Reserve Film and Video Collection

Throughout these late winter and spring months, work crews have been feverishly drilling, planting, laying, grouting, irrigating, digging and welding outside of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts in preparation for summer, when crowds of tourists and city dwellers will be looking for a shaded seat or a grassy knoll on which to perch with a sandwich or a friend. The problem is, and has been, that Lincoln Center Plaza as it was conceptualized and built in the 1960s was neither shaded nor grassy and that one would be hard pressed to find a reason to linger when there are no shops, no eateries, no vendors, no space that fosters interaction. The aforementioned reconstruction, which includes trees and benches, comes at a time when city space and urban planning is being re-evaluated; in a city of 8 million, we cannot afford to have barren architectural monuments and open spaces that serve only the few. Even the Statue of Liberty has been put back to work, with the reopening of her crown to visitors planned for July 4, 2009.

One would think that this urban introspection is a new phenomenon, one born of the increasing population in New York City as well as the influx of visitors from elsewhere in our more mobile, credit-fueled global community. But, in fact, we are merely revisiting an old debate: are cities meant to be monolithic grids or lush communal places? Whose values should be represented when ground is broken on a new building, stadium or park?  read more »