Sunday, December 17, 2006
A large gap
In a recent jaunt around downtown, I was as usual both encouraged and discouraged. The new developments around the light rail are definitely encouraging, but they're certainly not perfect. Let's see: the office towers are beautiful, tall, with commerce on the street level and lots of monuments and views of Manhattan. The new townhouses in the Liberty Harbor area sometimes look bland but sometimes pretty. They are all oriented outward, at least, but most do not have retail. They're not tall, forbidding condo towers but traditional city neighborhood.
The light rail that passes through the development is largely bordered by short trees, which look good. Elsewhere in undeveloped patches it is surrounded by chain link fence, which will have to go.
The true discouragement I face is the large gap between the brownstones of Grove St. and the waterfront Financial District. It is filled by classic Le Corbusier towers, like this one. One would hope for very dense residential in this gap, but only the kind where the residents are all on foot, doing their shopping and recreation right in the neighborhood. This kind of blight is virtually insurmountable because it is in none of the towers' best interest to redesign for a pedestrian-oriented neighborhood. If they all did it (or had done it), they would reap the rewards, but as it stands the cost far outweighs the profit. Simple game theory.
The light rail that passes through the development is largely bordered by short trees, which look good. Elsewhere in undeveloped patches it is surrounded by chain link fence, which will have to go.
The true discouragement I face is the large gap between the brownstones of Grove St. and the waterfront Financial District. It is filled by classic Le Corbusier towers, like this one. One would hope for very dense residential in this gap, but only the kind where the residents are all on foot, doing their shopping and recreation right in the neighborhood. This kind of blight is virtually insurmountable because it is in none of the towers' best interest to redesign for a pedestrian-oriented neighborhood. If they all did it (or had done it), they would reap the rewards, but as it stands the cost far outweighs the profit. Simple game theory.
Owen Martin 6:10 PM