Guest post from Laurence Aurbach

I've gotten tired of hearing the sound of my own voice, as no doubt others have, as well. So here is a new one, with other voices to join in as the earth turns. Laurence Aurbach has been an advocate for new urbanism since 1997, working as an editor, writer and graphic designer.

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Laurence Aurbach suggests:

Don't miss the terrific article -- How the old Times Square was made new. -- in The New Yorker on the history of Times
Square. It's stuffed full of keeper quotes. Here is a selection of them.

TIMES REGAINED by ADAM GOPNIK How the old Times Square was made new. Issue of 2004-03-22 Posted 2004-03-15 http://www.newyorker.com/critics/atlarge/?040322crat_atlarge

The story follows, on a larger scale than usual, the familiar form of New
York development, whose stages are as predictable as those of a professional
wrestling match: first, the Sacrificial Plan; next, the Semi-Ridiculous
Rhetorical Statement; then the Staged Intervention of the Professionals;
and, at last, the Sorry Thing Itself.

...

The Semi-Ridiculous Rhetorical Statement ... is intended to show that the
plan is not as brutal and cynical as it looks but has been designed in
accordance with the architectural mode of the moment. ("The three brass
lambs that stand on the spires of Sheep's Meadow Tower reflect the
historical context of the site" was the way it was done a decade ago; now it
's more likely to be "In its hybrid façade, half mirror, half wool, Sheep's
Meadow Tower captures the contradictions and deconstructs the flow of ...")

...

The porno shops on West Forty-second Street weren't there because the middle
class had fled. They were there because the middle class was there.

...

A new orthodoxy had come into power, with an unapologetic emphasis on formal
"delirium" and the chaotic surface of the city. ... To an increasing bias in
favor of small-scale streetscapes and "organic" growth was added a neon zip
of pop glamour. The new ideology was Jane Jacobs dressed in latex and
leather.

...

Forty-second Street, was saved by government decisions, made largely on
civic grounds. ... Civic-mindedness, once again, saved capitalism from
itself.

...

The idea that there is a good folkish culture that comes up from the streets
and revivifies the arts and a bad mass culture imposed from above is an
illusion, and anyone who has studied any piece of the history knows it.

...

All the same, there is something spooky about the contemporary Times Square.
It wanders through you; you don't wander through it.

...

One of the things that make for vitality in any city, and above all in New
York, is the trinity of big buildings, bright lights, and weird stores. The
big buildings and bright lights are there in the new Times Square, but the
weird stores are not. By weird stores one means not simply small stores,
mom-and-pop operations, but stores in which a peculiar and even obsessive
entrepreneur caters to a peculiar and even an obsessive taste.

Comments

[Bill Seitz]

I happen to be reading Kurt Andersen's *Turn of the Century* right now, and there's a bit where the protagonist is considering the old "porn district" as equivalent to the other clusters of mono-obsessive stores in various parts of NYC.

[Haystack]

If you want a cranky re-reading of Gopnik's article, just for fun check out this James Lileks piece. Worthwhile if only to watch a witty curmudgeon at play. Scroll halfway down and start at "To the New Yorker magazine".