The Urban vs. Rural Election

OUR NATIONAL NIGHTMARE IS ALMOST OVER. TAKE THIS ELECTION OUT BEHIND THE SHED AND OLD YELLER THIS SHIT.

Sendoff thoughts: I wrote earlier about how the GOP attacks on Obama mirror antisemetic attacks, but there’s another point inside of these arguments – this election deals in large part with an urban vs. rural divide that will have meaningful effects on the spatial character of America.  The parties split on how the country should look: in many ways, the GOP stands on the side of a rural, sprawling America, while the Democrats embrace the more urban, denser parts of the country.  In particular, the GOP’s obsession with home ownership encourages suburban sprawl, and their party leaders obsess over rural, small town American values.  More oil and cheap gas also implies an argument about transportation and how the country should look. Republican attacks on Obama reflect this spatial divide.  New York state politics also breaks down on this urban/rural divide, and the anticipated pickup of Democratic seats in the State Senate forecasts a more state investment in New York City.

Real Estate Protects Itself Against Greatness

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BldgBlog alerts us to a symposium being held in Chicago about the lack of American architectural audacity – while it seems possible to chalk this up to an intellectual or philosophical lack, I’d like to suggest a more political-economic approach: the inability to build big (and interesting) in the US comes from the enshrinement of property rights as the driving force for urban development.

Landlords have a relatively narrow interest in rising rents for the properties they own – this interest fragments their interests – setting neighborhoods and cities against each other – and pits them against the majority of the city, who are either non-renting property owners or renters.  Collecting rents for profits also gives them some cash on hand to help run elections their way, cementing the superiority of landlords vis-a-vis the rest of the city until someone finds a way to upend them – the strategy I suggest if we want to create a new age of American architecture that uses space in a productive, democratic way, as well as one that lends itself to Dubai-style grandeur.

The Mulberry Makeover

52 Mulberry, under construction. This building is really big.

I don’t know if anyone, you know, noticed, but the south end of Mulberry Street in Chinatown is kinda going through some serious change. Once the epicenter of the Gangs of New York-immortalized Five Points slum, the block below Bayard now looks like a a stripmall with a 12-story middle-finger of a luxury condo in the middle.

The recent developments present two problems: lame street level development and a giant, intrusive condo growing out of the middle of some downright pleasant old school walkups.

First, the condo. I don’t know how this slipped through, but I can’t find shit on this thing – no Curbed posts, nothing in the usually vigilant New York Real Estate media pages. The building’s placard lists Rice Bowl Realty as the owner, and they keep a low profile. All I got searching for them were a few run of the mill safety violations, and middling charges from the Department of Housing Preservation and Development for lead paint problems and failure to install fire alarms. NY State seems to think they’re based at 48 Mulberry, but I’ve found documents in my building that list 850 Meeker Ave in Brooklyn as their headquarters. 850 Meeker is also the address of the contractor, 2CC Contractors, and the address listed on the “Marley” construction trucks parked out front. The architect, Jung Wor Chin was about as inaccessible – their website is ‘under construction’ (and has been since Feb. 2007 it appears), but their other buildings don’t look so appealing (third building down).

The obvious disregard for the surrounding buildings (think Blue Building, though admittedly on a smaller scale) inspires no confidence in the kind or quality of apartments/condos it will hold. If the Chinatown new development trend holds, this will be another lux condo (like 123 Baxter and Hester Gardens) that undermines the economic factors (affordable living conditions) that have made Chinatown in Manhattan possible.

YoBerry and Donuts.

The other problem is on the street. The block below Bayard now features these thrilling attractions: a parking garage! A knockoff Yolata/Pinkberry called “YoBerry” (totally original, yah? – it still costs the same as its namesakes) and for the po-po chillin’ between shifts at the station across the park, a Dunkin’ Donuts! (this is not a joke – I see lots and lots of police in this store.) Hopefully the store for sale towards the north end of the block doesn’t portend a continuation of the faux-upscale and chain store trend.

After going on Rob Hollander’s Five Points walking tour (3pm Sundays across the street from the 1 Centre St. civic building), I actually think this area should be protected as a historical landmark. The downtown slum not only provides a backdrop to some remarkable historical figures (Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, and the backbone of the Tammany Hall political machine), but it also reveals the central role economic exploitation played in shaping New York City – a history of political/economic power that should be kept in mind as corporate power again threatens to overrun fair housing laws and rent protection laws. The decimation of the slum by Columbus Park and the downtown civic developments makes the remaining remnants of the slum all the more important to hold on to.

I like this building.

...but not this one.

NYU: It’s all a facade

Just one example.

Today NYU released yet another set of images from it’s NYU 2031 planning process, meant to foster community dialog about the physical manifestations of NYU”s next 25 years of growth. Having attended 3 of these meetings, each more heated than the last, I can tell you the bullshit was so intense you could smell it. Many of the ideas were either impossible-idealistic (Lets shut down a whole street [Washington Place]!) to the outlandish-absurd (We can take over Governors Island!), with an occasional purely stupid thrown down (How about we demolish half of Washington Square Village!). By the last meeting, residents were straight-up yelling at NYU reps, and the whole process seemed to be grinding to an unproductive halt. The day after that meeting, NYU sprung their Provincetown Playhouse plans on preservationists, returning town-gown relations to square one.

Which is not to say I always agree with community outcry: a mix of obstinate preservationist backlash and administrative arrogance by NYU has turned many of NYU’s recent projects into grotesque hybrids of old and new, buildings fronted by flimsy facades and cheap imitations of a real city. NYU’s building Here’s a quick tour: