Looking Downward, For a Change
Wiley Norvel
Robert Moses is rolling over in his exquisitely paved grave. In an exhibit envisioning 21st Century New York, there are glimpses of the city he loathed so much: that bizarre mash of neighborhoods, open-air markets and ad hoc stickball games. This new metropolis is redeemed of the great urban mistakes Moses and his ilk heaped upon us and stands, quite literally, on its own two feet.
"Livable Streets: A New Vision for New York" elevates the pedestrian, embraces the bicycle and places the automobile where it belongs: on the periphery. The Municipal Art Society, New York’s aesthetic conscience, will feature the multimedia display throughout February and March, punctuated by six lectures. Its aim is to convince a city to look down at the ground and reassess how it apportions limited street space.
The core of the exhibition consists of 12 large panels of text and photographs. The introductory panel throws down the gauntlet. "Around the world, cities are tackling the problems caused by automobile traffic with creative solutions. New York is not keeping up." Subsequent frames featuring the pedestrian revivals of Copenhagen, Philadelphia, Paris, London and Chicago tell the story of parking lots turned to public squares, roadbed turned to promenade and even a highway along the Seine transformed into a beach in the heart of Paris. It stirs envy in a city unaccustomed to playing catch-up.
Two video monitors positioned in front of a wrought iron park bench feature an hour of documentaries by filmmaker Clarence Eckerson. Viewers toggle between a doc of luncheoners fighting to preserve their car-free Fulton Street and an interview with Danish luminary Jan Gehl as he muses on Times Square’s latent pedestrian potential.
A third monitor cycles through a half dozen renderings by the graphic designers at the Project for Public Spaces depicting NYC streets "reimagined." A desolate block of West Broadway receives generous sidewalks and attendant café culture. Astor Place is remade into a full public square, its landmark cube moved to a place of greater prominence. The drab median on Allen Street becomes a new marketplace to relieve Chinatown’s overrun sidewalks.
The renderings themselves are modest engineering alterations on the present. It’s their underlying assumption that promises to upend the city’s auto-centric paradigm. Placing the pedestrian and public life at the heart of transportation and city planning would amount to a revolution of policy for New York. It’s a path increasingly chosen by our sister cities. A prominently displayed axiom by Chicago’s Mayor Richard Daly summarizes, "No department is concerned exclusively with quality of life and attractive public spaces. So all of them have to be."
The overlaying lecture series plays on nostalgia, as much as auto-free fervor. A talk on the past, present and future of stickball debates the chances of reviving New York’s once-dominant pastime by making streets safe for play once again. Another examines how residents of streets with high car traffic have fewer friends and acquaintances amongst their neighbors than do residents on low-traffic streets. In March, the former mayor of Bogotá, Enrique Peñalosa, delivers the keynote lecture on how the revival of public space and mass transit during his single term in office redeemed a city plagued by violence and pollution.
"Livable Streets" showcases how cities around the world have adapted their public spaces to service the modern day street user. Whereas people in the 19th and early 20th Century utilized public space predominantly out of necessity (walking to work, escaping the squalor of tenements or visiting the butcher, baker and market each day), their contemporary counterparts have the luxury of living, working and spending leisure time in private space (and a great number of us do so). People don’t have to live their entire waking lives in the outdoors anymore, and so a dynamic city encourages them to choose public space by merging amenities with functionality. "I believe very strongly that the cities that pay attention–really pay attention–to the quality of life will be the cities that thrive in the 21st Century," asserts Mayor Daly in a second iteration.
Creating and facilitating excursions of choice like sport, dining, shopping or relaxation is the agenda of the exhibition’s sponsor, NYC Streets Renaissance, a collective of civic groups pushing for a pedestrian-oriented landscape. Its three founding members are heavyweights in the realm of urban thought. The Partnership for Public Spaces (PPS) mentors neighborhoods in developing new public spaces; The Open Planning Project (TOPP) helps community groups navigate the channels of city planning; and Transportation Alternatives is NYC’s longtime advocate for a transportation hierarchy led by walkers, cyclists and public transit. Their pooled resources and clout are enough to pull city council members and other civic leaders into the exhibit for a tutorial.
It’s a much-needed refresher on public space and public life. In a city with so much new blood, our collective memory is short. Few remember that Park Avenue was, until quite recently, a park. Still fewer recall that it was the foot, not the horse that once ruled the pavement and set the pace of traffic. The lesson of that time, and of "Livable Streets," is simple: our lives between buildings are as important as our lives within them.
