The Battle For Gotham Part 12

Considerable focus today is on high-speed rail, and the Obama administration is appropriately pushing for the re-creation of a national rail system that more effectively connects both regional and more distant destinations. Among other things, this would relieve the excessive pressure on air travel and diminish the dominance of airlines. But the most important form of transit for the regeneration of urbanism is the modern streetcar or bus rapid transit. This transit mode makes frequent stops, like New York's subway, and is easily accessible, comfortable, and reasonably priced. It must be all those things to compete with the car.

We once had an extensive network of streetcar systems, one of the world's finest. And we didn't lose it naturally. It was destroyed to give automobiles more road room. Bradford Snell, a government researcher, first detailed this sorry tale in a 1974 Senate committee report.10 The story has been told many times, including in the 1998 film The story has been told many times, including in the 1998 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, but it is always worth telling again to understand future possibilities. but it is always worth telling again to understand future possibilities.

In 1921 General Motors lost sixty-five million dollars. Then GM head Alfred P. Sloan decided to do something to turn that around. Stephen B. G.o.ddard, in his revealing and extraordinarily detailed book, Getting There Getting There, puts it bluntly: "In the 1920s, General Motors, under the leadership of Alfred P. Sloan, and his fellow automakers decided to do nothing less than reorder society to alter the environment in which automobiles are sold by replacing light rail systems with cars and buses. So in the early 1930s, GM approached railroads and electric utility companies, which owned most urban trolleys, and offered to buy their electric streetcar lines, which GM would then replace with buses."11 Resistance was strong. Buses were a hard sell. They jolted, smelled, and were not nearly as comfortable as trolleys. Trolleys were smooth, efficient, and frequent. But they were badly in need of repair after World War II. During the war, all the effort that might have gone into maintenance and upkeep of many things like public transit was directed, instead, to military needs. GM and its cohorts could not even pursue a plan of replacing trolleys with buses until after the war, when manufacturing could switch to a domestic focus.

Sloan was undaunted. If the streetcar systems would not willingly sell, they would be taken over and dismantled. With Greyhound and Yellow Coach bus companies, Standard Oil, Phillips Petroleum, Mack Truck, and Firestone Tire Company as partners, GM secretly formed the National City Lines, which bought up streetcar lines in eighty-three cities. NCL cut services, left repairs undone, raised fares, and took money out of each system instead of rebuilding it. Disinvestment in transit was as devastating nationally as it had been when Moses practiced it in New York. The transit systems that had served dense, functional cities so well were sabotaged. Economic life still depended on proximity, and once that critical infrastructure deteriorated, urban economies faltered as well.

As Snell points out, a 1947 court case later confirmed that this secret partnership had "schemed to create a motor monopoly in nearly four dozen cities across the country, taking over more than 100 electric transit systems in the process." G.o.ddard notes: "Yet for their roles in concocting and perpetrating a criminal conspiracy-which helped change the dominant urban energy from electricity to less-efficient petroleum and to alter American urban life forever-the Court fined the corporations five thousand dollars each and the individuals one dollar."12 The pattern was set. The momentum was in high gear. The direction was unstoppable. In a stark case of twentieth-century waste, the light rail systems either built today or on the drawing boards in many communities are re-creating the earlier transit systems that were so tragically destroyed. The pattern was set. The momentum was in high gear. The direction was unstoppable. In a stark case of twentieth-century waste, the light rail systems either built today or on the drawing boards in many communities are re-creating the earlier transit systems that were so tragically destroyed.

With streetcars, pedestrian needs were still paramount. Building a fifteen-minute walk from a streetcar was a builder's rule of thumb. This is still visible today in so many surviving and desirable former streetcar neighborhoods nationwide. With automobiles ascendant, building highways and moving vehicles became the priority. Furthermore, streetcar lines were built by private land developers and electric utilities. The Interstate Highway System, however, was and still is the largest public works project ever initiated in this country.

Until this dramatic reshaping of the national landscape for the car, Americans managed well with forty-four thousand miles of pa.s.senger rail routes run by twelve hundred companies employing three hundred thousand people who ran fifteen billion annual trips, generating an income of one billion dollars. As Snell reported, "Virtually every city and town in America of more than 2,500 people had its own electric rail system."

So the lessons exist to learn from, if the repair and rejuvenation of cities are serious goals. But it is not all about looking to the past; contemporary success stories also exist, providing confirmation and new lessons.

Highways to Boulevards and Avenues Former Milwaukee mayor John Norquist is a tall, fair-haired man with the Nordic look reflective of the immigrant history of that region. It took him five years to demolish a segment on the north side of downtown of the never-completed elevated Park East Freeway that divided the city, as had been done by through-the-city highways across the country. It would have cost eighty million dollars to rebuild but thirty million to take down. The area, Brewers' Hill and the Italian neighborhood known as the Lower East Side, was reconnected to downtown. Streets that had been disconnected for decades were reconnected. And with the demolition in 2003, developers scrambled to build mixed-use buildings on a major portion of the reclaimed sixteen acres of city land, filling it in the most productive way. "The traffic nightmare that was predicted never happened," observes Norquist, "because the traffic now goes where it wants to go more efficiently." With highways, he points out, drivers are forced either to overshoot or undershoot their destination since exits are s.p.a.ced so far apart. The avenue that replaced the freeway segment connects directly into the city grid, giving drivers more routing options and allowing them to go directly where they want to go.13 Urban Husbandry at its best.

A highway ramp came down in the Coliseum Square neighborhood of New Orleans, and the neighborhood ruined by it in the 1950s has been vibrantly renewed.

In 1974, Portland, Oregon, closed Harbor Drive and created an appealing waterfront park that draws people year-round, way ahead of most of the country.

San Francisco's creation of a tree-lined boulevard with bike trails, parks, and public exhibits where the Embarcadero Freeway-two levels of elevated concrete-once stood is perhaps best known, probably because, more than ever, the waterfront became a popular and economically productive district, one of the city's greatest attractions for both locals and tourists. Nearby real estate values rose 300 percent.

The 1989 earthquake also damaged Central Freeway, a spur into the city. Designed by the renowned boulevard advocates and designers Allan Jacobs and Elizabeth MacDonald, it was rebuilt smaller, as Octavia Boulevard. A San Francisco Urban Designer San Francisco Urban Designer writer wrote in January 2007 that it "feels like it belongs . . . keeps cars moving while making the neighborhood around it a better place to be." New shops and housing developed on the periphery, and a once highway-destroyed neighborhood was revived. writer wrote in January 2007 that it "feels like it belongs . . . keeps cars moving while making the neighborhood around it a better place to be." New shops and housing developed on the periphery, and a once highway-destroyed neighborhood was revived.

In such cases, as with the rebuilding of Manhattan's West Side Highway, necessary traffic is managed differently through adjustments to traffic lights and other measures. As first observed in the Washington Square Park Moses road defeat, drivers adjust accordingly, and some traffic simply disappears.

Many more cities are grappling with this issue as the deterioration of original highways, elevated or not, demands increasing attention. Chattanooga has also taken down an elevated highway segment. Toronto, Seattle, New Haven, Trenton, Baltimore, Buffalo, Syracuse, New Orleans, and Overton in Miami are just a few either already seriously considering such a move or just beginning to do so.

New York took down the elevated West Side Highway, defeated the Westway replacement plan, and is now getting a well-functioning quasi-boulevard replacement. But the state and city are taking years to recognize the similar wisdom of taking down the Sheridan Expressway in the Bronx, the 1.25-mile highway built in 1963 and never completed on the west sh.o.r.e of the Bronx River. The state wants to fix it at about three hundred million dollars (plus overruns, of course). A well-organized community plan developed with the help of planner Joan Byron of the Pratt Center would remove it and create a wealth of new parks and affordable housing opportunities. This citizen-led battle is a clear precursor of the continued revival of the South Bronx.

Streetcars Too The urban healing process is even more visible in the proliferation of light rail systems in a variety of traditional and contemporary forms. San Diego was first, installing a light rail link to Tijuana, going through mostly commercial districts. It was a hard sell at the time, and none of the residential areas wanted it in their neighborhood, fearful of the intrusion of strangers that it would bring. Once up and running and a great hit, however, everyone wanted it, and the San Diego system has been expanding ever since.

Portland, Oregon, of course, is ahead of everywhere else, having first traded in highway funds decades ago to build the light rail system that goes through the city and beyond. In recent years it added a traditional streetcar imported from the Czech Republic that stops more frequently and is more like the streetcar system we lost but most European cities still have, most efficient for shorter downtown trips.

More than seventy cities have followed since, and more have plans on the books. Cities that have already put in the first leg immediately plan for expansion. The successes persuade even the strongest skeptics. Everywhere, ridership exceeds expectations. Developers and increased retail activity have followed. This should not have come as a surprise to anyone.

Now there is talk of reviving a leg of the once vast Brooklyn streetcar system with a leg from Red Hook to downtown Brooklyn, something citizen advocate Bill Diamond started years ago, stopping only when money was not available.

Converting Car s.p.a.ce to People s.p.a.ce When Janette Sadik-Khan cut the ribbon with Mayor Bloomberg on the immediately successful Times Square pedestrian plaza created in the spring of 2009 by closing Broadway from Forty-second to Forty-seventh Streets to cars, she was hailed by New York Magazine New York Magazine and others as a combination of Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses. Not one inch of what she made happen was out of Robert Moses's file drawer; it was totally Jacobs and, to be sure, William H. Whyte as well, who also advocated more street s.p.a.ce for people and transit and less for cars. But what Sadik-Khan was doing, and had been doing all over the city by eliminating lanes of traffic to make room for bike lanes and street plazas, was huge in its impact on the city. and others as a combination of Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses. Not one inch of what she made happen was out of Robert Moses's file drawer; it was totally Jacobs and, to be sure, William H. Whyte as well, who also advocated more street s.p.a.ce for people and transit and less for cars. But what Sadik-Khan was doing, and had been doing all over the city by eliminating lanes of traffic to make room for bike lanes and street plazas, was huge in its impact on the city.

Clearly, the enormity of the scale is what observers thought was out of the Moses file drawer, even though Jacobs clearly was an advocate of big, dense transit systems in cities. Many a.s.sume that if it is big, it must be Moses. Surely, this was thinking big but big in small bites and without erasing swaths of urban fabric. Not Moses's style at all. And, as has been noted earlier, size is not the defining issue; substance is. And in substance, what Sadik-Khan had done and was continuing to do was pure Jacobs. "The good news about the Moses legacy," she says, "was that he widened so many streets and created so much pavement, there is much that can be reclaimed for people, bikes, and bus-rapid transit. We're showing that our streets can do more than move cars quickly from point A to point B. For too long, we've looked at the city's six thousand miles of streets from behind the windshield and not at what happens on the street." This is the ultimate undoing of one area of Moses's excesses and of the overzealous transportation engineers who followed him with the automobile-is-everything approach to cities. This is the most dramatic example of the piecing back of the abused and undervalued precincts of our cities.

The pattern is now set for the twenty-first century. If the twentieth century was the Age of the Automobile, the twenty-first is the Age of Ma.s.s Transit. All of these trends-highways coming down, boulevards replacing in-city highways, re-created transit lines, and street reclamation for public s.p.a.ces-are bound to continue expanding in the years to come.

This is st.i.tching back the urban tears with strength renewed for the surrounding fabric. For sure, urban agriculture, transportation, and preservation are only three of many areas on which Jacobs's principles prevail. An observant student of her writing can find many more. But Moses, too, remains with us today in a big way, as the following stories ill.u.s.trate. Both legacies remain strong.

PART II: THE MOSES LEGACY.

Atlantic Yards, Brooklyn: Moses Redux From day one there was nothing urbanistically right about the proposal to build over and beyond the Atlantic Avenue railroad yards adjacent to downtown Brooklyn. The grandiosity alone would have made Moses blush. The combination of Moses-style elements would have prompted him to say, "I taught you well."

Almost every aspect of this one-developer (Bruce Ratner),14 one-architect (Frank Gehry), 22-acre scheme (8 acres of rail yards, 14 acres of neighborhood), 16 skysc.r.a.pers and a 19,000-seat basketball arena, is a Moses descendant, a clone of the outdated 1960s urban renewal model: clearance only; erasure of precursors of regeneration; gigantic scale; a state authority overriding the city planning and zoning review process; absence of democratic process with public input; threat of eminent domain to take private property for a private development; incalculable public funding of more than an acknowledged $300 million public investment up front, and hundreds of millions more over the years to come; isolating design disconnected from existing urban grid; traffic-choking parking capacity for more than 3,600 cars; destruction of architecturally appealing and functional historic buildings; displacement of 33 businesses, 235 jobs, 169 homes, 334 residents (209 tenants, 125 owners); declaration of "blight" of an area with some vacant buildings and empty lots scattered in the larger regenerating district; constant escalation of private and public costs; and public benefits promised (questionable from the start) diminishing with time. one-architect (Frank Gehry), 22-acre scheme (8 acres of rail yards, 14 acres of neighborhood), 16 skysc.r.a.pers and a 19,000-seat basketball arena, is a Moses descendant, a clone of the outdated 1960s urban renewal model: clearance only; erasure of precursors of regeneration; gigantic scale; a state authority overriding the city planning and zoning review process; absence of democratic process with public input; threat of eminent domain to take private property for a private development; incalculable public funding of more than an acknowledged $300 million public investment up front, and hundreds of millions more over the years to come; isolating design disconnected from existing urban grid; traffic-choking parking capacity for more than 3,600 cars; destruction of architecturally appealing and functional historic buildings; displacement of 33 businesses, 235 jobs, 169 homes, 334 residents (209 tenants, 125 owners); declaration of "blight" of an area with some vacant buildings and empty lots scattered in the larger regenerating district; constant escalation of private and public costs; and public benefits promised (questionable from the start) diminishing with time.

The list could go on. As with many Moses projects, what could be considered blight (no real standard exists) has mostly been created by purposeful neglect of city-owned or MTA-owned property, or developer-purchased and -created vacant lots. The threat of eminent domain, as we've seen in prior chapters, is the surest way to create blight. In this and other cases, blight is simply the purposeful withholding of new investment. Despite this planned blight, condos were selling directly adjacent for $1.5 million in upgraded industrial buildings and for nearly $1 million within the project footprint itself.

As with most of Moses's projects, the mainstream press supports Atlantic Yards. And, as with some Moses projects like the Cross Bronx Expressway, a viable alternative plan exists that would build an arena and redevelop the areas of the district legitimately needing it without destroying what is viable. This case ill.u.s.trates why there rarely is a real case of NIMBY (not in my backyard). Only if there is no alternative offered can one accuse a community of NIMBY. Usually, there is a viable alternative, proving once again that the opposition is not against change, just against change that is ant.i.thetical and out of scale to the neighborhood. Under the alternative, the many recognizable precursors would have the opportunity to run the course of organic change, involving many private investors and minimum public investment. This is the same framework for change that has positively transformed so many of the city's once forlorn districts since the 1970s, from the far West Village and the South Bronx to the Upper West Side, the Lower East Side, and countless areas of Brooklyn and Queens.

In 1953, Moses was declaring as slums viable neighborhoods with potential for new development and growth: If we don't clean out these slums, the central areas are going to rot. And it's all nonsense, for some of the people who are interested in this subject, and doubtless they are sincere, to say that the problem can be solved in rehabilitating and fixing up, slicking up, old-law tenements, by repair jobs. Can't be done. You're simply pouring good money after bad. There are very few cases where genuine slums can be fixed up in any other way than by tearing them down entirely and rebuilding, on a smaller coverage, taller buildings, with light and air and modern conveniences. That problem we've got to face. I'm not disturbed myself about the movement into the outlying sections and into the suburbs, that was bound to happen and it isn't unhealthy at all.

He would most likely have said the same thing about Atlantic Yards. Wrong on both counts. Many districts have revived in exactly the way he said was not possible, as this book has shown. His words ring hollow.

Highlighting the Precursors The first step in the review process, after the Atlantic Yards proposal by Forest City Ratner was unveiled in December 2003, was for the state to declare the targeted area blighted. The state complied. In reality, this so-called public process was the last step in a privately worked-out deal with a predetermined conclusion. But let's look at the area designated as "blighted."

Near the commercial center of Brooklyn, the project site forms a thin triangle at the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues where four neighborhoods come together-Fort Greene, Prospect Heights, Park Slope, and Boerum Hill-around the eight acres occupied by the Long Island Railroad yards. The site is adjacent to Atlantic Terminal, the third-largest transportation hub in the city where nine different subway lines and the Long Island Railroad converge.

In terms of transit access, this is an even better site for a sports facility than either Yankee Stadium or Citi Field, both of which have subway lines going to them. So when Ratner unveiled the proposal with a 19,000-seat basketball arena as its centerpiece, many cheered. After years of expensive, publicly funded sports complexes built around the country were proven to be poor economic engines, little support could be found for any sports facility dependent on public funds that they all inevitably are. But by attaching this one to a huge mix of new residential and commercial development with exaggerated promises of affordable housing, new jobs, and tax revenues, Ratner skillfully steered attention away from a singular sports facility. This is what Jacobs identified in the Lower Manhattan Expressway debate as "changing the subject."

Ironically, this area is directly adjacent to the site that could have kept the Brooklyn Dodgers in New York, if Robert Moses had not refused Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley the request to build a new stadium on the site in the 1950s.15 This also would have been a perfect place to limit access to ma.s.s transit, although team owners (in this case also Bruce Ratner, owner of the Nets) love parking facilities from which they reap big financial gains. Thus, more than 3,600 proposed parking s.p.a.ces-more than just for the arena-in the most congested traffic section of the borough defies urban-design or transportation-planning logic. Madison Square Garden, for example, has no parking garage and reaps no such benefit. Attendees either come by transit or park in nearby office building garages that empty out at night. This also would have been a perfect place to limit access to ma.s.s transit, although team owners (in this case also Bruce Ratner, owner of the Nets) love parking facilities from which they reap big financial gains. Thus, more than 3,600 proposed parking s.p.a.ces-more than just for the arena-in the most congested traffic section of the borough defies urban-design or transportation-planning logic. Madison Square Garden, for example, has no parking garage and reaps no such benefit. Attendees either come by transit or park in nearby office building garages that empty out at night.

The entire plan alone would lack the urban qualities that could evolve into an authentic and fluid urban place. But even worse, the neighborhoods around the development site reflect perfectly the potential for regeneration when multiple and varied precursors are undisturbed. Revitalization was occurring despite the blighted properties owned by either the city or Ratner.

10.1 The Atlantic Arts Building, formerly 31 high-end condos, empty since 2005 except for one holdout, Dan Goldstein, co-founder of Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, fighting the project. Tracy Collins. Tracy Collins.

Regeneration Was Already Happening In the decade from 1990 to 2000 the area within a half-mile radius, according to a thorough study by the Pratt Center for Community Development, experienced widespread new incremental investment with higher-income, better-educated, and younger residents moving in from other areas of the city.16 It was revitalization despite the proximity of the rail yards. The income for the area rose from 45 to 65 percent of the median income for Brooklyn. Home ownership increased from 12.8 percent to 24.7 percent. Row houses and small apartment buildings were renovated. Industrial buildings were converted to expensive condominiums. Modest-scale new luxury residences were built with million-dollar condos. Rooftop and backyard additions were added to brownstones. New small local businesses and some chains opened. All of this was happening with the retention of both public and subsidized housing, and both rent-regulated and unregulated low-income housing. More than 8,000 residents, or almost 15 percent of the area's population, live below the poverty level. In other words, precursors to regeneration were maturing into the real thing. One neighborhood resident told Charles V. Bagli of the It was revitalization despite the proximity of the rail yards. The income for the area rose from 45 to 65 percent of the median income for Brooklyn. Home ownership increased from 12.8 percent to 24.7 percent. Row houses and small apartment buildings were renovated. Industrial buildings were converted to expensive condominiums. Modest-scale new luxury residences were built with million-dollar condos. Rooftop and backyard additions were added to brownstones. New small local businesses and some chains opened. All of this was happening with the retention of both public and subsidized housing, and both rent-regulated and unregulated low-income housing. More than 8,000 residents, or almost 15 percent of the area's population, live below the poverty level. In other words, precursors to regeneration were maturing into the real thing. One neighborhood resident told Charles V. Bagli of the New York Times New York Times that he had watched his block "evolve from a strip packed with working man's bars to a desolate eyesore and back to a thriving street." that he had watched his block "evolve from a strip packed with working man's bars to a desolate eyesore and back to a thriving street."17 A neighborhood door-to-door survey, conducted by local resident and trained researcher Patti Hagan, found 864 people living in the six blocks slated for demolition and 200 jobs. Ratner guessed there were 100 residents. A cla.s.sic case of regeneration in motion, what Jacobs called "unslumming." In the middle of this is the Atlantic Yards site designated BLIGHTED! I don't think so!

Among the rationalizations for the blight designation, interestingly, was the existence of about 50 percent vacant lots or structures built to only 60 percent of allowable density. Many of the empty lots, as noted, were owned by the city or the developer and kept empty (or made empty through demolition) in antic.i.p.ation of the new development. What better example of "planners' blight"? As for the buildings built to 60 percent or less of allowable bulk, that refers to brownstones, small retail s.p.a.ces, modest-scale apartment houses, industrial buildings, the very combination of structures that revived the surrounding districts. In 2007 a nearby four-story double-duplex private house was selling for $2 million.

By the definition of "blight" allowed on this site, most of Brooklyn and a good deal of the rest of the city could be declared blighted-exactly Moses's point. This allows wrongheaded projects to be rationalized anywhere in the city, stopped only by successful civic resistance, financial implosion, or occasional court victories.

Historic Preservation Sacrificed Preservation and restoration of historic buildings have been, as noted, one of the leading precursors of the area's upgrade in recent decades. But that didn't stop Ratner, with the complicity of the city and the state, from slating for demolition some noteworthy but undesignated landmarks, the kind that have been the star revitalization performers in New York and every city across the country.

The most egregious loss has been the six-story 1911 Ward's Bakery with its white terra-cotta facade and colorful Greco-inspired ornamental arches. The owner was planning to convert it to a hotel until he took a nice profit and sold this and another building to Ratner for $44 million in 2005. Closed in 1995, "this factory helped create a market for ma.s.s-produced bread," wrote Sam Goldsmith in the Brooklyn Paper Brooklyn Paper. "Thanks to new machinery and techniques that mechanized the process, the factory turned out 250,000 loaves-a lot in those days-and employed hundreds of employees."18

10.2 Ward's Bakery, with its terra cotta facade and large arched windows, would have been a designated landmark on any other site. Now demolished. Tracy Collins Tracy Collins.

Ward's Bakery was on the footprint of a planned superblock on a corner of the whole twenty-two-acre site. Its preservation would have meant moving the location of the arena. Of course, if preserving the building were a goal to begin with, the site planning might have evolved differently.

Ironically, the bakery had a historic sports connection, too. George S. Ward, bakery president, was vice president of baseball's short-lived Federal League, a failed attempt to create a third professional league from 1913 to 1915. His brother, Robert Ward, owned the Brooklyn Tip-Tops, one of the league's eight teams, named after a Ward's bread brand. They played in Washington Park, in nearby Park Slope, where the Dodgers played until moving to Ebbets Field in 1912.

To add insult to the injury of losing this building, Ratner will get credit under the LEED19 green building standards for eventually incorporating elements of this needlessly lost landmark into his new structure (if the stored elements even survive). The LEED standards are weighted almost entirely in favor of new construction, despite the fact that, as the now well-known saying goes, "the greenest building is the one already standing." green building standards for eventually incorporating elements of this needlessly lost landmark into his new structure (if the stored elements even survive). The LEED standards are weighted almost entirely in favor of new construction, despite the fact that, as the now well-known saying goes, "the greenest building is the one already standing."20 Public Relations and Politics Win Out Ratner's public relations effort has been amazingly effective from the start, especially succeeding in focusing the spotlight on the virtues of a new sports facility, the one thing even opponents agree is a legitimate goal, but distracting attention from the enormous public cost required. The arena, noted Daily News Daily News columnist Jimmy Breslin on January 22, 2004, "would be a nice addition to Brooklyn, if you had it . . . someplace that disturbed no human beings who contribute a lot more to the world than a foul shot." Ratner is also a generous philanthropist, strategically donating money to scores of organizations and inst.i.tutions that just coincidentally results in minimum public debate. columnist Jimmy Breslin on January 22, 2004, "would be a nice addition to Brooklyn, if you had it . . . someplace that disturbed no human beings who contribute a lot more to the world than a foul shot." Ratner is also a generous philanthropist, strategically donating money to scores of organizations and inst.i.tutions that just coincidentally results in minimum public debate.

The arena focus leaves in the shadow the debate over sixteen new gla.s.s and steel towers ranging in height from approximately 150 to 500 feet, 15,000 new people, gridlock traffic, overcrowded schools, overwhelming transit usage, and more. As Chris Smith wrote in New York Magazine New York Magazine in 2006: in 2006: In his push to make Atlantic Yards a reality, Bruce Ratner has crafted the most sophisticated political campaign the city has seen in a very long time, better than any professional politician has mounted to win elective office, complete with gag orders and aggressive polling. And even if Atlantic Yards was wildly disproportionate to the surrounding neighborhoods, its pillars seemed laudable (the subsidized housing) and potentially cool (Gehry; having the NBA's Nets nearby). The developer, Ratner, seemed downright enlightened: a commissioner of consumer affairs under Ed Koch who'd gone out of his way to hire women and minorities to build his other projects.21 Smith might also have noted the deceptiveness of the affordable-housing promise. Not only has the promised number of units shrunk since first announced, as predicted, but the money to construct them would be coming from normal public funding sources, not from Ratner's development coffers. In other words, those units could be built now, elsewhere, without Atlantic Yard's construction. If Ratner really cared about creating affordable housing, he could do it now elsewhere in the city. And if such housing is constructed in the future and those public funds still exist, money used here will not be available for similar housing elsewhere in the city. That funding source is finite. And since any affordable units built here will be more expensive to construct than elsewhere, a disproportionate share of the citywide resource will get used here.

So, since its announcement in December 2003, where does the project stand? In light of the current economic crisis, this is hard to say. Ratner tried and failed to get a bailout from the stimulus package to build the

10.3 Dean Street loft co-ops on the Atlantic Yards site, formerly fully occupied. The building has been empty since 2005 and is scheduled for demolition. Tracy Collins Tracy Collins.

arena. Mayor Bloomberg has denied any increase in city funds. Court challenges continue. In September 2009, Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov agreed to buy 80 percent of the money-losing basketball team and to invest in the larger project. The details remain unclear. One cannot predict what will finally emerge from this overblown proposal. Cynics could easily observe that building the arena for his own team, the Nets, was Ratner's goal to begin with, the rest being window dressing. If anyone really thought that the Gehry-designed development had a chance of evolving as presented for state and public approval, well, then, I have a bridge to sell them.

Ratner would have undoubtedly sold off parcels to other developers to design as they saw fit within the zoning. He still can. Wrote New York Times New York Times critic Nicolai Ouroussoff, who had high praise for Gehry's design: "New York has had a terrible track record with large-scale planning in recent years. Look at Battery Park City. The MetroTech Center. critic Nicolai Ouroussoff, who had high praise for Gehry's design: "New York has had a terrible track record with large-scale planning in recent years. Look at Battery Park City. The MetroTech Center.22 Donald Trump's Riverside South. All are blots on the urban environment, as blandly h.o.m.ogeneous in their own way as the Modernist superblocks they were intended to improve on." Donald Trump's Riverside South. All are blots on the urban environment, as blandly h.o.m.ogeneous in their own way as the Modernist superblocks they were intended to improve on."23 Ouroussoff points to Rockefeller Center as a prime and glorious example of what this city was once capable of producing. Yet Rockefeller Center evolved. It started as a planned site for an opera house, changed with the times, was designed by thirteen different architects, connected seamlessly to the existing grid (even adding a street), is totally geared to pedestrians and ma.s.s transit, not cars, and did not overwhelm the airs.p.a.ce of its site. Ouroussoff points to Rockefeller Center as a prime and glorious example of what this city was once capable of producing. Yet Rockefeller Center evolved. It started as a planned site for an opera house, changed with the times, was designed by thirteen different architects, connected seamlessly to the existing grid (even adding a street), is totally geared to pedestrians and ma.s.s transit, not cars, and did not overwhelm the airs.p.a.ce of its site.

The alternative to Ratner's proposal had smaller and more manageable components and relied on more than one developer. This could have produced some notable new buildings. The most critically acclaimed buildings designed and built around the city in recent years are on single infill sites, mostly in historic neighborhoods. The scale of the alternative would be more compatible with the existing urban fabric, even including reasonably tall buildings. The surrounding neighborhoods thus would not be overwhelmed. Viable buildings would not be lost nor current residents and businesses displaced. Development and new growth could have continued as they had in the prior decade, step by step, in modest doses. Transportation and pedestrian connections to its surroundings and to the downtown core would be more reasonable. All of this would add up to the kind of development in small or modest doses that leads to big but appropriate change. The alternative design would have had a better chance of genuine public approval and of getting off the ground. What a missed opportunity.

In fact, one of two Dean Street resident architects who offered alternative plans suggested razing the Atlantic Center mall, a much maligned suburban-style enclosed shopping complex built in the 1990s by Ratner just north of the arena site. (A few government agencies occupy s.p.a.ce here. This is a typical way government helps economically challenged developer projects.) "If Mr. Ratner were willing to condemn his own property, he would be able to build his arena without displacing anyone from their homes," architect Karla Rothstein, a Dean Street resident who worked on an alternative development, told Times Times reporter Bagli. "It would be an improvement on the existing mall," she added. reporter Bagli. "It would be an improvement on the existing mall," she added.

Another important consequence of the alternative should be noted. The city would not lose the taxes, residences, businesses, and jobs of the site for the decades that most of this land will lie fallow, just like so many earlier Robert Moses clearance projects did. The losses on these sites is never calculated, just the promises of the new taxes and jobs to come eventually. Those jobs may not even materialize as promised. Seldom does the city or anyone go back after a project is finished to see if promises have been met. And in how many projects have we seen fewer jobs created than promised and then seen those jobs disappear within a short time after completion? The tax incentives that came with those promises are rarely removed.

Measuring the taxes and jobs is fundamentally the wrong way to evaluate a plan, in any case. One must consider how it affects a wide area, including the whole city, and not just the site. Otherwise, everything will continually be suitable for replacement, no matter how well the site still functions. "Just replacing a dime store with a larger five and ten doesn't benefit the city in the long run," notes Ron Shiffman. "Rather, the point is to enable those facilities, like the dime store, to improve themselves. One is a replacement strategy; the other is how an economy grows by nurturing from within."

What Would Jane Jacobs Say?

Jacobs's name was reportedly invoked in the early presentations of the Atlantic Yards proposal. Apparently, the Jacobs qualities included a web of streets and sidewalks, although winding suburban style and not connected to the city's existing grid; ground-floor retail for some of the towers, something every developer now does because it is good business but is also used to claim a Jacobs imprimatur; and, of course, mixed use, which, as shown earlier in this book, is not the Jacobs definition of mixed use but contrasts with Moses's separation of uses. Since her name was involved, it is appropriate to examine the project against her writing.

First, let's dispose of the idea that Jacobs was against change or against big buildings or, indeed, a sentimentalist. First, go back to her letter to Mayor Bloomberg about Greenpoint-Williamsburg. That is a ringing endors.e.m.e.nt for change, just a different kind of change than what the city was proposing. In addition, one can look at her enthusiastic championing of the planning and zoning changes in the old garment center of Toronto known as the King-Spadina area. Toronto city officials consulted with her and followed many of her suggestions there, today considered that city's SoHo equivalent. New innovative uses occupy both old and new buildings. New buildings coexist comfortably with old. Once empty or underused old buildings are now full. This is change in a big way. That Toronto district was in no better shape than our city's so-called derelict old neighborhoods.

And, of course, a true reading of Jacobs's books versus a pseudounderstanding would indicate her disapproval of everything about Atlantic Yards but also her expectation for continued change and growth, just not Ratner's idea of change and growth, any more than a Moses plan. A basic Jacobs precept is complexity: no complexity is possible in a monolithic development of this scale by one developer and designed by one architect.

Another basic Jacobs precept is opposition to "cataclysmic" money and development. Surely, this project qualifies as cataclysmic change. The proposal is so inimical to the character of the district and, in fact, the whole borough of Brooklyn that it is off any chart of Jacobs's principles.

Trying to show how Atlantic Yards contradicts every Jacobs principle can be tiresome. And, in fact, she was too unpredictable for such an exercise. Furthermore, Jacobs was never about how to develop develop or or design design as much as how to as much as how to think think about development, how to about development, how to observe observe and and understand understand what works, how to what works, how to respect respect what exists, how to what exists, how to scrutinize scrutinize plans skeptically, how to plans skeptically, how to nurture nurture innovation, new growth, and resilience. That says it all. innovation, new growth, and resilience. That says it all.

As it happens, I had a brief conversation with Jane about Atlantic Yards in one of my last visits with her before her death. The development had only recently been proposed, and she agreed that it was right out of the pages of old, discarded development models derivative of Moses. There was not much to discuss. She shook her head and said, "What a shame."

On to Columbia University Atlantic Yards may be the poster child for current Moses-style development in New York, but it is not alone. Columbia University on the Upper West Side gained city approval for a second campus north of its historic 110th Street site that would provide 6.8 million square feet in eighteen new academic and research buildings on seventeen acres in West Harlem and an underground network six stories deep for tunnels, two power plants, parking, garbage collection, and loading docks. The site encompa.s.ses more than eight blocks north of 125th Street between the phenomenal architectural structures of two elevated trestles for Riverside Drive and the Broadway IRT subway. Though lacking in gates or fences, this second campus will feel separated and segregated from the neighboring city. Under single ownership and patrolled by a private security force, this academic island will undoubtedly feel isolated, even if connected to the actual grid and planned skillfully by an accomplished city planning team under the leadership of Marilyn Taylor of Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill.

Like Atlantic Yards, Columbia targeted a semi-industrial, seemingly derelict neighborhood that to the contrary combined regenerative precursors interspersed with opportunities for infill development of varying scale. And like Atlantic Yards, both Columbia's purchase and emptying of properties along with the threat of eminent domain blighted the area, although new businesses, especially restaurants, kept opening in the neighborhood, despite their location under and within sound impact of both viaducts. In fact, enough new restaurants have opened in reclaimed warehouses along Twelfth Avenue to be dubbed "restaurant row" and "a culinary hot spot" for West Harlem.

Unlike Atlantic Yards, however, Columbia could have achieved 85 percent, if not all, the expansion that it says it needs (predicting future needs is always a guessing game) in the next thirty years without erasing a Harlem neighborhood, once known as Manhattanville. That expansion, however, just would not have happened in the same form, with the same design, and according to the same plan as Columbia insisted on.

Forest City Ratner, a private-sector ent.i.ty with the purpose of making money, is best known in Brooklyn for its two large suburban-style projects, the Metro Tech office park and the Atlantic Center Mall. That is Ratner's style of development, not an urban vision reflecting a real understanding of how a city-its neighborhoods, economy, and public s.p.a.ces-really works. But from Columbia University, one of the most prestigious in the country, something different was to be expected. Columbia should not behave like a private developer with a suburban view of the city. This 254-year old inst.i.tution is home to a highly respected planning program, the first historic preservation program at any university in the country, and an impressive roster of urban experts, such as Mindy Fullilove, mentioned earlier, a professor of clinical psychiatry and public health who has written so extensively about the impacts of the ruptured social bonds in communities decimated by urban renewal.

So when Columbia unveiled its proposed new academic enclave necessitating the total clearance of a neighborhood, Moses style, urbanists were correct to be stunned. The individual gla.s.s-covered, almost transparent buildings were designed by the world-renowned architect Renzio Piano. The pattern of enlisting "starchitects" merely for the purpose of advancing otherwise troublesome plans had become familiar in recent decades. Both Atlantic Yards and the Columbia plan are perfect examples of this trend.

Expansion Idea Not Disputed It is very important to understand that no one was denying Columbia the right to expand. No one was denying that its expansion could be good for the city. No one was even questioning if Columbia would really need eight million additional square feet of s.p.a.ce in the next thirty years, although such projections are tricky at best. And no one was opposing change. Once again, quite simply, it was the form of the change that was legitimately challenged, not change itself.

Columbia's well-ill.u.s.trated material presents the proposal as "a new hub of education and economic opportunity, culture and community-weaving together the urban fabric of West Harlem with a revitalized Hudson River waterfront." Ironically, by the way, the revitalized waterfront is something the community has been fighting for for years. It is finally happening without Columbia. Three new piers along the waterfront have been built by the city and state. Sadly, however, the community that fought for and achieved this will not remain to enjoy it or will have to come from afar to visit. Notes the brochure: "The plan would transform what is now a largely isolated, underutilized streetscape of garage openings, empty ground floors, roll-down metal gates, and chain-link fences in the blocks from West 125th to 133rd Streets into a cohesive, reanimated center for educational, commercial, and community life." These are the conditions Columbia fostered and now wants to repair.

Like Ratner at Atlantic Yards, Columbia started buying property in the area and removing tenants well before the announced proposal, again causing much of the blight it decries. Anyone reading the above description would think the proposal is entirely beneficial. No mention is made of the displacement of 400 residents occupying affordable units, including 160 low-income families, 70-odd businesses, and 1,200 jobs. While areas in the city available for blue-collar work dwindle, it is difficult to estimate how many of the displaced businesses will survive in New York or at all. And considering, as well, the shortage of affordable housing, the relocation of low-income families from here, years before new units are built, only puts more strain on the citywide supply. Columbia's description of the site also fails to mention the removal of 150 artists and their studios, a window manufacturer, several film editing studios for cable TV, a wholesale bakery, a catering business, a pharmacy, a furniture restorer, one framing and gilding business, a stone fabricator, a boilermaker, several electricians and plumbers, a.s.sorted restaurants, an architectural ornament fabricator, Tools for Schools (an electronics repair and reuse operation), a few construction companies, moving and storage facilities, auto-body businesses, and two gas stations. Six sizable family-owned businesses were included in this mix.

One family-owned business, Hudson Moving and Storage, housed dozens of small businesses in two buildings, from a woodworker to an electrician to a refinisher. Hudson's multiple interior s.p.a.ces functioned as an incubator for new and growing businesses. Until Columbia started buying up occupied buildings, the area was home to a veritable agglomeration of small businesses that were both part of the citywide economy and servicing it. The value of this network is beyond measurement. Individually and collectively, they add up to hidden links in the city's supply chain and are almost totally ignored and undervalued.

10.4 Hudson Moving and Storage, on the Columbia site and purchased by Columbia under threat of eminent domain, had been converted into an a.s.sortment of creative small businesses.

Ron Shiffman.

The diversity of businesses present in this "blighted" area is not quite what Columbia would like the public to believe. Of course, many of these uses began disappearing when Columbia started buying properties.

It is worth repeating: Columbia University's expansion needs are real. No one disputes that. Expansion would be a good thing for the city as a whole. Elements of the proposed design are appealing. One could never judge the architectural plans, however, because the only sure thing about them is that they will change dramatically as the project moves forward. But whatever its design, it could all happen without erasing, Moses style, a viable piece of the city that would have revived economically, socially, and physically if not demolished.

The fundamental flaw preventing a compatible Columbia expansion was the university's insistence on the six-story underground s.p.a.ce covering the whole site, known as the bathtub. This enormous, really enormous, underground s.p.a.ce will take approximately seven to ten years to build and requires an estimated ninety-eight thousand or more truck trips in and out of the neighborhood, transporting debris to landfills. Underground tunnels, parking, loading, and power plants will fill this s.p.a.ce. Its creation requires demolition of everything above it on the street level-except, of course, a few buildings Columbia has chosen to retain for its own use.

Serious technical questions were raised, especially by disaster experts, concerning the environmental safety of this "bathtub." The site is located on a fault line and in an evacuation zone for hurricane surges, and it will include labs that work with biohazards. Experts, including some on the Columbia campus, questioned whether the bathtub s.p.a.ce could be constructed with adequate safeguards.

The environmental and economic costs were never clearly addressed. But the point here is not to take issue with a very challenging engineering issue; the point is to indicate, yet again, how an alternative was available. Rockefeller Center, for example, brilliantly created a vast underground s.p.a.ce in the 1930s that would permit the requisite underground uses24 and connections without requiring the same underground scale. The university totally rejected the idea without serious consideration. "Cities are bound to change, you have to accept it," the architect, Renzio Piano, was quoted as saying in one news story. "This area is going to change, and should change in significant ways. You can't embalm a city," Columbia president Lee Bollinger was quoted as saying. Neither comment reflects the reality that, yet again, it was not about stopping change or embalming a city but about what kind of change is appropriate. and connections without requiring the same underground scale. The university totally rejected the idea without serious consideration. "Cities are bound to change, you have to accept it," the architect, Renzio Piano, was quoted as saying in one news story. "This area is going to change, and should change in significant ways. You can't embalm a city," Columbia president Lee Bollinger was quoted as saying. Neither comment reflects the reality that, yet again, it was not about stopping change or embalming a city but about what kind of change is appropriate. Embalm Embalm is a favorite word used in recent years by people whose proposals met stiff public resistance. One had to wonder what city-or, indeed, what planet-they were talking about. New York City, for sure, has been in an almost permanent state of construction and change for years, the most dramatic transformation in decades. is a favorite word used in recent years by people whose proposals met stiff public resistance. One had to wonder what city-or, indeed, what planet-they were talking about. New York City, for sure, has been in an almost permanent state of construction and change for years, the most dramatic transformation in decades.

It should be noted that Columbia's plan, even if a Moses-style, nonintegrative, demolition-only one, is a better one than Atlantic Yards in terms of street layout, connections to the surrounding grid, and central open s.p.a.ce. Nevertheless, it destroys viable urban a.s.sets instead of building on them, claims a green building philosophy while erasing environmentally viable existing buildings, replaces instead of enriches an existing neighborhood, and boasts a community involvement process that permitted tinkerings, not meaningful impact.25 In both places, the critical web of social and economic relationships that reach beyond the immediate borders is shattered. The upheaval in many cases is causing irreparable harm. And like Atlantic Yards, the specter and willingness of Columbia to abuse the potential for eminent domain resulted in a totally undemocratic process. In both places, the critical web of social and economic relationships that reach beyond the immediate borders is shattered. The upheaval in many cases is causing irreparable harm. And like Atlantic Yards, the specter and willingness of Columbia to abuse the potential for eminent domain resulted in a totally undemocratic process.26 Moses would be pleased. Moses would be pleased.

10.5 Willets Point. Not the view officials want to see when they go to Citi Field. Norman Mintz Norman Mintz.

Willets Point Willets Point is probably the most challenging site to demonstrate both the existence of regenerative precursors and an alternative to a Moses-style clearance strategy. Bleak Bleak is a mild term for the appearance of this desolate and isolated thirteen-block triangle directly across from the Shea Stadium replacement, Citi Field, in Queens. Its worst sin, in fact, is that it is a visual offense to city officials who deem it imperative to clean up and sanitize the site directly in the eye path of visiting sports fans. The idea of a view of gritty economic life is apparently unacceptable. is a mild term for the appearance of this desolate and isolated thirteen-block triangle directly across from the Shea Stadium replacement, Citi Field, in Queens. Its worst sin, in fact, is that it is a visual offense to city officials who deem it imperative to clean up and sanitize the site directly in the eye path of visiting sports fans. The idea of a view of gritty economic life is apparently unacceptable.

This sixty-one-acre site at the geographic center of the city is surrounded by two highways and a subway line. The area is literally bereft of most city services. No basic infrastructure exists here. No sidewalks, no sewer lines, no paved streets, and no street lights are to be found. Pond-size potholes are everywhere. Huge oil-slick puddles collect after a rainfall. Dust rises from the unpaved roads running past and between the waste transfer stations and recycling facilities. And to add insult to injury, police give tickets for parking on sidewalks even where there are no sidewalks. Many of the ramshackle structures are built in unconventional ways, mostly of corrugated aluminum. They are interspersed with reused manufacturing and warehouse buildings and empty lots. A more dismal piece of New York City real estate is hard to find. A pile of "toxic filth that is the result of the government's failure to provide adequate infrastructure in the first place," wrote economist Sanford Ikeda on his blog critiquing the city demolition plan.

So when the city Economic Development Administration announced in 2006 a plan in which the city would buy out all the property owners to clear the site for future development, one can understand why there was a more muted off-site voice in opposition than for either Atlantic Yards or Columbia's new campus. But this is a real case of more than meets the eye.

The miracle is how anything exists on Willets Point at all! The curious must ask why. What can be observed and learned here? Actually, quite a bit.

A Moses Survivor Ironically, this was the site of an earlier, rare successful battle against Robert Moses. In the 1960s Moses wanted the site for parkland. A then little-known lawyer but future governor, Mario Cuomo, successfully represented the land and business owners to resist this takeover. A later Donald Trump effort to redevelop the area also failed.

But even as a takeover target for decades, with probably the worst physical conditions of any city site, Willets Point is home to 260 businesses and 1,700 to 1,800 jobs.27 Little vacant or unused land can be found. Property values are comparable to values in other industrial areas of Brooklyn and Queens. Willets Point businesses-mostly auto parts and recycling related-paid approximately $1.1 million in city real estate taxes in 2005. Little vacant or unused land can be found. Property values are comparable to values in other industrial areas of Brooklyn and Queens. Willets Point businesses-mostly auto parts and recycling related-paid approximately $1.1 million in city real estate taxes in 2005.

Twenty businesses are run by landowners, many second- and third-generation family owned. More than 80 percent of the businesses are renters. Most have been in business more than five years at the same location, an indication of long-term stability. Statistics for Willets Point are more revealing and relevant than in many places because it is so difficult for the average eye to observe true economic and urban value here.

But consider carefully what economist Sanford Ikeda also wrote on his blog, in January 2008: Old, worn-out buildings (or garages) are often good places to incubate ideas, but you can't build old buildings. Places like Willets Point (and Dharavi in India) offer cheap s.p.a.ce for poor entrepreneurs who tend in turn, at least initially, to serve poor patrons. Willets Point is a good, though perhaps not perfect, example of an "unslumming" commercial slum, that is, a slum that is bootstrapping its way to economic development. Okay, it doesn't appear on the surface to be all that innovative. But in among the mostly grungy auto shops are a few shinier and larger establishments. So, the most successful either leave for less-toxic pastures or, if they stay, help to unslum the slum.

The Dharavi reference is an interesting one. Mumbai's sprawling Dharavi is the primary so-called slum depicted in Slumdog Millionaire Slumdog Millionaire that actually patched together scenes from various slums in that city for the film. Like Willets Point, the reality of Dharavi contradicts the perception. While the largest slum in Mumbai, "Dharavi is probably the most active and lively part of an incredibly industrious city . . . including having set up a highly functional recycling industry that serves the whole city," wrote Matias Echanove and Rahul Srivastava, community activists affiliated with PUKAR, that actually patched together scenes from various slums in that city for the film. Like Willets Point, the reality of Dharavi contradicts the perception. While the largest slum in Mumbai, "Dharavi is probably the most active and lively part of an incredibly industrious city . . . including having set up a highly functional recycling industry that serves the whole city," wrote Matias Echanove and Rahul Srivastava, community activists affiliated with PUKAR,28 in a in a New York Times New York Times op-ed piece. Dharavi, they noted, "is all about resourcefulness. Over 60 years ago, it started off as a small village in the marshlands and grew, with no governmental support, to become a million-dollar economic miracle providing food to Mumbai and exporting crafts and manufactured goods to places as far away as Sweden." op-ed piece. Dharavi, they noted, "is all about resourcefulness. Over 60 years ago, it started off as a small village in the marshlands and grew, with no governmental support, to become a million-dollar economic miracle providing food to Mumbai and exporting crafts and manufactured goods to places as far away as Sweden."29 Estimates of the number of informal businesses and cottage industries are 5,000 to 15,000, with revenues totaling tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars a year. Estimates of the number of informal businesses and cottage industries are 5,000 to 15,000, with revenues totaling tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars a year.

Economist Edward L. Glaeser agrees. "The defining characteristic of Mumbai is not crime or Bollywood, but entrepreneurship even in the city's slums," he wrote in the New York Times New York Times Economix Blog, on May 26, 2009. Dharavi, he noted, "is a place of remarkable economic energy where poor people are managing to eke out a living as entrepreneurs." Economix Blog, on May 26, 2009. Dharavi, he noted, "is a place of remarkable economic energy where poor people are managing to eke out a living as entrepreneurs."

Willets Point is also all about resourcefulness. It looks like sheer chaos but has its own economic rationale. And like Willets Point, the Indian government is preparing to flatten Dharavi and build high-rise towers and business parks, a la Robert Moses, in the mistaken notion that building an economy on real estate instead of entrepreneurship works.

10.6 Rahul and Matias loved the license plate. Rahul Srivastava Rahul Srivastava.

On their trip to New York last year, I took Matias and Rahul to Willets Point. They were stunned at the similarities with Dharavi, the big difference being that in Dharavi, people live where they work as well. The same lack of infrastructure exists, as does the creative patching together of small buildings with corrugated tin and other materials. Residents role up their mattresses each morning and get to work.