Hey Noelia, I enjoyed reading your blog!

I had a very similar initial assessment of the High Line as the one you describe in the beginning of your blog when I went there. I had felt welcome and realized nothing suspicious of the environment.

I could not agree more about your comparison to the architectural ways that the city patrols the use of certain spaces. I myself was thinking of how on the train stops they do not have one long flat bench like they use to, but have seat divides so the homeless cannot sleep there. I looked at the link you attached and that was a really good compliment to “inconspicuous surveillance methods” that are discussed in our reading. Not only do some of the images stop homeless people from sleeping in places, but also, as with the image of the fire hydrant with spikes on it, even a person who wants to rest a moment cannot lean on it.

I think that your architectural comment fits very well with the High Line’s construction. Much of the path that has been created for the High Line is relatively narrow, and as you point out, it is made for walking. The design for the park was created for that purpose in mind.   It makes it really hard to loiter even if you are not a homeless person. As you point out sleeping on the High Line can actually be acceptable, but that is that the way in which the structure functions and how they control its uses only certain types of people even visit the High Line and, therefore, are people that are “socially acceptable” to nap in a public space.

At the end of your blog you ask how public space is really public and that’s an excellent question. I think that there really is no place that is completely public in the ideal way that it should be. As you say, the High Line is only public for some individuals so to others it becomes private. This is something that can be seen throughout the city. When you go to parks or areas that are created with the idea that they will be for elites then anyone else ends up being excluded. At the same time, some of the poorest neighborhoods in the city, in a way, also become private to higher-class individuals; this is more by their choice, but at the same time the argument can be made that they are not welcome regardless.

I find it pretty sarcastic that Bloomberg declared, “ ’The [board’s] ruling is a great win for all New Yorkers’ ” (56). He may be the mayor, but he choosing to support this has nothing to do with helping every single individual in New York. It might help the economy, but the needs of the individual people are not being addressed. As soon as Bloomberg saw what an increase in value the properties all around the High Line would get and that it could potentially get the 2012 Olympics for New York City he jumped on the plan. What is completely left out of the reports that made him agree to the plan is what would happen to all the people in the neighborhood. With property values skyrocketing, there must have been a displacement of a great portion of the population due to the “super gentrification” that Loughran describes. Building a park like this does not get rid of all the homeless people it just makes them disappear from the eyes of tourists and other elites so that a certain image can be upheld for the area. What appeared to be solving a problem just displaced it somewhere else.

Eleni

I enjoyed reading your post Samantha!

You brought up some very interesting points about redevelopment. I agree that most of us find it easy to blame Moses for not being considerate in his plans, but that at least he got things done. For better or for worse, the city has been majorly shaped to be what it is today through the implementation of Moses’ plans. It is hard to ignore how much of an impact he has physically left on the city and even in his ideas that still linger in planners’ minds.

I do not know if I fully agree with your reasons as to why the city has been unable to take on such massive projects successfully since Moses. The city definitely does not seem to be planning thoroughly, but I find it hard to do so with the incorporation of private interests in public matters. I do not think it is because people are afraid to be tyrannical that they have not successfully engaged in such works. I think that there are a lot of factors that attribute to it. One thing that can be considered is that the public voices it’s opinions louder today than it use to, or at least the media displays the rejection that these plans face much more. For example, today in the news they covered at story about how people are upset with the addition of new bike lanes in the city. People are coming out and publicly voicing their rejections and that makes it hard to ignore them. At the same time, it can be questioned why the redevelopment of Times Square received 47 lawsuits against it and it still was passed. Who decides which opinions get heard and which ones matter is the issue. In Chapter 3 of “Building Like Moses with Jacobs in Mind” we see that even when the case of the Atlantic Yards came all the way to the Supreme Court they refused to hear the case (Larson 39). They had very substantial issues with its constitutionality in the use of eminent domain, yet they could not even be heard. The public opposition was able to “scale back aspects of the project,” yet none of this was able to put a stop to it (39). This inevitably raises the question of why such issues can just be ignored and can continue to go on when so many people can be against it, or, even more importantly, when the constitutionality of an action is questioned.

Although such tremendous building projects are not as easily accomplished today, as you point out, I do not think that is necessarily a bad thing. I do not agree that gentrifying neighborhoods is the way that areas should improve; despite this, if we cannot come up with a way to stop this then at least if smaller projects take place hopefully less people will become displaced.

At the end of the article that you posted a link for about the 7 train, Larry Penner makes a good point of asking, “At the end of the day, riders and taxpayers have to ask if $2.4 billion for a 1.5-mile extension to one additional station build 21 months behind schedule is worth the cost” (crainsnewyork). His question is a really hard one to find an answer to. Adding just one stop to the line will only benefit a certain amount of people and deciding whether taxpayer money should be used for this rather than another project is really subjective.  It is something that might not even be able to be proven until after a project has been completed and we evaluate if its use has possibly outweighed its loses, and even then it is not that simple.

Thank you for all your insights!
Eleni

I really enjoyed reading your post Max!

I wrote our first assignment about the redevelopment of Times Square so it was really interesting to see another’s point of view on the subject. I completely agree that the new image that was created for Forty-second Street left lasting impacts, which can be seen today.

I do, however, think it was not simply the “Disneyfication” image that aided in decreasing the crime in the area and helped jumpstart the economy. In the redevelopment process there were a lot of other changes that were made, in addition, to the visible commercial changes we can see as we walk down the street. For example, mayor Rudy Giuliani passed a law that prohibited “sex businesses from operating within 500 feet of homes, places of worship, schools – or critically for Times Square- each other” (NY Daily News). The commercial aspect and all the new stores really helped create a completely new image and encourage a safer environment, but throughout the years policy makers and government officials passed laws like this which helped make sure that it would be very hard to go back to things the way they were before. The stage was set for a completely different economy through such implementations. Another way that Times Square became such a central location for tourism, as Reichl describes, was because the mass transit system was being created in the decades to follow (47); it became a hotspot by having stops on Forty second Street through several train lines, both above and below ground, and terminal of a ferry.

I agree that choosing Disney as the theme to guide the redevelopment was a financially intelligent idea, but I also think there was a lot of factors that contributed to choosing this. When I read the source that you added to your blog I noticed that Robert Stern, who was a major architect that took part in the development, had ties to Disney so that was probably a reason that added to the economic benefits.

I really enjoyed reading the New York Times article you also added to your blog because it talked about how the rebirth of Times Square was heavily impacted by government intervention. As we have often discussed in classed the use of eminent domain was largely used to justify the government taking over all the buildings to allow for the plan to become reality. Many did try to resist this and, in fact, there were 47 lawsuits against this project. These are things that are not often highlighted. Indeed, many of the things going on at Times Square would not make everyone comfortable, but there were people and businesses there before and a project like this displaced them.

I do find you to make a very valid point that there are many remains of the old Times Square left today. As Reichl states, “commercialized sex has proved to be a lasting and stubborn feature of the area ever since (49). Some people point to the topless women that you find taking pictures with tourists as an example of this lasting commercialization of sex. Reichl uses the shows that go on in the theaters to demonstrate that this sexual culture still pervades the area. The history of any place is hard to simply erase, and sometimes it shouldn’t be erased; it is what brought it to its current place and we cannot deny it.

Thank you for all your insights Max!

– Eleni

After reading the section of Equipping the Public Realm, by Marta Gutman, it easy clear to understand that in addition to Robert Moses’ craze for developing highway after highway, he also recognized the significant role that parks play in the development of the city as a whole. As we have discussed in class, there are many battles that the city is constantly have to fight in order to figure out what the greatest good for the greatest amount of people is. This is something that really has no answer.   Whoever is coming up with certain decisions about what should be put into place will always have some sort of bias. This is seen through todays reading, and from any other plans that are set forth.

There is no doubt that Robert Moses shaped New York City. As we have gone through the various readings and documentaries in class we see that he and others have greatly impacted how certain structures are created today. In addition to creating new parks and expanding on others, Moses implemented the creation and addition of many public pools. The pools were meant to be a place that anyone could go no matter what their economic background or even gender was. I feel that although this was the goal it was not as successful as Moses thought it would be. Another point that Gutman makes is that all the ideas proposed were suppose to have “the ideal of providing leisure activities for all ages while retaining some segregation of uses for convenience and safety” (80). I think the latter part of this excerpt is very accurate; there are some things that adults and children should do separately in terms of safety. What I found to be missing from the selection is how exactly adults would be drawn to these attractions.

The ways in which they created the designs were, in my opinion, not as safe as they should have been; having “three tiers of diving boards” for people who might not have been athletic and in pools open to children could have potentially led to many unfavorable outcomes, although the reading selection does not mention any. Despite some potential dangerous, a lot of what they designed seemed to have been very practical. For example, having under water lights for those that cannot attend during the day was very thoughtful. An idea like this seems impossible today. Despite things supposedly advancing from the description of these parks it seems that we have only descended in terms of designs even as we constantly strive to create the next best thing. The great ideals of cleanliness and hygiene that had been put in place with things like the footbaths to use before going into pools, are rarely seen anymore (81). Now most of the public pools are far from clean, only within private pools will you find such cleanliness. Something like this must always be an emphasis and it makes me wonder why it does not appear to be considered.

Related to our reading selection for class is an article from Newsweek, De Blasio’s Battle for Equality Starts in the Parks by Victoria Bekiempis. In the article Bekiempis discusses the immense importance that parks have to the city and how each administration has struggled to tackle the issue of development and expansion, some with more success than others. Mayor Bloomberg was one of those that has been regarded as very influential in park development. Bloomberg spent tremendous amounts of money to the beautification of the city’s parks. This article exemplifies that this is an ongoing issue. Before Moses ever existed there were redevelopment projects going on, but it was not until he came along that everything became possible to put into action and complete. Since his time we have continued to struggle and just as mayor Fiorello La Guardia gave Robert Moses this role many others have done similar things. As seen in Newsweek article, mayor Bloomberg has passed the torch to mayor de Blasio that has to figure out how he can further improve the city’s parks.

Gutman does a good job of pointing out how hypocritical the attempts of keeping racial prejudice out of the framework of the creation of these facilities. As she questions if Moses’ plans actually just highlighted the privilege of the whites, I question that myself. By the end of the reading selection I find myself believing that Moses was completely racist. Moses directed people to put cold water in the pools because they supposedly did not like swimming in it. If this is a true statement then his creations were nothing but a statement about privilege. Planners were supposed to constantly find ways to include people, but ultimately someone always gets left out. Is there a way for everyone to truly be able to use the facilities of the city or is it just inevitable for some groups of people to always be left out?

 

The link to the article mentioned above:

http://www.newsweek.com/de-blasios-battle-equality-starts-parks-225310?rx=us

 

Also, a link to a wonderful timeline of the historical development of parks throughout the city: (It is really interesting to follow the time line all the way to today and see how over time things have been added and taken away, beginning from the time Robert Moses was made Park Commissioner).

http://www.nycgovparks.org/about/history/timeline/robert-moses-modern-parks