The Revitalist

Two recent articles show the interplay of a city's public perception in the planning arena. New York City's image as the great American melting pot where everyone and everything is thrown together and stirred up into a great big stew of individuality is being challenged.

The first from the International Herald Tribune profiles NYC's new street furniture. The City has debuted the new furniture with a bus shelter in Queens. The "coordinated street furniture" program will include bus shelters, newsstands and automatic toilets throughout the city's boroughs that are all of the same design. The goal is to provide a more polished and uniform look that plays off of the city's iconic subway station signs. But it remains to be seen whether city residents like the concept, or whether they staunchly prefer the ad hoc, individualist approach that now exists. Does a unified street furniture system go against NYC's proud display of a "brash mix and match" philosophy?

The second in today's NY Times notes that the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission has rejected the 30-story glass tower proposed for the historic Parke-Bernet Building on the Upper East Side. The gleaming tower, designed by Norman Foster, has been roundly rebuked by a very vocal residents' coalition (including this fabulously scathing takedown of the Preservation Commission in a op-ed by Tom Wolfe, UES resident extraordinaire). They protest that it is wildly out of place in the neighborhood and an abomination towering over a relatively modest five-story building. Mr. Foster argues that, in fact, the glass skin provides a respectful contrast to existing structure and that the project actually restores several original features of the building. The head of the NY chapter of the AIA said that he was disappointed with the rejection: "New York is a city where scale, juxtaposition, don't destroy the quality of the streetscape." The majority of the members of the Commission acknowledged that the tower was a well-designed, lovely structure, but that they just didn't think that it belonged in this particular mix (too different to properly blend). It's a victory for those who argue that the individual can influence government (even if that individual has to be Tom Wolfe), but it's a buffer against the forces of constant change that define this particular city.