Early Spring 2002
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SOFNews Early Spring 2002 No-Fly Zone Voice Afters On the sidewalk human meat corpses take the ferry to New Jersey I love you so much so much I thought you were dead human meat what if he’s dying and I can’t help him? what if he’s in pain and I can’t hold his hand? human meat I’d rather not say what it looked like I couldn’t see my feet she couldn’t see her legs we kept her talking about her children there was creaking a rush of wind human meat their religion is genocide they like they like I don’t know human meat Avernus Is a no-fly zone of the American Academy in Rome Academy in American the of The Society of Fellows of Society The Martha A. Malamud FC‘89 Fellows Respond to the Tragedy of September 11: Observations, reactions, and Reflections. From the Editors BY STEFANIE WALKER FH‘01, WITH JACK SULLIVAN FL‘83 SOF News elping Jack Sullivan with this (March 3, 2002), does an artist need EARLY SPRING 2002 more time to respond to crisis, look Hspecial issue, my first experi- Published by the Society of Fellows of ence as an editor of the SOF News, beyond it, and “find, train and shape The American Academy in Rome couldn’t have been more engaging, a voice strong enough to rise above 7 East 60 Street moving, and thought provoking. I that idle chatter”? And, anyway, New York, NY 10022-1001 had been back from Italy just for why should we expect a response? (212) 751-7200 about a month in early September. The variety and emotional depth CO-EDITORS: Stefanie Walker FH’01 My mind was flooded with vivid of the responses we did receive and and Jack Sullivan FL’83 Contributors: Pamela Keech FS‘82, memories of Rome and I began to publish here speak for themselves. Kathryn J. Alexander FM‘89, anticipate the conversations that Architects and landscape architects Joanne Spurza FC‘88, and would take place at the Returning confront the challenge of destruc- T. Corey Brennan FC‘88 Fellows Dinner. And suddenly my tion and rebuilding. Poets have SOF LIAISON: Elsa Dessberg thoughts and perspective changed. submitted extremely affecting The way in which memories are verses. Grief revives old pains and retained and quickly altered was losses and artists have contributed Contents much discussed in the wake of the works that date from twenty years Martha A. Malamud FC‘89 Cover attacks of 9/11, particularly among ago as well as from the very recent From the Editors 2 shocked New Yorkers. This trau- past. Remarkable articles, one by a Pamela Keech FS‘82 3 matic event cast my Roman recol- classicist, LINDA W. R UTLAND Adele Chatfield-Taylor FD‘84 4 lections in an entirely different light GILLISON FC‘81, another by two Amanda Castleman 5 and separated them from the im- archaeologists, demonstrate the Frederick Biehle FA‘87 6 mediate reality more rapidly than I relevance of the ancient past on our Piera Bocci FF‘57, Gilda Bartoloni 7 had expected. Yet, rather than feel life and thinking today. Striking in Aldo Casanova FS‘61, RS‘75 8 guilty about its pleasures, we see this regard is the parallel of Moving George Garrett FW‘59 8 Patrick Quinn FA‘80 9 how our Roman experience can Perimeter by MARY MISS RS‘89 that serve as an antidote and a healthy recognizes Ground Zero as a sacred Jeffrey Schiff FS‘77 9 Laurie Olin FL‘74, RL‘90 10 counterbalance, a reminder that it spot, which must gradually be Linda W. Rutland Gillison FC‘81 12 is important to remember life’s reintegrated into the city, and an Mary Miss RS‘89 14 highlights, not just its downsides. essay by PIERA BOCCI FF‘57 and Vincent Katz FW‘02 16 her colleague Gilda Bartoloni on These memories are just as precious John W. Rhoden FS‘54 16 and must not lose their conviction. how the Etruscan site of Roselle, William Pedersen FA‘66 17 Memory and commemoration which had been destroyed and aban- Paul Kubic FS‘79 17 are important steps towards closure doned, was incorporated as a place Alexander Gorlin FA‘84 18 for us, individually and collectively. with religious significance into the In Memoriam: The paucity of reactions from the new Roman town growing over and John D’Arms RC‘72, ‘84 19 current and most recent Fellows was around it. Pat Oleszko FV‘99 20 therefore surprising. Was it due to This issue is certain to trigger Paul Kubic FS‘79 21 escapism, a media overload, or a more reactions, and I encourage you From the Archives: decision to focus on current projects to send in your comments. Com- Stephen Greene FP‘54 23 and a more positive future? Or, as municating our ideas and feelings Steve Raffo FP‘55 Back Page Anne Midgette wrote in the New is important for keeping a strong York Times Arts and Leisure section sense of society among Fellows. x 2 SOF News Early Spring 2002 SOF President’s Message PAMELA KEECH FS’82 The ad hoc remembrances and tributes that sprang up throughout New York City, particularly in Union Square (above and below left), photographed on September 17, 2001, by Pamela Keech, inspired Pamela’s “Memorial” (below), 9” X 4” X 4”, during a visit to Rome in December 2001. AAR Field Abbreviations F = Fellow; R = Resident; A = Architecture; ASCSR = American School of Classical Studies in Rome; B = Oscar Broneer Fellow; C = Classical Studies and Archæology; CHP = Conserva- tion/Historic Preservation; D = Design; DTF = Dinkeloo Traveling Fellow; FF = Fulbright Fellow; H = History of Art; L = Landscape Architecture; M = Musical Composition; MEC = Mellon East-Central European Visiting Scholar; P = Painting; R = Post-Classical Humanistic & Modern Italian Studies; S = Sculpture; SRVA = Southern Regional Visiting Artist; V = Visual Art; VA = Visiting Artist; VC = Visiting Curator; VS = Visiting Scholar; W = Writing. SOF News Early Spring 2002 3 7 East 60 Street Losing The World Trade Center Towers BY ADELE CHATFIELD-TAYLOR FD’84 The following article was published in the January/February of the World Trade Center, it was important and it created a 2002 issue of Preservation magazine. It is reprinted here with new perspective. the permission of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. We are accustomed to seeing new buildings added to the skylines of our cities. But what the catastrophe demonstrates moved to New York City in 1967, to enroll in the School is that in this country we have little experience with unan- Iof Architecture’s Historic Preservation program at ticipated subtractions, especially the violent vanishing of Columbia University. I was here, therefore, to watch the buildings. This is where, in an unexpected way, the rituals Twin Towers go up. Everyone I knew loathed them. They of historic preservation come in. were too big; their population jammed the subways; they You realize that New York—or any real city—is like a got in the way of our seeing the water. We whined about all family picture that includes everyone—the big, the little, this for the 10 years it took to build them, and then for the old, the young, the addled, the intelligent. It is not a another 10 years until we finally got used to them, and then, picture of the membership of a club in which every person one day, we stopped talking about them. They had been has been carefully chosen. digested. Thus we feel about New York as we do about the mem- They were an integral part of lower Manhattan, and the bers of our family. Maybe we don’t like every single in-law principal feature of my view when I was on the staff of the at first, but eventually all become part of the picture. The city’s landmarks preservation commission and our office was Trade Center was like an enormous new in-law at first— a stone’s throw away on Vesey Street. Then I moved to Rome oversized, ungainly, obdurate. But we had absorbed it. It and to Washington, and it had been years since I’d been had become omnipresent and indispensable—visible from around the World Trade Center. So yesterday, I went down the living room window, from the top of Fifth Avenue, from to lower Manhattan to look around. the air, from Long Island as you drove back from the beach. In some ways, the area has not changed at all since the Not that it was beautiful. It was more of a land formation. catastrophe. It has the same tiny, winding streets planted In a flash, you could gauge how far away you were, what with gigantic skyscrapers that eclipse the sun. Trinity Church, time it was, what the weather was like, and whether you St. Paul’s and Federal Hall still stand serene, dwarfed by were lost. Then, in its omnipresence, it could be seen burn- everything around them. Investment bankers, mailmen, sec- ing, falling, smoking, and disappearing, whereupon noth- retaries, and hot dog sellers still rub shoulders as they squeeze ing around it any longer made sense. past each other on their way to work. Every now and then, in recent years, I have been part of a But the site of the Twin Towers has changed into a no conversation speculating on how we would go about con- man’s land, a huge void stretching all the way to the river. sidering the Trade Center for landmark status. There was Surrealistically, buildings next to the fallen towers still stand, never any question that it would have to have its day in corners sharp and flanks exposed as though they had been court—its public hearings with testimony from Philippe stripped of their clothes.