All the Park's a Stage

I'm sort of ashamed to admit that this was my first time visiting this site, not only because it's by the architects responsible for the transformation of Lincoln Center, about which I should have benefit of the utmost implicit understanding, but also because it's one of the most extraordinary things to be built in New York in recent years. I knew that before even seeing it in person. And while something very similar to this was built in Paris which I have not had the pleasure to see, I'm willing to test the limits of my credibility to suggest that it might very well be one of the most amazing things to be built in any city. The reason I say that is both that it's so unique and that it's been so uniquely successful. Something like this could only have happened in a place like New York, because the possibility for it to exist relies so intimately on New York's very particular history and evolution, as it must have in Paris. It did what the greatest moments of genius have always done, it took a shortcoming and turned it into an advantage. This project is like Marilyn Monroe's quivery-lipped smile.

All my regular readers and anyone even remotely tapped in to the pulse of New York architecture know, of course, that I'm talking about the High Line Park by Diller, Scofidio + Renfro (2011).

In another sense, I'm sort of glad that I chose this moment to go to see it, because the second phase, from Twentieth to Thirtieth Streets, was only just completed. I suspect I got a much more full impression of what this project is all about because there was more of it to become acquainted with for me than if I'd gone last summer.

My companion for the day was actually my mom. We've discovered that the cultural events we enjoy seeing together are not limited to performances at Lincoln Center or museum shows, and include things like this. She's been open to the topic of architecture and design through my devotion to the subjects and, for instance, was nearly as transfixed by the writings of Ada Louise Huxtable as I was when I lent her the book. But this is not her main area of interest. Like me, she is a sponge for learning and information, and where our expertise overlaps I think is in communication and language. Only I've been applying them to the visual arts and especially architecture. She's a great person with whom to have discussions about architecture and design for the very reason that her experience with it and opinions are not shaped by the blinders of an "insider's" view, if that's what you'd call me. In a way, they're much more pure and less elitist or overly academic.

The true triumph of the High Line is that in our own separate ways, and in many other ways that intersected, we both thought it was glorious and wonderful.

Speaking of museums, our day actually started out trying to get into the Alexander McQueen exhibit at the Metropolitan museum. That just wasn't meant to happen. I won't go into it, but at a certain point I realized our luck was not going our way at the Met and we should just leave and forget it. That will need to be a later post.

I was glad to have my camera in the vicinity of this first building, because I think it's so cool. It's the Westyard Distribution Center (1970), by Davis, Brody & Associates.

It's just so massive and imposing. The way it narrows toward the top hints at something ancient, namely a pyramid, but it also has the effect of making the building appear taller than it is. One small detail I never noticed before was at the corner piers. If you look closely, the two perpendicular walls are cracked open by the tiniest sliver. So while, from afar, they look heavy and strong, when you get up close, they turn paper thin.

We started our journey at the northern end of the High Line at Thirtieth Street and walked south.

I wanted to look at the very northern end and noticed that it turns west toward the river, what could potentially be an incredible approach to the Hudson river if they decide to continue it. I assume that this would transport materials from barges on the river to the factories and warehouses in the Meat Packing District and back again. I tried to determine if the small amount of building materials piled up on the other side of the chain link fence were reminiscent of the ones used for the new park and indicating that they do intend to continue northward, but it was difficult to tell.

We were talking about how, if they do continue northward, it would make the perfect junction with what has been discussed as incredible new development over the west side rail yards, something west Midtown has been sorely needing for years.

The High Line's plantings are really remarkable. Having the not-yet-renovated section at the north to use in comparison is great. You can see how the new flora very much appears as if it grew there by chance, but more beautifully than were they mere weeds. 

A coworker was telling me about some friends whose apartment overlooks the High Line. One of them writes little plays and then they perform them out their windows for people who happen to be passing by. First of all, only in New York. Secondly, what an absolutely fantastic idea. Thirdly, I think it only goes to prove what a work of genius and transcendental success this park has been, that it was not only highly creative in conception and execution, but that it has given rise to further bursts of creativity. I wonder if this building is where my coworker's friends live.

One minor problem I noticed in this northern section is the width of the path. The fact that it would be so easy to correct if they chose to do so is another wonderful thing about the design. Now that I'm thinking about it, however, I believe it was intentional. What I'm talking about is how the path is just not quite wide enough for two pairs of people to walk side by side in opposite directions without one of them needing to step out of the way. The measurements for that would be so easy to determine, and must be entirely ingrained in the minds of DS+R, whose work so often rejoices in the pedestrian. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, I'll need to conclude that forcing visitors to mingle in this way encourages a sense of community that the city below often makes it all too easy to avoid.

The furnishings are also extremely well-designed. And that I can say they are designed--in fact, designed into the very fabric of the park--is one of the things that makes this whole project a true work of art. I really loved the warm, dark tone of the wood against the cool grey stone and the greenery. Further south in the older section, it becomes apparent that the wood will weather to a grayish color, as well, making for less of a contrast but blending into the stone quite nicely: a change of material without a change in color.

Starting at Twenty-Seventh Street, the path rises up above the level of the plantings and remains over it all the way down to mid-block south of Twenty-Fifth. Further expression of what this has accomplished is in that there are smaller gravel paths accessing the plantings but are restricted to maintenance staff. 

It's as if DS+R wanted to completely remove all human interference with the natural landscape from this section of the park, to allow it to grow unfettered and undisturbed, something that happens virtually nowhere else I can think of on the island of Manhattan and in probably not anywhere in Brooklyn or Queens, either. Looking over the edge, I noticed that they were planted rather sparsely. I was curious if this was intended to grow in naturally over time to completely fill in, and perhaps also other plants that happen to find their seeds there by chance. I love that idea and actually have an "orphan plants" garden on my fire escape where I nurture whatever plants happen to pop up in my pots (unless they're bad weeds).

In the middle of the raised section is another very interesting moment. It was the first of many occasions I found to observe what I'll call "the theater of urban life," something for which DS+R should be famous if they aren't already. Lincoln Center is just chock full of them (come on my tour and ask me, I'll show them all to you). On the other side of this wooden bench, which faces the footpath, is another bench facing the opposite direction that looks out onto Twenty-Sixth Street. It's essentially inviting you to just sit and watch the city.

Even more interesting, though, are these arms that branch off in seemingly random directions. One of them looks back onto those wooden benches and, although somewhat obscured by greenery, focuses your attention again on the other visitors to the park. Another one I found particularly indicative of their concept because of at what it encourages you to look...or more precisely, what it doesn't. This protruding balcony invites you to step out to the end of it, but only to show you something perfectly ordinary, a plain gray warehouse building now presumably offices for some graphic design firm or similar. It's as if DS+R are asking you to look more closely at the banal details of a city which so often reeks of the tacky spectacular.

Now we arrive at the first of the crazy new buildings to go up because of the High Line that one discovers when traveling south. This one is 245 Tenth Avenue (2009) by Della Valle + Bernheimer, who have since split into two firms. Taken in and of itself, this is a pretty cool building. The unfortunate thing about it is that the two things it has going for it--namely its unusual angularity and its random pattern of windows--were both accomplished much better and more suavely by two other buildings in its immediate vicinity that I'll get to below.

And they come at you rapid-fire after this. The whole neighborhood has been stuffed full of unusual buildings. The next is the one that I think pretty decidedly carries its angularity with more strength. Not only that, but the way it expresses its engineering in response to its profile is fascinating. This one has gotten quite a lot of press so many of you probably know that it's HL23 (2010) by Neil Denari.

Immediately next door to this is another one, High Line 519 (which I sort of by accident pronounced the way I think it's supposed to be: "High Line Five-One-Nine") by Lindy Roy. I had already looked into Roy, because she designed the new art gallery at the Metropolitan Opera House. I'm sure that guy sticking his head out the window with I guess his daughter? thought I was taking a picture of him, not realizing they'd be nothing more than a blurry dot in the image.

Down a little way from those is a group of tiered platforms that have a sort of amphitheater (of urban life) feeling to them. It's the same wood, presumably, as the benches that will similarly weather to a lighter gray. While it's most likely constructed with a frame of steel or some other metal underneath, I really liked how at the edges, it's made to look like wooden planks stacked up as if in a lumberyard. It's a great little detail that celebrates the industrial history of this neighborhood.

Next is a section maybe around 150- to 200-feet long where the plantings are much higher and form two walls of greenery on either side of the footpath. When these grow in even further, I think it may give the sensation of suddenly encountering a jungle. In fact, it almost gets a bit claustrophobic, but you aren't in it for long before it opens back up again. You can also notice how in this section, the railroad tracks were left in place.

Just past this are two wonderful sculptures, one on each side of the path, by Sarah Sze called Still Life with Landscape (Model for a Habitat). They basically look like the surrounding neighborhood, with little buildings in a kind of forced perspective and perched on a silvery metal lattice. But the little houses may actually work as birdhouses, and it also has little trays filled with birdseed and others with water. There didn't seem to be any birds even remotely interested in utilizing the facilities, certainly because there were too many people around. It seems kind of a shame, and perhaps it should have been located further from the path or extended up high enough that visitors couldn't disturb the birds. It may get more birds in the morning hours when not as many people are there.

This has nothing really to do with the High Line since it's been there since 1904. I thought I'd include the General Theological Seminary anyway because I've always thought it was such a beautiful building. The architect was C. C. Haight, and most New Yorkers will know that it has an incredible and rather large walled garden in the middle of the block that I assume is closed off to the general public.

Next is another cluster of the new buildings that went up at least peripherally because of the neighborhood rejuvenation caused by the High Line. First is Jean Nouvel's 100 Eleventh Avenue (2010). I've been intending to go get a nice long look at this one ever since it was completed but just haven't had the chance. It remains an unfortunate side note in this story. My mom even said in a rather funny matter-of-fact way, "I don't think we're seeing the best view of that building." We had sort of discussed getting a better look at it on our walk back uptown, but at that point all we really wanted was a glass of wine. This view does in any case show the randomized window patterns I mentioned above in regard to 245 Tenth. More on this one in a future post.

Right across the street from Nouvel's is Frank Gehry's IAC Building, which I won't bother to discuss here since I already wrote a whole post dedicated to it.

Since then, next door to the Gehry have been built the rather bland-looking 520 West Chelsea by Annabelle Selldorf, which didn't particularly need to be built, and the equally bland Metal Shutter Houses in between them. But the Shutter Houses are by Shigeru Ban and should not be underestimated. The shutters refer to giant garage doors that open up residents' entire wall to the outside. Absolutely astonishing when you think about it. I am curious, as one article pointed out, as to whether winds would ever be calm enough blowing in off the river--not to mention at the right temperature--for residents to take advantage of the shutters.

The bends in tracks allowed for a few moments of wide-open space which, in comparison to the mostly narrow path the rest of the way, gives a bit of room to breathe and stretch out. While the railroad tracks curved, the elevated structure was built more simply in straight lines. So if you think about the geometry of that, there would be a lot of extra space in the corners. In this first one, they built a kind of trellis with climbing plants winding up through them which neither my mom nor I recognized, but were very interesting botanical choices. When they grow in more fully, the shade will be wonderful here, and more than that, like sitting in a living room (read "living ROOM," not "LIVing room").

Opposite this are a beautiful old red-brick tenement building and two of the newer additions to the neighborhood. Nearest the High Line is another project by Della Valle + Bernheimer, 459 West Eighteenth Street (2009). This one was said by at least one critic to be more successful than the one above. I'm not all that convinced. The black and white marking off of two very distinct blocks in the massing is a little bit too obvious for my taste. If it were me, I'd use a more subtle difference in texture or something along those lines. In its defense, the slanted windows in the top three floors are very cool, and evidently at a certain time of day, sunlight streams into one of those windows and back out the other side.

The one further from the park is the Chelsea Modern (2008) by Audrey Matlock. Although I think she's done more striking work than this, it's quite a fine building. What you'd never notice from this far away is how the zigzagging bands of glass intersect one another at tiny junctions. It's just one small detail that helps to elevate the building to a higher level of artistry.

Just past this is another "theater of urban life" moment, this one most specifically in the shape of an amphitheater. This one is interesting because it looks like it should descend to an actual stage but ends instead at windows, like three television monitors showing the traffic passing by below. It also can be descended by ramp, meaning it's wheelchair-accessible, which is very nice.

Here we arrive at the very heart of the High Line. While the entire length of it is filled with follies and interesting things to see, here we discover a whole bunch of amenities and clever features all clustered together. There are public restrooms tucked into one of the neighboring buildings. My mom decided to take advantage of them, so I sat on one of the benches to wait. While I was sitting there, a man took a drink from the water fountain next to me. It started talking. I can't remember what it said, some sort of strange poetry. When my mom returned, I told her about it, and she said the entire bathroom was talking to her. One the voices was saying "you can do it, you can do it, you can do it," which I think is absolutely hilarious. One blogger I noticed said she hates the talking water fountains. I think this is ridiculous. It's such a wonderful idea that wouldn't have occurred to many firms without DS+R's experience with multimedia work. I also love how the waste water runs down off the side in a channel, although I suspect this is why they can't be used in freezing temperatures.

There's a cluster of people selling gift items under the shade of a building, food stands, and a sandwich shop. Then, one of the most genius features of the whole park, a stretch of walkway with a sheet of cool water running over it to wet your feet. There were actually a ton of people with sandals and flip-flops removed, cooling their feet. I'm surprised I was able to get a shot with no one in it except at the very end of the view.

There are innumerable details making this park exquisite. In fact, I'm tempted to say I've seen very little work in recent years that has been so attentive to details. One of them I particularly liked was all the unique ways that the stone and plantings interweave with the existing railroad tracks (which were numbered, removed, and then reinstalled, it sounds like).

At last, we arrive at our final building, The Standard Hotel by Polshek Partnership. Although the grayish hue it gives off is a bit bland, I do rather like this building. Part of it for me is its distinctly 1960s flavor. But this façade is interesting because of the way Polshek has emphasized the framing of the two wings. Not only do they drop the frames down below the glazing, but also at different heights, and again at the top. You're obviously being asked to take notice of them. They become like two giant pictures on display above the park.

The underside of the building is appropriately sculptural since it's one of only three structures that remain over the pathway of the Highline, and the only one not part of its original functioning (as with buildings that would load materials on and off of cargo trains).

The hotel has a towering balcony arrogantly visible to passersby on the High Line, but not open to the public and only available for no doubt ridiculously expensive private events. This was the first of many signs that this hotel is utterly inhospitable and snotty. Fantastically fabulous though it may be, I would not recommend it to anyone. We weren't even offered an opportunity to look at this space, despite the fact that they were merely setting up for the evening's event. So much for us being potentially wealthy enough to rent this space for a party. I certainly wouldn't now. One of the women did recommend we go and take a look at the roof, which is open to the public.

The interior design of this place is absolutely sick. The elevators are perfectly black with video monitors on (I think) two sides, playing video collages mashed from scenes from highly stylized and gorgeously cinematographed movies. The two I recognized were Fellini Satyricon and Dune, two films I love most especially for their visual lushness. This must no doubt have been due to the involvement of Hollywood set designer Shawn Hausman in the hotel's design. Here is the elevator lobby on the top floor. I realize you can't see much, but the abstract quality of this image only serves to amplify the otherworldly quality it had in abundance.

The hallway leading into the bar was out of control. The walls are paneled in upholstered shiny cream-colored vinyl. Rows of faceted mirrors are right out of the 1930s. And the geometrically sculpted brass door is, appropriately, right out of Dune. The bar itself is the perfect combination of 1930s nightclub, early-1970s bachelor pad, and science fiction movie.

Gratefully, the one hostess recommended that we look at the restrooms. I'm glad she did because they truly are astonishing. There's a large number of individual little rooms off a branching, angular hallway. The ones on the inside are completely black with only the dimmest vertical bar of red light at a couple of their corners. They have to be impossible to photograph well. Even with a tripod and a long exposure time, I think the quality of the (lack of) light would be distorted at best.

Photo by Ginny Raffa.

The ones out at the window line, on the other hand, are nothing if not a full exercise in exhibitionism. One entire wall is completely glass, from below the floor all the way up to the ceiling and practically beyond; the ceilings are at least ten-feet tall. The toilet faces the window, so women have no choice but to look out, shy men luck out most of the time unless they need to do you-know-what. Then, on the floor closest to the window line is a grille that you can see through, almost like you're standing precariously over the edge of the building. The toilet is so close to the window that, if you're sitting on it, half of your feet is dangling out over this ledge.

A lot of restrooms that play with these ideas of modesty and exposure will employ glass that automatically frosts over when the door is locked or the lights are turned on. It's possible these windows do that, but I don't think so. It's possible that the light inside is so dim that even after dark, you'll see not much more than a reflection on the glass from the outside; New York never gets very dark, anyway, except in a blackout. If nothing can be seen from outside, it's more just an effect for the guest using the restroom. I was reminded of the public restroom I'd heard about in Times Square but never got a chance to see. It was inside a box of one-way mirrored glass. Doing your business, you could see out, but no one could see you. Evidently the challenge to one's sense of modesty was still quite powerful.

While the plays performed by people in apartments overlooking the High Line are presumably more or less legitimate, if avant-garde, the funny thing here is that the performances going on inside the Standard's room windows have evidently been more along the lines of amateur erotica. There have been sightings of various sex acts being put on display at times. In the bar's restrooms, this is practically enforced.

At this point, there's only one building even remotely close enough to the Standard to see anything, it's not completed yet, and appears possibly to be offices, not residences. I have a feeling, though, that any residences there or in future buildings to go up will be absolute paradise for perverts with telescopes. It makes it all the more ironic that for whatever reason, they have a problem with seeing men's legs, which I'll get to below.

In any case, they are some of the most incredible interiors I've seen in a very long time. It's the work of Roman and Williams. It starts with Modernism from the early-twentieth century, when the High Line was built, at the ground floor. The inspirations move forward in time as you rise to the top of the building. Their inspiration for the bar was Warren Platner, a designer of prominence in the 1960s and '70s, who also worked with Eero Saarinen, I. M. Pei, and Raymond Loewy.

This makes it all the more disappointing, especially considering my great respect for the design, that the attitude was overpowering. Attention Boutique Hotels. You want something other than a derisive warning to Stay Away from (with all humility) savvy and knowledgeable writers like myself? Instruct your employees on this very important fact, of which we've been reminded time and time again where I work: you never know who it is you're encountering. For all they knew, I was the multi-billionaire best friend of the hotel owner's son being treated like an interloper.

I was wearing shorts. It was about ninety-five degrees outside, for crying out loud. I wouldn't say the hostesses and security were "condescending," but they were about as unaccommodating and unwelcoming as they could possibly have been without descending fully into condescension. They have a dress code: No Shorts. Despite the fact that they were not open, there were no patrons to be seen anywhere, and they were quite obviously still merely setting up for the evening's crowd, I was permitted only the most fleeting glance at the bar proper, and not without a quickly-diffused admonishment from one of the security guards.

As I started to discuss quietly at the time, I've become very disgusted by dress codes. They are almost across the board racist, sexist, classist, heterosexist, or an ugly combination of the above.

Racist because they very often are designed to keep out an element perceived as troublesome: the "thug" element, which usually refers to Black men. "No Sneakers," for instance: this makes no concession whatsoever to whether the sneakers in question happen to be a $30 pair from K-Mart or one-of-a-kind Nike prototypes worth thousands of dollars.

Sexist because men are required to be covered from head-to-toe, but women, and most prominently the hostesses themselves, I have absolutely no doubt can be wearing the tiniest miniskirts and enter unimpeded to adorn the space like furniture in all their sexually objectified splendor. If the Standard has a "no thong showing in your ass crack above low-rider jeans" dress code, I'll give you a billion dollars. While this next statement is unfortunately tinged by male privilege, I'll also add that women may therefore dress appropriately for the summer temperatures, while we men must be overdressed and uncomfortable. They didn't mention my sleeveless shirt, but I can imagine they probably don't allow tank-tops, either.

Classist because these codes are so often based in what is typically a white middle-class assessment of what garments are appropriate or inappropriate in a given environment. This is a cultural construct with opposing alternatives. Ironically, it's not aristocratic. Many of the unusual, avant-garde garments found at the highest price points would be frowned-upon, also (and were with me, at the 21 Club. We ate elsewhere).

Heterosexist because in the more conservative venues they would in no way account for the many varied ways individuals choose to express their gender identities. How would the bigoted host of an expensive old-school restaurant apply their "dress code" to a woman with short-cropped hair wearing a man's tailored suit, for instance?

While I'll be the first to invite anyone to enjoy the fun of dressing up sharp for the pure pleasure of doing so on a special night out, I call for the boycott of any business strictly employing dress codes to enforce their outdated and disgraceful discrimination. This kind of thing has no place in a city as diverse and multicultural as New York. I want no part of it at all.

We did go up to the roof, which was pretty spectacular, if smaller than I'd have imagined. There was surprisingly little space to sit to enjoy a cocktail, even less that was in shade. We didn't. The best thing about it, aside from the mind-boggling views, was the round water bed cushions. I never would have known, but my mom felt one of them. Such a fantastic idea. There was also a really nice guest hanging out up there--much nicer than the hotel employees--who offered to take a picture of my mom and me.

The end point of the High Line (traveling south) is surprisingly anti-climactic. Nothing particularly punctuates it, there's no exit stair so there need not be any through traffic, there's no folly or striking detail, it's a diminutive space with most of its views blocked by high bushes. None of the regulars who know the layout of the park will bother to go there, since they know there's no exit. I think all this can add up to only one thing: romance. This is the spot where a couple, having strolled the length of the High Line and enjoyed a lovely afternoon together, end here and become engaged to marry.


We ended our day with a big pitcher of sangria and a little food at another one of my favorite buildings in New York, the National Maritime Union Building (now the Maritime Hotel, 1966), by Albert C. Ledner.

It's maybe interesting to contrast my adoration for this building with my criticism of Michael Graves' project for Donald Trump. But the obviousness of the porthole windows here works so much better because of its 1960s context. For Pop, the more obvious a symbol was, the more successful it could be to accomplish what was needed in this time of questioning and transition. Furthermore, it's a warm and kind gesture considering that the original guests would have been presumably ship captains and the like, as if in an attempt to help them feel more at home away from home.

Although the windows are a bit unfortunately small for the building's present use, it's still a very groovy hotel. Right after it opened, it hosted in its ballroom a legendary Halloween party that attracted nearly 4000 people, many of them celebrities, and which was DJed beautifully by yours truly.

I never saw the inside of this building when it first opened before I was born. In fact, very likely the only people who did were members of the Maritime Union. But I was impressed to notice things about the interior that led me to believe it's mostly either original furnishings, or historically accurate recreations of the original interiors. It's in these various minor details about the design of it. It's forms that would have seemed right in 1966, somehow, but which a designer today wouldn't necessarily think of in an attempt to create a retro 1960s look for an interior; they're too obscure.

There's also a bit of wear and tear that could never have occurred in the short time this has been in use as a hotel, and which it would make no sense to employ as a sort of false aging technique, especially since most 1960s interiors work was so slick and glossy. I really hope their fireplace is still operational. What a delightful place to hang out on a cold winter's night.

Over dinner, I was talking about how I'll be interested to see the High Line again after it's settled in to itself, so to speak. It's too new now, and hasn't found its rhythm. There are too many tourists, too many people going to see it for the first time (and of course, I was guilty of that myself), it's too novel for too many of its visitors. It will be interesting to see how, when the buzz dies down, how it will be used by its regulars. The other thing is that Central Park, in comparison, has not only a century-old rhythm in place, but it's also much larger. The amount of tourists who visit Central Park could never be enough to dilute the rhythms of its local regular users (and I've often been surprised by how many tourists do go, if only to sit and eat lunch--I mean, most of these people come from places where there's a forest out their backyard, and the rest of them from places that also have parks). The High Line, on the other hand, feels inundated at the moment, overwhelmed. I'll be pleased to see how it grows into the landscape of the city over time.

So there's my visit to the High Line Park. As an added side note, if you're interested in learning more, 92Y is hosting a talk by Liz Diller, Ricardo Scofidio, and Charles Renfro at 8PM on October 4th. It appears they'll be discussing the park and also Lincoln Center, which I'm very excited to hear, although I already know just about everything there is to know about that.

 

All text and images ©2011, Ryan Witte, unless noted.

The End of an Eero

My latest excursion was unfortunately a bit of a bust. I'm not sorry I went, for a few reasons I'll get to below. But this won't be the kind of exhaustive story that I might have liked it to be. I've had bad luck with very few other buildings. One of my favorite buildings in New York has eluded me. On a recent trip to see it, we arrived literally one minute after they locked the doors, and the weather chose that very moment in an otherwise perfectly sunny day to send an enormous cloud across the sky. With the exception of the CBS Headquarters, I'm pretty sure this is the last Saarinen building I'll be likely to cover here until I'm able to get down to D.C. again. [Good news, everyone: I actually have two more.]

The good thing about having all my routes entered into Google Maps is that it was immediately apparent that I would pass right by another stop I'd been hoping to make ever since I heard about it a year or two ago. It was so close, in fact, that I was able to get to it in only five minutes to and from the highway. It's what's been nicknamed the "Boat Graveyard" in Staten Island. It's a bunch of very old rusty boats, mostly resting on the river's floor, sitting in this sort of bay.

The unfortunate thing about this stop is that the Google Maps view there is far better than any photo I could have taken. As I suspected before I even arrived, there really is no way to get up very close to it, unless you happen to be in a boat yourself. This website appears to have some pretty nice images of it.

What made this worth the detour for me, though, was that the business that appears to be most closely associated with the old boats is a company called Donjon Marine Co., which was founded by a man named Arnold Witte. In fact, the sign on their building read "Witte Donjon Marine Salvage" or whatever. I really should have taken a picture of it, but didn't think of it at the time. As I've said elsewhere, ours is not a terribly common name. And it appears that pretty much the whole Witte family, John, Thomas, Paul, Matthew, and James, when not busy being Jesus' apostles, all help to run the business.

I walked into their sort of scrapyard or whatever you'd call it and approached one of the guys working there. I asked him if there were any way to get up close to see the old boats. He said "not really," but told me there's a small clearing about a mile down the road to the east where some of them could be seen. He was really very nice and I appreciated his help. I've said elsewhere that I've noticed you can tell how obnoxious an employer is to work for by the attitudes of their employees. If this guy was any indication, the Wittes are great to work for (I'm not surprised). I said "I thought I ought to show you..." pulling out my driver's license and showing it to him, "...my name." "Ryan...oh, Witte, right," and he pronounced it the same as my family does, "witty." "They're the owners of the company, are you related to them?" he asked me. "No, not that I know of," I said, "that is, I'm sure we must be back hundreds of years ago."

In any case, if you're looking for marine salvage services in the New York area, I must highly recommend Donjon. With a name like Witte behind it, I am certain they are the ones to trust.

Unfortunately, the clearing the guy told me about offered only the most limited views and only of a couple of the boats off to the side, not the main cluster of them.

It's possible that if I had driven around to the other side of the river, I might have found a view of the big cluster of rusty boats, but I would have been even further away from them than this. It didn't seem worth it to try, when it might have been as limited a view or as difficult to access as this one. I asked a guy in this auto body shop across from this clearing if he knew of any way to get a better look at the boats, but he didn't seem to think so. I used the restroom at the car wash next door and continued on to my principle destination, Eero Saarinen's Bell Telephone Laboratories Building (first phase 1962, remainder 1967).

I missed my opportunity to get onto the Garden State Parkway, but luckily the road I was on, US Route 9--although very likely slower--took me in more or less the same direction. The essay I'm on at the moment in my reading is a brilliant piece by Michael Stanton, talking about the transition between the urban, the suburban, and the exurban. He has such a clear and deep understanding of the American landscape that I found it incredible he hasn't written more. But it was apropos for me to be in New Jersey, which is pretty much just one giant strip-mall. Route 9 is miles-long stretches of strip malls and big-box retail stores punctuated by cloverleaf turn-arounds, what struck me as being a disturbing waste of the rural geography and a perfect metaphor for the overblown supremacy of the automobile in this country. My Zipcar that day was a Prius, coincidentally. From the moment I picked it up until I dropped it off again, I swear the fuel gauge didn't even seem to budge.

I ended up needing to stop for directions twice, first at a gas station and then at a little motel. I asked the woman at the motel desk if she could help me find the Bell Labs building in Holmdel, which I said is evidently on something called Crawfords Corner Road. She said "oh, that must be the AT&T building." She was close. They actually had a printed list of directions to various different sites in the area that she gave me. AT&T was the listing just above Bell Labs. Bell was listed as "Lucent Technologies," though. Not realizing that Lucent (now Alcatel-Lucent) is the umbrella corporation over Bell Labs, I asked "oh, so Lucent is the company that most recently owned the building?" She said "yeah, it's been called other things, but we call it Lucent around here 'cause we're old school." LOL

Now I haven't been aware of Bell Labs for as long as I'd like to admit, but now that I am, I'm becoming as fascinated by it as I am by 3M or DuPont, the two other research powerhouses that come to mind. I actually learned about Bell in the research I did for Lincoln Center. Harrison & Abramovitz designed the Bell Telephone Pavilion at the 1964 World's Fair and a scientist from Bell, Manfred Schroeder, provided data for the acoustic analysis of Avery Fisher Hall to help determine what was wrong with its acoustics before its 1976 renovation. Bell Labs was in some integral way involved with the invention of the transistor, the solar cell, the laser, the touch-tone telephone, and the launch of the first communications satellite, Telstar. No way should Lucent get credit for all that.

The welcome mat I discovered were a bunch of tiny No Trespassing signs. The entrance is about a mile away from the actual building itself. I could see it, but barely.

I contemplated hiding the car and walking in, but it was so far away! I decided to take my chances. It didn't even look like there was anyone in there. I tried my best to find out beforehand who or what organization owns the building now, someone who I might be able to ask permission (they most probably wouldn't have granted me permission anyway, because of what you'll see below). For anyone who might be reading this who'd have some legal objection to this post, I'll offer you the following protests. I love Saarinen's work implicitly. The building is magic. I spent $70 to rent a car to drive out and see this building alone. I spent over an hour of my time getting there just to see it. This entire blog I think is proof enough that my interest and devotion to the architecture of this building is legitimate. If you still want to press trespassing charges, then I say go right ahead, and for the record, karma is a bitch.

To be fair, I could totally understand why they wouldn't want anyone taking pictures of it. It really is a shame what has happened to this place. It's starting to look like a wildlife refuge.

That isn't the best shot of the geese, but I thought the Heliport sign was so cool. When I first drove in, a deer came out of the woods back by the water tower. I thought I'd snapped a photo of him, but I don't see him in my long shots.

No doubt there was a moment in between when the building was first completed and today, when the plantings had grown in, softening the hard sharpness of the building's modernism, but hadn't turned to weeds. It must have been truly spectacular. But part of the problem, I think, is that Saarinen's landscaping was so rigid and strict. The grounds maintenance must have required an entire army of gardeners. Unlike the more rambling PepsiCo grounds, which I suspect might overgrow somewhat pleasantly if left unattended, the style of Bell Labs' landscaping would demand constant attention to retain its full glory.

The building is truly mammoth, as I discovered when I could see its full expanse. The lake had hundreds of fountains curving through it and also served for air conditioning and a water source in case of fire. Some of those bushes appear to have been allowed to grow unchecked for at least five years. It was at this point that I noticed there were actually vehicles parked in front of the building. For a building this huge, it was sort of spooky to think that there were probably only about ten people inside it. Who knows what they were doing there. But for that reason, I didn't dare get much closer to the building than this. Instead I just drove around the oval ring road, stopping occasionally, getting out and taking a picture. I'm still torn as to whether I would have had better luck going on a Sunday. Likely there wouldn't have been anyone there at all to catch me trespassing. On the other hand, since I couldn't determine who owns the building now, there was much more likelihood of being able to see the inside of it by going on a weekday when there would be people there.

Photo by Cervin Robinson, Yale University Library.

I do really wish it had been possible to see the inside of it. Its atrium looks unbelievably spectacular. It was supposedly the first atrium of its kind ever employed in a corporate building, and was inspiration for the one at the Ford Foundation Building by Saarinen's successor, Kevin Roche.

As sad as it is, I will say that it is an exquisite modern ruin, much like Philip Johnson's New York State Pavilion. And this was another reason I was glad that I went. Seeing the condition it's in now, imagining the exorbitant cost to bring it back to pristine condition, I very much fear for the fate of this building. I have a sinking feeling in my heart that it may not remain standing for very much longer. The good thing about it is that it's probably way too large to go at it with a wrecking ball. What would be the point, anyway? To build something ugly in its place? But if no corporation big enough to handle it finds it appealing, it may just sit there for the next fifty years, crumbling into the ground, lonely, forgotten, and uninhabited, like a giant fossil from a past age.

While I prefer perfectly clear skies whenever possible, the few passing clouds were actually perfect for capturing this building. Without them, the mirroring of the glass would be much less obvious. This glass was allegedly invented specifically for this building and was one of the things that was praised so highly about it. It also reflected the majority of the sunlight, cutting down on costs.

After one time around the loop, my heart racing, figuring I'd be arrested, I decided to go in a little closer to at least get a shot of the building's cladding and front entrance.

As I'm taking this last shot, I see a guy coming out of the building and getting into a little white security truck. I knew he was coming for me, so I jumped back in the car to get the hell out of there. I had all these lies running through my head of the "By the time I saw the signs, I was already inside," or "I just came in to turn around," varieties. After a couple more of those, my conscience kicked in and I got back around to my normal "honesty as best policy" mindset. I decided I would tell him what I said above, how I'd driven so far just to see it that I wasn't about to simply turn around and go home because of a couple of little No Trespassing signs. What harm had I done, anyway?

I passed right by his truck and made the right turn to exit the grounds, watching the rear view mirror with bated breath. He paused at the intersection, I suppose to be sure I truly was leaving, and turned to drive back to the building. How do you spell relief? I took one last shot of the water tower and headed for home.

It had taken me far less time than building visits of yore for obvious reasons. I could be much less exhaustive and I could get no really good looks at the building's finer details. I tried to wrack my brain to think of some other building I could visit with the extra time I had on the Zipcar. I ended up hitting a ton of traffic on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. I had just enough time to find the building I was looking for, drive past it, but not enough time to actually park the car and get pictures of it. That building is extremely easy for me to get to by subway, though, which I will do sometime soon. I'll let that be a surprise. The good news is that, for once, I managed to get the Zipcar back to the garage about five minutes before it was due and without sweat running down my face from racing to get it back on time.

One more thing I'd like to mention is this route into New York from New Jersey. Having approached the city from many different directions, I'm struck by how the views are planned. I'm tempted to wonder, as many criticisms as one might be able to fling at Robert Moses, if he didn't do this on purpose. The first one is at the top of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge (Othmar Ammann, 1964) from across New York Harbor. Of course I couldn't get a good look at that one without getting into a car accident, but it's really spectacular. The second one is even better, and I remember it quite clearly from living in Brooklyn and driving in to go clubbing.

The BQE is sunk below grade up to this point, and then all of a sudden, it rises up under the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, you come around a corner, pass a large building, and BAM there's the great mountain of the lower Manhattan skyline.

I was able to take that picture while still watching the road, don't worry. With a short Google, I couldn't find a photo of what the skyline looked like in 1961, when the BQE first opened, but it must have been breathtaking. I also can't even begin to imagine what the scene was like in this part of the expressway on the morning of September 11th. But for certain those who took this route to commute into the city before and after that day would have had this view as an awful reminder of what is now missing for months afterward. I'm not really prone to all that "greatest country on earth" nonsense of which many Americans are guilty (most of whom have never even left their home state). But every time I saw that view in those first years of living in New York, and I saw it quite a lot of times, it never failed to make me think to myself, "I'm in the center of the universe." The Trade Center Towers helped, as did a setting sun and the buildings lit up after dark, but it still impresses.

Bittersweetly, this marks the end of Saarinen in the tri-state area.

Not to fret, we still have plenty more incredible architects to get through!


All text and images ©2011, Ryan Witte, unless noted.

Dying to See You

A couple of months ago, the conservator of Lincoln Center's artworks collaborated with me on a sort of VIP Art & Architecture tour, so I got a chance beforehand to chat with him. I asked him about this painting, and he said it likely won't be returning. He also said the Yaacov Agam sculpture, Three X Three Interplay (1971), probably won't be coming back either, which I also find very disappointing. He said the Agam sculpture is very large and there really is no place for it anymore. I really think they should have created a new spot for it. For the painting this post discusses, there does happen to be a perfect spot, at the western end of Alice Tully Hall's lobby, in a curved alcove that I believe contains doorways to back offices. He said that there was some resistance on the part of Diller, Scofidio + Renfro to reintroducing this painting in the space for some reason.

As much as I think I've made clear the enormous respect I have for this trio of architects, I have to say, I'm disappointed. Part of my defense of this painting is selfish, because I would LOVE the opportunity to tell this wonderfully disturbing story to the snotty, uninterested high school kids with whom I often have to contend. But the other part is that I think it's a brilliant piece, suited very well to the space. The third argument I'll make is that the painting was a gift from the artist to Lincoln Center. To just callously throw it away as a useless addition to the building is kind of a slap in the face of this gracious gesture. And the point remains that there is a perfect place to re-hang it, so there is no excuse.

I do feel justified in calling for this painting to be hung once again in Alice Tully Hall. At this point, I suspect it never will be. I hinted at this before, but since I probably won't have the opportunity to ever tell this story on one of my tours, I thought I'd share with you the (here revised) essay I wrote about it in creating the Art & Architecture Tour for Lincoln Center.

The piece I'm referring to is Black Dahlia (acrylic on canvas, 1971) by Gene Davis.

"What? THIS is the piece you're defending?" Yes, this is the piece.

First of all, Gene Davis (1920-1985) was from the Washington Color School of painters from D.C. along with Kenneth Noland, Morris Louis, and others. He started out as a sports journalist. As a writer he also covered the Roosevelt and Truman presidential administrations and often played poker with Harry Truman. He worked predominantly in acrylic.

Vertical lines fascinated Davis because he felt that they're conceptually infinite. His pieces therefore draw a contrast between the limits of the physical painting and the conceptual limitlessness of the lines in them. They aren't canvases dissected by lines. They're lines represented on the canvas that theoretically extend beyond its borders. He pushed this idea to its extremes in both directions of scale. In 1972, his Niagara, painted at a parking lot in Lewiston, New York, was the largest painting ever created at 43,680 square feet (4058 square meters). His smallest works were as tiny as three eighths of an inch square (a .95 centimeter square). Likewise, Tully is the venue in the complex dedicated to the smallest of the classical music performance types, Chamber Music, a question of scale.

Davis' works also often have musical themes: Banjo, Black Grey Beat, Solar Beat, Sonata, Sun Sonata, Yukon Sonata, etc. The vertical bars of color form obviously rhythmic patterns across the canvases. The connection may be that, like his paintings, music is orderly and restricted in form yet expansive and expressive in concept and meaning.

There are some deep reddish-purple dahlias said to be "black" like their counterparts in the rose and tulip families. The secondary level of signification no doubt appealed to Davis, but this botanist reference is so uncommon as to make the following explanation infinitely more probable. Many of you, especially from the West Coast, already know where I'm going. Surprisingly, considering my fascination with True Crime and anything disturbing, I'd not ever heard this story before I began to research this painting. The "Black Dahlia" was Elizabeth Short (1924-1947).

Little is known about her life, except that she moved around the country quite frequently as a teenager and had relationships with quite a few military men, leading some to speculate that she was a prostitute. This was later refuted by grand jury reports. A telegram sent by Short places her in Washington, D.C. around 1944. Although he was still only fourteen, there remains the possibility that Davis knew her, or at the very least, that he believed he might have met her. She was found dead in a vacant lot in Leimert Park, Los Angeles, at the age of twenty-three.

Her body was horribly mutilated. She was cut in half at the mid-section, all the blood had been drained from her body, and her face had been cut from the sides of her mouth all the way to her ears, what's known as a "Glasgow Smile." Because she liked to dress in all black, possibly she was nicknamed "The Black Dahlia" at a Long Beach drugstore where she hung out, as a play on the title of the currently-running film The Blue Dahlia (1946), starring Alad Ladd and Veronica Lake. In other accounts, newspaper reporters covering the murder coined the nickname.

At the time, it was the largest murder investigation ever conducted by the Los Angeles Police Department. Hundreds of people were considered suspects and were questioned. Around sixty people falsely confessed to the crime. In his book, Black Dahlia Avenger, published in 2003, Los Angeles police officer Steve Hodel claimed that his father, psychiatrist George Hodel, had murdered Short. The claim was never substantiated. Surrealist photographer Man Ray, who was very close with Hodel, has also been suggested as the killer. The crime remains unsolved to this day.

In their 2006 book, Exquisite Corpse: Surrealism and the Black Dahlia Murder, authors Mark Nelson and Sarah Bayliss put forth a fascinating theory. Numerous details about the way Short's body was found, with her arms posed above her head and the ways that her body was mutilated, have direct correlations with specific works by surrealist artists. They therefore propose that Short's killer was well acquainted with the work of the surrealists (as was Hodel), and that the murder itself had been an extremely twisted work of surrealist art. The book's title comes from the parlor game played by the surrealists wherein each participant writes one word on a folded piece of paper, so that when unfolded, a nonsensical sentence has been composed. The authors go on to suggest the possibility that, similarly, Short's body had been passed around amongst a whole group of people, each of whom performed some disturbing act of surrealist-inspired mutilation to her cadaver.

Marcel Duchamp's final work, Étant donnés (probably NSFW, unless you work in an art gallery), installed posthumously at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, is suspiciously and eerily similar to Short's crime scene.

In a brief and pleasant email correspondence with Nelson, he revealed to me the possible Washington, D.C. connection with Davis. The day I received my copy of Exquisite Corpse in the mail, my curiosity took hold and I began reading. I literally could not put it back down again, and finished the entire book that evening, something I never, ever do. For anyone interested in Art History and especially surrealism, the macabre or disturbing, or True Crime, I must highly recommend this brilliant and fascinating read. Although maybe something for the weak of constitution to avoid, the photos are illustrative but (purposely) not particularly the most graphic or vomit-inducing.

I'd also like to add a brief discussion of this crime from a Feminist perspective. I won't delve deeply, I think that's better handled by someone more informed than myself. But I think what this violent act says about both the Hollywood system and the Art World is quite poignant. It's how the female body in this case was viewed as a purely aesthetic object to it's most horrifying conclusion. Short's body was the artwork, and it had to be devoured, destroyed in order to be so. In fact, the very destruction of her body was the work's most defining feature. 

In our day and age, we've seen how the mutilation of one's body falls fairly easily into the category of Art. Tattoos and piercings are great examples, not to mention of course cosmetic surgery of any kind, but especially the most extreme cases. Note Jocelyn Wildenstein. In some cases, indeed the very act of mutilating one's body as it might be in a work of Performance Art clearly takes the name. 

From the other direction, most serial killers consider what they do to be a cathartic, precise, sick sort of art form. Ed Gein was, to be far too generous, a fashion and furniture designer (as were some of the nazis). But to my mind, only in the case of the Black Dahlia murder do all these troublesome qualities come together to make one powerful, shocking statement about American popular culture's view of and attitudes toward the Female Body. It alone speaks perhaps more than any other psychotic act of how and to what extent our cultural machine feels the Female Body should be (allows it to be) used and consumed, at least how it did in the 1940s.

On a much lighter note, due to the unbelievably morbid subject of this Gene Davis painting, one might be inclined to suggest that Davis was almost playing a practical joke on Lincoln Center, and that those in charge of curating the artworks were and still are unaware of this explanation (not even the published author of the book on LC's artworks had any idea about it when I mentioned it to him).

Davis is clearly saying something very specific about the piece by giving it such a provocative title. It may be proposed that the physicality of the stretched canvas is deliberate and very consciously considered. Its proportions necessarily cut the vertical lines into particular lengths, a key element in the artistic expression of the piece. At the same time, to cut the canvas into specific proportions may be akin to "murdering" the lines, in that it robs them of the infinity Davis praised them for having. In this sense, representing the lines in a painting becomes murder with an artistic purpose, much like the above theories surrounding the fate of Elizabeth Short.

Although no one who could make the final decision will likely ever read this, I do hope I've made my case for the reintroduction of Black Dahlia to the beautifully-renovated Alice Tully Hall. Perhaps I should get a petition going.

[EDIT: I found it. Black Dahlia is now hanging in a hallway on the ninth floor of the Rose Building at the northwest corner of the campus. It's the floor containing Lincoln Center administrative offices and conference rooms. I discovered it there purely by accident: "wait a minute, that's the Gene Davis painting!" Memorizing the exact colors, widths, and arrangement of the lines to compare with the image above was not easy, but luckily I'm a visual thinker.]

©2010, Ryan Witte