Week in Review

Scots laser scan World Monuments (NY Times)
Laser scanning team from Historic Scotland creates models of landmarks accurate to a fraction of a millimeter, heads to Mount Rushmore.

Dick Moe Retires from National Trust for Historic Preservation (Washington Post)
After 16 years at the helm it's time for younger blood to enliven the Trust as Moe retires.

Massachusetts SHPO says Nantucket Sound may be Eligible for Listing in National Register, Delays Cape Wind (Boston Globe)
Nantucket Sound is eligibile because of its significance to Wampanoag tribes. Ruling could provide (another) setback for wind farm project.

Georgia Trust Releases 2010 "10 Places in Peril" List (GeorgiaTrust.org)
From a jail and a recording studio to a folk art fantasy and several school buildings.

Stolen Summer: movies with a view

Back to Brooklyn Bridge Park for a moment: I'd forgotten that this year marks the 10th year of the free movie series on Thursday nights. This year's theme is "Stolen Summer," and the August lineup is full of adventure.

August 6: The Return Of The Pink Panther

August 13: Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid

August 20: Catch Me If You Can

August 27: Edward Scissorhands

The festivities begin at 6pm with DJs from Brooklyn Radio, food sold onsite is from RICE. No booze or pets, but ride your bike and park it using Transportation Alternatives' (a sponsor) free bike valet service.

Brooklyn Bridge Park: anticipating the new softer edge

On a walkabout on the Promenade this morning, I got to thinking about hard and soft edges for urban waterfronts, the BQE rumbling below, the concrete piers extending into the East River, the overgrown and decayed pylons. The piers seem so crisp, even in disrepair, and foreign against the river. Yet on Pier 3 sits a stand of many varieties of trees, and with them the promise of a new future for Brooklyn Bridge Park.

I'm looking forward to seeing how Brooklyn Bridge Park will ultimately reinvent and soften the waterfront edge. Ecologically speaking, the recreation of salt marshes and wetlands will create healthier and more dynamic tidal ecosystems along the shoreline, while the reinsertion of permeable surface will create recharge zones that will help reduce pollution from urban stormwater. Environmentally responsible methods are being employed in the park's construciton as well. I'm impressed by the level of care being taken to recycle and reclaim materials from demolition in the park's construction, such as stones from the Willis Avenue Bridge and timbers from the demolished Cold Storage Warehouse.

Back in May the trees for Piers 1 and 6 were set into a temporary space on Pier 3 (above). Pier 1 will be the first to open this winter. Next month there are construction tours on tuesday nights. RSVP requested. Who wants to go with me?

Construction Updates
Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy
Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation

Burn: Oroussoff on Atlantic Yards

Nicolai Oroussoff's review in the New York Times of the Ellerbe Becket design for the Nets new arena at Atlantic Yards is scorching. It is at once an indictment of the project's current state, but also decries the most odious aspects to large-scale urban development today: greed and a lack of concern for the public realm, Oroussoff writes:

"Its low-budget, no-frills design embodies the crass, bottom-line mentality that puts personal profit above the public good. If it is ever built, it will create a black hole in the heart of a vital neighborhood.

"But what’s most offensive about the design is the message it sends to New Yorkers. Architecture, we are being told, is something decorative and expendable, a luxury we can afford only in good times, or if we happen to be very rich. What’s most important is to build, no matter how thoughtless or dehumanizing the results. It is the kind of logic that kills cities — and that has been poisoning this one for decades."

But he also gives Frank Gehry's design its due, acknowledging its thoughtfulness and creativity, regardless of what early detractors said.

Go-Go-Gowanus

I love the idea that Brooklyn's Gowanus Canal is both eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places and a proposed Superfund site.

The Gowanus Canal is an industrial waterway, flanked by industry, overpassed by a subway viaduct, and surrouned by yuppified/gentrifying neighborhoods (Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, Red Hook). It is a strongly industrial place marred by pollution, but also a cultural landscape that has remains due to continued use. Originally the area was tidal wetlands and creeks that were host to early millworks. The canal was built to meet the needs of increasing industrial production in the mid-1800s. Marshes were drained (more on those in a future post) and the 1.5 mile Gowanus Canal quickly became an important maritime and commercial hub. But after more than a century of industrial and municipal pollution, the Gowanus Canal is so degraded it may become a Superfund site.

So environmental and preservation groups are as interested in what happens as the state and local government are. But what’s next for the Gowanus Canal remains anybody’s guess:

• The Gowanus Canal Conservancy has a vision for the Canal’s environmental restoration and green development.
• New York City Department of City Planning has issued its Gowanus Canal Corridor Framework for rezoning 25 blocks around the Canal to reflect the retreat of industrial uses and make way for housing, mixed-use development on appropriate sites, while maintaining some industrial presence.
  
• The Army Corps has studied the canal, and New York State may designate the canal as a Superfund Site, and there are lots of strong opinions on both sides of this debate.
  "Gowanus Canal, Polluted for Many Decades, May Become Superfund Site" (NY Times, April 10,2009)
  "On the Gowanus Canal, Fear of Superfund Stigma" (NY Times, April 24, 2009)
• A 2008 Columbia Historic Preservation Studio studied the Canal’s resources. This year, Pratt students completed a studio on the industrial landscape. The Municipal Arts Society recently surveyed the Canal’s historic resources.

Today's industrial canal may yet be tomorrow's historic waterfront property.

Preserve Admiral's Row

Preserving Admirals Row from MAS on Vimeo.

Check out this video from the Municipal Arts Society about Admiral's Row at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

There is a meeting tonight that is part of the Section 106 process related to the preservation/development and demolition of Admiral's Row. To support the preservation of these buildings email the National Guard .

UPDATE: The demolition of most of the Admiral's Row buildings has been approved, and only two buildings will be saved.

Fulton Stall Market

On Friday the new Fulton Stall Market will debut at South Street Seaport. In 16 former fish monger stalls between Fulton and Beekman streets, a veritable bounty of local and specialty foods is promised. There will be Hudson Valley produce, New York wines, artisan cheese, and aptly fresh fish.

The Fulton Market's history is clearly on the mind of the new market's creators. The Fulton Market opened in 1822, selling fish but also produce, dairy products and meats. Fish, of course, became the principal product until the market relocated to Hunts Point in 2005. That the location of one of New York's most historic markets is being repurposed to host one anew is not only an excellent marketing strategy given public interest in local foods, but also a move toward recapturing this tradition and adding life to South Street Seaport. This is a wonderful opportunity for New Yorker's to support regional food systems, but also to eat well.

Landscape in Motion

For those of you wondering what on earth historical ecologists do, here's a great article from the San Francisco Chronicle: "Historical Ecologists Map a Changing Landscape", by Eric Simons.

Robin Grossinger , historical ecologist , is quoted saying: "Each generation kind of loses the knowledge of what this place was like, and we find ourselves 200 years later with very little knowledge of what was there... So very basic things like octopuses in tide pools catch us by surprise."

So basic, indeed.

Simply understanding that a landscape is not static, but systems continually in motion, is a critical first step for anyone concerned with landscape restoration. Historical ecologists basically search for evidence and an understanding of a place's layered natural heritage, amid/despite human interventions. Whereas, we cultural landscape historians try to read this "unwitting autobiography," as Peirce Lewis wrote, in the sense that landscape is a reflection of culture in every way.

Fiske Terrace - Midwood Park

Yesterday morning, I came out of the subway at Newkirk Ave to construction and noise. Out onto Foster Ave I walked, and hung a right on East 18th into another world. Fiske Terrace - Midwood Park is one of New York City's newest Historic Districts, and kudos to LPC for designating this beautiful neighborhood. Large turn of the century homes sit shoulder-to-shoulder along lush tree-lined streets, whose greenery is augmented with planted medians. Also, this being spring, it was fully abloom. I think the neighborhood must have gotten a deal on pink azaleas at some point, as nearly everyone has one. This is a real gem.

Greening Historic Buildings

In April, everything turns green anew. The trees pop, bulbs sprout, and everybody and their brother "goes green." April brings Earth Day, and is often when we see environmental initiatives getting more than their normal share of ink. And, despite (or perhaps because of) sustainability's ever-growing cache, this year is no exception. In the world of preservation, the green-mill is churning out stories, which offer the opportunity to reflect on sustainability and preservation.

Yesterday there was Richard Moe's well-timed, ill-titled Op-Ed in the New York Times yesterday, "This Old Wasteful House." Moe is President of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and the Trust's Sustainability Initiatives are to be applauded. They are taking on the serious issues related to climate change and are trying to add meat to the adage "the greenest building is the one that's already built." Moe's Op-Ed focuses on energy-efficiency and embodied energy, and draws attention to the important work ahead for the Trust and the Natural Resources Defense Council. This is but the tip of the iceberg. Still, kudos to the Trust for meaningfully adding to the conversation. Too often "green" is equated consuming something new, building "high-performance" objects and buildings, and steers away from the reduce/reuse/recycle credo.

On that note, yesterday it was announced that the Empire State Building is getting a green facelift to the tune of a LEED Platinum rating largely due to energy-efficiency retrofits. The most significant retrofits are: the overhaul of the cooling plant and the rebuilding of the existing double-paned glass windows to insert a gasseous film between panes resulting in a triple glazing. In her Times article about the retrofit today, Mireya Navarro notes "The largest share of New York City’s greenhouse gas emissions, 78 percent, comes from the city’s buildings, with commercial buildings contributing 25 percent, mostly from the use of electricity and natural gas."

The wasetfulness of New Yorks buildings was basically ignored in Mayor Bloomberg's signature sustainability initiative, PlaNYC, and the problem is therefore left to the private sector. Still, Bloomberg was there to help announce the project as was former President Bill Clinton. In the absence of real targets advanced by the city, incentive programs like LEED serve as green branding for "environmentally responsible" construction. While LEED has its own deficiencies, particularly relating to historic buildings (the subject of another post), the Empires State Building retrofit is an exciting, high-profile, project where it seems that the L in LEED really may mean leadership. By retrofitting this huge building, the Empire State Building will be a powerful example of sustainability initiatives and historic preservation meeting shared goals. Not to mention that Wien & Malkin get to increase the rent.

Some preservationists regard the field's bent toward the cause of sustainability as a distracting diversion, as simply a fad that we will outgrow when it is no longer fashionable. I disagree. I believe it is one way historic preservation can make common cause with other similar movements, such as environmentalism, and make room for more diverse values and priorities
Preservation doesn't have to be/isn't the field of "No." Instead we can say yes to positive, relevant, meaningful changes to existing buildings, which will not only preserve their integrity, but make way for a responsible and attractive future. I'm leery of greenwashing and tend to believe that if we are to take the charge of sustainability seriously, then it must be an implicit factor accounted for in the choices we make, part of our internal calculus. Some day we won't have to make such a big show of how sustainable things are, rather, these concerns will be integrated into our everyday practices. It is a slow train coming, but I'm heartened to see more glimpses of green revealed this April. It seems to get better by the year.

New South Ferry Station

Common folks are being squeezed these days, but amid all of the grim news there are occasionally moments of hope. Consider the case of the MTA and the South Ferry Station.

This month, while MTA and Albany duke it out over nasty fare hikes and the Straphangers Campaign call on New Yorkers to fight it, MTA opened New York's first new subway station in 20 years. The new South Ferry Station in Lower Manhattan is a testament to the MTA's ability to create beautiful spaces out of the commonest of everyday places. After spending $530 million (much of it funded federally with allocations for rebuilding Lower Manhattan after 9/11) , the new renovated station opened this month with much fanfare. Functionally the new station finally connects the R and W trains (well, soon to be just R) with the 1 train, allows riders to alight from all cars, and offers a much nicer entrance in what is otherwise a barren asphalt plaza before the Staten Island Ferry Terminal. As if this weren't enough, the station has excellent new public art, created by the Starn Studio, commissioned by the MTA Arts for Transit program. The work, See it Split, See it Change, is composed of tree branch silhouettes in large fused glass panels and stainless steel; A large leaf in fused glass panels and a tile mosaic map of Manhattan hang over the stairwell. The effect is a beautiful composition that elevates an otherwise ordinary station to an attractive destination befitting of a major transit hub. The most successful part of See it Split, See it Change is the sense of depth created looking through the branch shapes of the steel gates to the black branches on the pale glass tiles. So, while the $2.5o per ride fare will smart, the view just got a lot better.

See Metropolis Magazine's January Preview of the station, complete with beautiful images, here.

Preservator Manifesto

Welcome to Preservator!
Preservator will seek to cover, through image and word, current preservation and planning issues as I see them. Preservator will examine issues urban and rural, local and regional, and will largely focus on the Northeast.
By way of introdution, I am a preservationist and planner with formal education in both fields, and I have a media background. Preservator represents my attempt to connect the two. The views expressed herein are my own, and represent my attempts to critically engage with contemporary issues as part of my professional development.