On Current New York Architecture

OCULUS on current new york architecture The New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects Volume 43, Number 7, April 1982 The South Street Seaport Area. page2 Oculus OCULUS SEAPORT REPORT Volume 43, Number 7, April 1982 Oculus In early December 1981, several kilos of lease documents were Editor: C. Ray Smith Managing Editor: Marian Page signed by officials of the South Street Seaport Museum, the City Art Director: Abigail Sturges of New York, The Rouse Company of Maryland, and the State's Typesetting: Susan Schechter Urban Development Corporation. The ceremony was a rite of The New York Chapter of passage that was not unlike a birth at the end of a long, difficult, the American Institute of Architects and exhausting labor. The tangible result will be an active, The Urban Center, 457 Madison A venue, ongoing revitalization of the Seaport district located along New York, New York 10022 212-838-9670 downtown Manhattan's waterfront just below the Brooklyn Bridge. The December agreements took four years to complete. George S. Lewis, Executive Director They comprise, what some have called, "the most complex real Executive Committee 1981-82: estate development in the United States." The agreements, Joseph Wasserman, President nevertheless, still present questions about Preservation, Arthur I. Rosenblatt, First Vice President Community, Parking, Developing, and Profit, as representatives Tician Papachristou, Vice President Robert Siegel, Vice President of the various interested parties discuss in the Seaport Update Terrance Williams, Secretary that follows. Alan Schwartzman, Treasurer Frank Eliseo William Ellis Theodore Liebman Nancy A. Miao Stuart Pertz Mildred F. Schmertz NYC/AIA Staff Cathanne Piesla Carol Jones Jeannette Manzo Eileen McGrath © 1982 The New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. John B. Hightower is President of the South Street Seaport Museum Philip E. Aarons is President of New York City's Public Development Corporation. Iris Alex, AIA, is a member of Community Board 1. Laurin B. Askew, Jr., AIA, is Vice President and Director of Design for The Rouse Company. Map of the South Street Seaport Area. Oculus page3 The Cost of Commerce and Culture at South Street by John B. Hightower It all began in the spring of 1977. At with a well intentioned bureaucratic the invitation of the South Street curse. It is New York's Uniform Land Seaport Museum, the legendary Jim Use Review Process, more commonly Rouse visited the Seaport district to known as ULURP-and always see if it were possible to establish a pronounced as a single word. The marketplace in the area that would process is just as dispeptic as it spin off enough income for the sounds, involving thousands of tedious Muse um to pay the staggering costs of technical steps before the Community The Spring Celebration Dinner/Dance restoring and maintaining its historic Planning Board, the City Planning on April 22nd to celebrate Romald~ ships and buildings. The question was Commission, the Landmarks Giurgola's Gold Medal and the Plazas not casually answered. For $250,000 Preservation Commission, and finally 15th Anniversary will also toast the cash from the Museum (provided by the Board of Estimate. ~ign-offs from il25th Anniversary of the founding ()t the Astor Foundation), the Rouse a myriad of other departments - Fire, the National AIA here in New York Company agreed to spend an equal Sanitation, Borough President, Ports amount to answer that $500,000 and Terminals, Transportation, question. Eighteen months later, the Housing, Environmental Protection answer was, in military parlance, guarantee costly delays. The only affirmative. At that point, the virtue of ULURP is that it contains complexities began. the process to a finite period of time. The result will become evident next In the Koch administration, self-styled itself as well as provide positive year. The Marketplace and the bureaucratic heroes lurk who want "to models for other American cities to Muse um on opening day in the cut the best deal for the City" often at follow. summer of 1983 will be a bonanza for the expense of what is in the City's the City of New York on several best interest. The delays these If the Seaport development does go different levels- financial, bureaucratic wunderkind created at through with the plans to reestablish a architectural, cultural, and political. the Seaport nearly cost the City the marketplace and fit it into the glove of And yet, the City of New York came project; they have also virtually the Museum's neighborhood, it will perilously close to losing it all. caused bankruptcy at the Seaport truly be one of the City's most Museum. The public approvals process exciting projects despite the City Every time a city official left his or her is bad enough. The compromises that government's interest in it only as an post, all bets were off and agreements public and bureaucratic review economic development project at the had to be renegotiated. The Museum's produce rarely create a product of expense of the Muse um. basic agreement with the City had to distinction. There are too many voices be renegotiated five times. The with varied versions of excellence Nevertheless, the South Street resulting delays grossly exaggerated predicated on the interest the agency Seaport Museum may also be the the costs of realizing the project and must defend to justify its existence. model for a new museum-one that put the precarious finances of the Too often, mediocrity results, which is exists within its original skin- not one Museum in distress. The legal bills usually seen in solutions that conform that can only be cloned from another alone are more than $400,000- over 20 to architectural formulae designed to culture. percent of the entire annual budget of allow building projects to crawl the museum. through the City's legal and The prospects for success at South bureaucratic hurdles, certainly not Street are excellent. They are also The City came close to losing an leap over them with any degree of challenging to a fault. Occasionally, extraordinary area, a special grace. one wonders if New York City has to institution, and an exciting project for be quite so devoid of boredom. Still at a series of apparently rightminded The plans for the South Street the Seaport the advantages are reasons that all together were Seaport Museum are not without compounded. _The past will be profoundly wrong. The reasons are inventive distinction. The spirit of the preserved. Buildings will be restored part and parcel of why New York City City will be improved in much the to full and active use not unlike the is simultaneously magnificent and same way that Boston's revival of its times of their busiest days a century mad. Its public and bureaucratic waterfront has uplifted that city. The ago when a market was the district's procedures may be democratic, but Seaport's contribution to lower central focus. And the South Street ultimately they are self destructive, Manhattan will provide the kind of Seaport Museum will receive a inconsistent, and arbitrary. public gathering place that downtown predictable stream of income to has lacked during this entire century. support its activities and to cover the In the name of preservation, the New York needs to be able to convince expensive requirements of defenders of the cause created an its cynical critics throughout the maintaining its buildings and ships. unwitting alliance in New York City country that it can both replenish page4 Oculus The Role of New York City The Community View Rouse Company Statement on the Seaport by Philip E. Aarons by Iris Alex by Laurin B. Askew, Jr., AIA The concerns and objectives of New The South Street Seaport Museum The South Street Seaport project will York City with respect to the has lived fairly peacefully with its reflect some of the principles that development of the South Street neighbors for many years in the quiet guided the creation of The Rouse Seaport historic district have changed enclave where gulls feast on leftover Company's Faneuil Hall Marketplace many times during the project's fish in the morning, where Wall Street in Boston and Harborplace in fifteen-year history. Unlike the South workers bask on the peaceful piers at Baltimore. One essential principle is Street Museum, which wanted to noon, where local artists and old that these projects serve as festive provide financial security and an area seamen drink together in the public places, rather than places context for its museum activities, or neighborhood bars while uptowners merely to shop or eat. The Rouse Company, which, once dine at Sweet's and Sloppy Louie's in involved, wished to generate both the evening, where visitors come on The Seaport project will not be a profits and a flagship development for weekends to see the Muse um ships repetition of the Baltimore or Boston the company in the country's largest and listen to concerts on the piers. The experience, because it is by its very retail market, the City has not pattern of night-time fish market, day nature and location different from maintained a consistent rationale for time office worker recreation and both. Nor will the Seaport project be its involvement in the project. weekend tourists has "worked." There self-consciously a pretense at that have never been too many people or which is exclusively New York During the late 1960s, the reason for too much activity going on to destroy architecture, because the City does the City's initial involvement was the the fragile, shabby remnant of the old not have and never had a limited or desire to preserve a significant cluster seaport.

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