Atlantic Yards: The Morning After
“In theory, it should be everything that a progressive urban policy analyst like me would want from a new development. Atlantic Yards would create lots of new housing immediately adjacent to mass transit lines. It would be a mix of residential, commercial, retail, and entertainment space. And it would create new affordable housing and green…
“In theory, it should be everything that a progressive urban policy analyst like me would want from a new development. Atlantic Yards would create lots of new housing immediately adjacent to mass transit lines. It would be a mix of residential, commercial, retail, and entertainment space. And it would create new affordable housing and green space. But, somehow, Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner got it all wrong…” Read the rest of Urban Policy Analyst John Petro’s opinion piece today on The Huffington Post.
What could have been an improved Battery Park city will be the Gowanus Houses with the Garden on on end.
4 city blocks????
All the plan does is eliminate Pacific from Carlton to Vanderbilt;
again it isnt perfect but it should hardly have any impact on pedestrian flow or in creating dead zones.
fsrq – the superblock is the size of 4 city blocks plus streets. It is a huge impact. That there is an “enclave” space is a problem to begin with. The fact that it is “small” only argues for its uselessness (un-use-ability?). It is bad planning, plain and simple. I don’t get how the fact that this is a 9 acre piece of poorly planned urban land minimizes the impact of the development significantly.
“What is currently planned @ AY is far from perfect (but better than nothing). The design can still change for the better, though, if we accept that AY is happening and try to engage FCR on that basis as opposed to throwing up needless roadblocks.”
Worth repeating.
architect – well actually it only being 1 block actually minimizes the impact significantly since the enclave space will be relatively small
Gee denton – are you saying that the only way for the public to exert any influence over this project has been through lawsuits? I wonder why that is…?
fsrq – by any objective measure, even if it’s only one block, the design is awful. The irony is that if it were better designed, then the developer would make more $$ on the sale.
architect66 – I agree its not the preferred design feature but ITS ONE BLOCK of “super” block – trying to make it like the loss of Pacific street for one block is going to destroy neighborhoods is just silly.
“Anyone hoping for something better had better get busy trying to exert their meager influence now, because soon it will be too late.”
IOW, more lawsuits.
This is the major drawback of the GPP. Superblock developments (Metrotech anyone?) are terrible for knitting together communities. As laid out currently, the plan is an opportunity lost. The spaces between buildings are difficult to activate, and the development will remain insular – an enclave. There are no central public spaces planned that have the character of a park or public squre. Worse still, there is no plan to link the interior of the site to the perimeter or to carry streets through from one side of the development to the other. In fact, if I recall, the developer proposes to provide gates and lock the development up at night (a la Pratt.)
Unless the plan for the development is overhauled, I can’t see how the housing or retail space created here will be desirable. There’s probably a way to get the same density and number of units in the development as currently proposed without doing a superblock.
Maybe this project looks good on somebody’s balance sheet, but as urbanism, it sucks. That’s what you get for hiring an architect known for iconic buildings to do your master planning for you.
Oh – and if there is going to be a change in the urban design, it had better happen now, since the infrastruture planning has to be integrated with the railyard development. Anyone hoping for something better had better get busy trying to exert their meager influence now, because soon it will be too late.