Mythic New York
The Future Still Needs the Gimbels Skybridge
For nearly a century, the Gimbels skybridge has served as a kind of gatehouse announcing Pennsylvania Station on the next block west. Few would guess that its interior was once continuous with the station’s. The bridge will disappear if plans for the Empire Station Complex proceed. This would be a terrible loss. It is by far the most prominent aerial bridge from an era when the rest of the world looked to New York as the skyscraping, multi-level City of the Future—the crowning example of a phenomenon that influenced modern architecture and still captivates and inspires.
Mythical Lower Manhattan, Part 2
The 2002 World Trade Center competition entry by the team of architects Richard Meier, Peter Eisenman, Charles Gwathmey and Steven Holl is shown in its finished form at left, and in an earlier study by Holl, at right. The images are juxtaposed as they appear in Holl’s book, Urbanisms. The finished scheme has the regimentation of … Mythical Lower Manhattan, Part 2
Mythical Lower Manhattan, Part 1 – In Memory of Lebbeus Woods
The Dutch architectural photographer Iwan Baan took this helicopter photo of Downtown blacked-out by Hurricane Sandy. A memorable New York Magazine cover, it resonates with a century-old genre; views of a transformed Lower Manhattan from above New York Harbor. Lebbeus Woods died on October 30th, as Sandy left his downtown neighborhood in the darkness … Mythical Lower Manhattan, Part 1 – In Memory of Lebbeus Woods
Statue of Liberty or Dipstick of the Apocalypse?
This image by Owen Freeman illustrated last month’s New York Times post-Sandy op-ed by James Atlas, “Is This the End?” Freeman says in his blog that it was commissioned by Times Art Director Erich Nagler, who “proposed an underwater, Atlantis-type view of New York City.” Freeman shows working sketches for the Statue image as well … Statue of Liberty or Dipstick of the Apocalypse?
The Iron Triangle, part 2 / from Kowloon Walled City to Singapore
No place in New York elicits such wonder at the retina’s capacity as the Iron Triangle. Self-contained, densely packed and eye-boggling, it is an alternate reality recalling Hong Kong’s Kowloon Walled City, demolished in 1993-4, below. Comparing the vibrancy of the Iron Triangle to the city’s canned and bland development plan for it brings to mind William Gibson’s 1993 Wired … The Iron Triangle, part 2 / from Kowloon Walled City to Singapore
The Iron Triangle, part 1 / Wilson’s Garage
Once a swamp and then an ash dump, the ground of the Iron Triangle in Willets Point, Queens, now feels like both. Its businesses have an unacknowledged ancestor within one of the greatest works of American literature. The Great Gatsby was going to be called Among Ash Heaps and Millionaires until the great Scribners editor Max Perkins persuaded F. Scott … The Iron Triangle, part 1 / Wilson’s Garage
Here Was My City
A sketch of the Brooklyn Bridge by Lewis Mumford On the eve of another 9/11, a love letter to New York from Lewis Mumford comes to mind. His autobiography, Sketches From Life, describes a youthful walk across the Brooklyn Bridge when he caught “a fleeting glimpse of the utmost possibilities life may hold for man.” Yes: I loved the … Here Was My City
An Hour of Skyscrapers
In his 1932 essay, The Frozen Fountain, Claude Bragdon wrote, “A building, however lofty, must end somehow, and the designer’s ability is here put to the severest test, and will be measured by the success with which this termination is affected – by the beauty with which his building dies on the white counterpane of … An Hour of Skyscrapers
How to Meet the Sky
Philip Johnson said that outdoor sculpture “lights up the sky”. He was talking about the way solid and void energize each other in an interplay of figure and ground, a principle that certainly applies to tall buildings. Flatiron Building postcard view Much of the Flatiron Building’s appeal to artists and photographers, for example, lies in its siting on an acute intersection where views allow … How to Meet the Sky