Upon reading chapter nine, I want to reflect upon Amanda Burden and the High Line.
Amanda Burden seems to be quite the controversial figure. In chapter nine of “Building Like Moses with Jacobs in Mind,” Larson discusses the differing opinions that people have of her. Many of these opinions were not very favorable. Burden’s emphasis on this idea of “design matters” affected her work and, by extension, the way people saw her. For instance, her insistence that private developers use “starchitects” for their projects was a product of her focus on aesthetic, which made developers unhappy because they would have to pay more to hire these “starchitects.” Burden was clearly also extremely detail-oriented, possibly to a fault. People who work for her claim that she micromanages and feels the need to have her hands in every little thing. This controlling nature may have led to her strong influence over Bloomberg and his agenda in the fixation on how things look as an approach to development. Another place where we have encountered Burden was in the video we watched in class about the rezoning of the 125th street area in Harlem. In that video, again, Burden comes across as an extremely controversial figure. What I found really compelling in chapter 9 was how Burden’s preoccupation with the aesthetic of New York City is really a direct appeal or attempt at making the city marketable. And that includes the rezoning of 125th street because to her, small mom and pop shops and neighborhoods that are actually culturally rich and diverse are not “marketable”- or at least not as marketable as they can be.
In the Vanity Fair article I posted below, Amanda Burden is interviewed by John Heilpern. To be honest, both when Larson went into Burden’s family background, and when Harlem residents railed against Burden for being a rich white lady, I didn’t understand why those things were relevant or important. However, upon reading this article, titled “Princess of the City” (referring to Burden), and further reflection, I see why it is relevant. Coming from such a wealthy background does not necessarily mean that Burden would be unable to understand the situations of people in the city unlike her. But once this can be seen to be the case, her background may be a valid reason why she is that way. I don’t feel that the article paints Burden in a positive light. She comes off as an uppity socialite who treats her incredibly important job as the city’s planning commissioner as a hobby, sprinkling talk of city planning in with another one of her hobbies, birdwatching. Burden proves Larson correct in his comments that Burden did not “need” the job, but rather she wanted it, when in her interview, she mentions that if she didn’t love her job, she “wouldn’t be doing it.”
Also in Chapter 9, Larson points out that Burden used the High Line as a prime example of “how design can be an amazing catalyst for private investment.” Honestly, it just sounds like Burden is saying gentrification without actually saying gentrification. Since the High Line opened, it has seen much criticism. Jeremiah Moss, author of the blog Vanishing New York, rails against the High Line and how the rezoning of West Chelsea in 2006 paved the way for a complete transformation of that neighborhood. While some of Moss’s claims are a bit dramatic (“I’ve gotten close to a panic attack, stuck in a pool of stagnant tourists at the park’s most congested points”), he was right in pointing out that although the transformation of the High Line was actually a grassroots effort and was meant to be for everyone, it is now a tourist attraction and a driving force for the rapid change of the neighborhood to include more luxury buildings and less working class folk. While this may not be what Amanda Burden was directly referring to when she championed the High Line for being an “amazing catalyst,” I think this may be what she actually had in mind.
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2010/05/otl-burden-201005
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/22/opinion/in-the-shadows-of-the-high-line.html?_r=0
