevelopment including a major new arts library. In Manhattan, we’ll talk about the development of the far West Side, and hear about a study that proposes a focus on high-tech businesses rather than a stadium. In Queens, we’ll examine the Long Island City mixed-use redevelopment effort, including the Van Alen Institute’s competition and the Queens West waterfront redevelopment, including a major new project by Architectonica. In Staten Island, we’ll take a look at the St. George Terminal Redevelopment Area, including Eisenman Architects’ museum project and HOK Sport’s minor league baseball stadium. For each panel, there will be a mix of speakers from the public and private sectors, planners, and architects.

As architects and as citizens of New York we must insist on intelligent citywide planning and promote the concept of a multi-centered city. Because I consider this subject to be of such critical importance to the future success and livability of our city, the symposium is my presidential initiative for 2001. I hope to see a sell-out crowd.

[For more information on the 1=5: The Multi-Centered City symposium, please click here to download the brochure in Adobe Acrobat format.]