Editorial in The NY Times About The High Line and What Makes A Great Public Park

The buzz about New York's new High Line Park is promting a large number of cities to think about new copycat projects. Mostly, this is awesome--but most seem to lack an understanding of what makes this space so amazing.

A great public space doesn't create a city- by definition-an urban park is not about just a well designed park--or about a well designed city, but about the sensitive interaction between the two.

"And herein lies the problem. The High Line may be a landscaping project, but a good part of its success is due to its architectural setting, which, like the 12th Arrondissement, is crowded with interesting old and new buildings. The park courses through the meatpacking district and Chelsea, heavily populated, high-energy residential neighborhoods. Very few American cities — and Manhattan is the densest urban area in the country — can offer the same combination of history and density.

In other words, while the High Line’s success may seem to be an instance of “build it and they will come,” in New York, as in Paris, “they” are already there — living in the surrounding neighborhoods, working in the close-packed office buildings, touristing.

Moreover, while the High Line may have become a fashionable distraction for out-of-town visitors, it succeeds because it offers a green outlet to its many neighbors, who, like Parisians, live in small apartments. In no other American city do residents rely so much on communal green space, rather than backyards, for relaxation."

What's so great about the High Line is that it doesn't require new construction--or parking or the tear down of any existing buildings or block a working street grid, yet allows New Yorkers to experience the area in a new way. It adds but doesn't subtract. But this synergistic relationship can't just be brought into existence anywhere.

For example, the promenade isn't just a great park, actively used when a game or major event is happening. It's also not just active when area offices are open or just in the evenings and weekends--when residents and tourists use it. It lives and changes through the day because it's located in a place with many different land uses--in a city well served by public transit.

I will be back with more thoughts about this.

Amerasians in Korea See Themselves in Hines Ward

Listening to the Steeler Game-- kind of a classic reminding one of the Steeler 2006 season with some great Ben drives, (a few screw ups) Polamalu back at his best; a clock cleaner by Harrison and of course some great play by Hines Ward.

The Times had a nice story on the impact his achievements and celebrity have had on Korea's small biracial population. Ward,is a national hero there.

"The plight of biracial children in South Korea was largely ignored until 2006, when Ward was the most valuable player of Super Bowl XL. Koreans were quick to make the link to his Korean heritage.

That spring, Ward and his mother, Young He Ward, visited South Korea for the first time since Ward was a baby nearly 30 years earlier. They were mobbed by television cameras and gawking fans. They were honored by the South Korean president.

“I got more love there than I did in the States,” Ward said.

Ward was only starting to understand the underlying hypocrisy. Biracial children in South Korea recognized it instantly."

Anyway, Ward has been playing a big role in changing things. Likely, you know all about it but still a great read.

“They liked someone because he is famous,” So said. “If you are not famous, they are very cold. So I was happy, but also bitter.”

Is News Now A Charity?

Can't say I was entirely surprised, but two recent stories about the health of major newspapers really hit home. The Tribune Company, owner of the Chicago Tribune, LA Times and several other major papers has filed for bankruptcy after piling on debt last year to go private. The NY Times is mortgaging it's new headquarters to head off a cash crunch and Several other major papers have suspended debt payments.

One force at work is clearly the credit crisis, but the other is the continuing slide in industry fundamentals. We seee less and less cultural coverage in most papers. Bloggers can fill a lot of this as new informal networks emerge but we all must admit that a lot of us rely on links to news articles.

What new networks and media empires are emerging? Several great networks of blogs like The Implode-ometer have done the hard grunt work in covering the financial crisis. ArtCal, The James Kalm Report and Culture Pundits might be the be the new trend in arts coverage. I'm also very excited by the new Streetsblog Network aimed at linking bloggers who write about urban design and transit issues.

One big problem is that these networks rely much more on an ever changing pool of grass roots writers, most of whom are not well known. The old formal model of issuing media passes and sending press releases to a small group of approved elite is breaking down. The Carnegie was nice enough to offer all our contributors media passes this year but what about the potential new bloggers and those not on the radar and those in other cities and countries?

Anyway, I will end this with a pitch for more people to contribute content to this blog and help expand arts coverage in Pittsburgh.

MOCAD --- In The New York Times

Detroit's new funky, raw and brutally honest museum of contemporary art got a nice article in the New York Times, which celebrates it's real deal aesthetic. MOCAD will gradually be upgrading and transforming the building over time.

"But the design springs from a profound rethinking of what constitutes urban revitalization. Designed by Andrew Zago, its intentionally raw aesthetic is conceived as an act of guerrilla architecture, one that accepts decay as fact rather than attempt to create a false vision of urban density. By embracing reality, it could succeed where large-scale development has so far failed.

Mr. Zago is uniquely positioned to grasp this context. Born in Detroit in 1958, he has vivid memories of the 1967 race riots that led the exodus of the white middle class. He remembers hearing white neighbors talk of fleeing to the suburbs as black families moved in. After departing with his family to a northern suburb, he saw the city decline to the point where it became a poster child of decay.

Only later, as a practicing architect in the 1990s, did he begin to see these decrepit neighborhoods as a legitimate landscape for architectural experimentation. “I didn’t want to romanticize it,” he said during a recent tour of Detroit, “but the city had a depth of character, a real substance and integrity. And while you want to do away with the problems, you don’t want to lose that quality.”