Photo Friday

View from Brooklyn Heights Promenade this morning,
looking northward at Bridge, Empire State Building, overlooking park construction

State to Public: Stay Home This Summer, We're Closing The Parks

It’s no secret that New York State is facing a very tight budget year, worse than usual. One proposed cut is to close 14 historic sites and 41 parks, and reduce hours at 23 parks and one historic site. When the state says "close" they mean, turn off the heat, haul out the artifacts, lock the door, lock the gate and walk away leaving historic sites to rot. For parks, its allowing facilities to corrode and become unmanageably overgrown. It seems like the state legislature is trying to grant a reprieve to these sites on the chopping block, but the Assembly and Senate differ and the budget is still being negotiated. But in this state, nothing is certain.

While some people are concerned that closing these sites will lead to their physical disappearance, this is only part of the problem. It's not only that historic resources are being lost but so are are jobs and real public amenities.

The state is talking about closing public pools and swimming areas, shuttering educational sites, picnic spots, and parklands. Yet, in leaner times, people are staying closer to home and often discovering treasures that are in their proverbial back yard. If preservationists are interested in only buildings it is to miss the message that these places can mean more. Heritage and local tourism are growing and New York will be missing the boat.

And about those jobs, back during the Great Depression park sites were places of job creation not job loss. These historic and park sites are places where New Yorkers were put to work through WPA programs like the the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Historic American Building Survey (the lone New Deal program still active which has documented more than 500,000 historic buildings). Maybe its time to think of these places not just as historic objects or pretty parks but as contributors to local economies and places of employment.

So who's going to propose WPA 2.0? Anyone?

Ironwork at Schuyler Mansion, Albany, NY
Historic American Buildings Survey, Thos. T. Waterman, Photographer.

Photo Friday

One of the many spectacular faces in terracotta of the Brooklyn Historical Society, watching over Pierrepont Street since 1881. Architect: George B. Post, Sculptor, Olin Levi Warner.

PhotoFriday: Hamilton at Trinity Church

After watching most of the HBO John Adams series recently, I paid a visit to Alexander Hamilton’s monument in Trinity Church’s burial ground in Lower Manhattan as well as checked in at Hamilton Grange in Upper Manhattan. Hamilton is not my favorite founding father, but his life story is one I certainly have enjoyed knowing. (For those keeping score, I’ve always been partial to the gentlemen of Virginia – Jefferson and Madison – and Franklin.) He was a merchant accounting prince of the West Indies as a teen, Federalist Papers author, and husband to Gen. Philip Schuyler’s daughter Eliza. And of course, we know the familiar story of the foggy duel with Aaron Burr which ended Alexander’s life 50 years before Eliza’s.

As my FotoFriday installment, here’s Hamilton’s monument. It is inscribed thusly:

The Corporation of Trinity Church has erected this
MONUMENT
In Testimony of Their Respect
For
The PATRIOT of Incorruptible INTEGRITY
The SOLDIER of Approved VALOUR
The STATESMAN of Consummate WISDOM
Whose TALENTS and VIRTUE will be admitted
BY
Grateful Posterity
Long after this MARBLE shall have mouldered into
DUST
He died July 12, 1804 Aged 47

Broadway's New Agreement

Lou Kahn wrote, “The street is a room of agreement.” Today, New Yorkers can celebrate a new agreement for Broadway.

After a test period, and despite less impressive improved traffic-flow than initially hoped, New York City has wisely agreed to make the plazas around Times Square and Herald Square permanent. The plazas, in addition to better bike lanes and pedestrian improvements, have converted Broadway to a truly multi-functional street befitting the 21st century city.

This democratizing of Broadway represents the forward-thinking planning enabled by Mayor Bloomberg's administration - the progressive DOT commissioner Janette Sadik-Kahn - but also their willingness to involve truly thoughtful planners, such as Denmark's Jan Gehl. Bravo Broadway.

Manhattan Traffic Experiment Gets Permanent Run (NYTimes)

Photo credit: Sean Marshall / Creative Commons License

PhotoFriday

This week's winter storm on my block in Fort Greene.

International Responses to Haitian Earthquake

By now you have surely heard about the extraordinary devastation in Haiti. Beyond the people's immediate needs there are many questions about how a recovery and rebuilding effort will transpire. Among these choices about higher quality building techniques and creating functioning infrastructure will come difficult decisions about heritage. In order to respond to these issues, and provide necessary interim support, the leading international cultural heritage organizations are on the ground.

The World Monuments Fund has established an Earthquake Recovery Fund in an effort to help develop a response. On their donation page, select "Earthquake Recovery Fund in Haiti" in the Please Use My Donation menu.

While you're at WMF, look over the article about the Gingerbread Houses of Bois Verna. The dispatch provided by Conor Bohan there is striking. Many are badly damaged, while others remain. He says, "Luckily a few of these beautiful buildings seem to have escaped unscathed. If a preservation effort was important before January 12th, it is now essential, to conserve those precious few that are left standing."

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organziation is also on the scene, largely focusing on rebuilding the nation's educational infrastructure. UNESCO is also conducting a needs assessment related to damage to museums, archives and libraries. UNESCO's director general has appealed to the UN to call for a ban on trade of Haitian artifacts for fear of the country's movable cultural heritage being stripped and dispersed. To donate to their efforts, click here.