Lethem Comes Out Swinging at Gehry
Author and lifelong Brooklynite Jonathan Lethem has drafted a personal letter to Frank Gehry that appeared in Slate yesterday. Here’s an excerpt: [Your design is] a nightmare for Brooklyn, one that, if built, would cause irreparable damage to the quality of our lives and, I’d think, to your legacy. Your reputation, in this case, is…
Author and lifelong Brooklynite Jonathan Lethem has drafted a personal letter to Frank Gehry that appeared in Slate yesterday. Here’s an excerpt:
[Your design is] a nightmare for Brooklyn, one that, if built, would cause irreparable damage to the quality of our lives and, I’d think, to your legacy. Your reputation, in this case, is the Trojan horse in a war to bring a commercially ambitious, but aesthetically—and socially—disastrous new development to Brooklyn. Your presence is intended to appease cultural tastemakers who might otherwise, correctly, recognize this atrocious plan for what it is, just as the notion of a basketball arena itself is a Trojan horse for the real plan: building a skyline suitable to some Sunbelt boomtown. I’ve been struggling to understand how someone of your sensibilities can have drifted into such an unfortunate alliance, with such potentially disastrous results.
The other zinger: “Your prestigious presence in this mercenary partnership reminds me of Colin Powell giving cover to the Cheney-Rumsfeld doctrine: If he’s on board, we’re meant to think, it can’t be as bad as it looks.” Ouch. Read on.
Brooklyn’s Trojan Horse [Slate]
Would I would really like to hear from (on both sides) are urban planners and economists.
That would be impartial urban planners – not ones dug up by either side.
I don’t want to hear just its affect on ‘Brooklyn’ (although really anti-AY people mean surrounding nabes because can’t imagine folks in Canarsie give a s**t) because its what NYC as whole needs to do to continue to be economically successful.
Slick PR presentations by FCR and doomsday claims by DDDB and their growing celeb backers don’t help.
Lethem’s ‘letter’ is more of same nonsense from layman. All this nostalgia about the W’burgh Savings Bank bldg is about makes me want to puke as much as references to the old Dodgers.
There are valid arguments that can be made on both sides but skip the drama and the outrage already.
Hey Phil, if you don’t want to read Lethem’s letter, don’t. Plenty others are reading it. and it can hardly be called a screed.
as for sound bites, have you heard this one:
Develop, Don’t Destroy.
Very clearly stated with a great sense of humor. The trojan horse metaphor was right on. Will AY ruin Brooklyn? I personally don’t want to see Flatbush Avenue turn into our version of Canal Street.
Let me just say I’m a Gehry fan and I think Brooklyn demands architecture designed by THE BEST that the profession can offer, but Frank, whats with the Patriarchal wedding veil reference? Do women still wear veils over their faces during western Christian ceremonies? In arranged marriages, the bride’s face was covered until the groom was committed to her at the ceremony… so it would be too late for him to run off if he didn’t like the looks of her. Maybe FCR should have used the old “double bag trick” to hide his bride.
I agree, anon2, but without Gehry, those tastemakers no longer have that argument in their favor and therefore might have to withdraw their support, leaving only the unabashed rapcious types in favor of this horror. The best is Ratner’s comment about the ugliness of his malls — You’ve got projects. You’ve got tough kids. So yeah, let’s make everything around them ugly and prison-like…
Yes, Powderhouse, I agree. It’s great to see people (finally) really taking Gehry, Ratner, et al to task. To what end, though? Simply to stop Ratner’s plans? What will they be replaced by? Who will be allowed the freedom to create something trully wonderful? In the current climate, there’s always going to be a large group of people ready to stop the next idea. And the next one, and the next one, and so on…The process is so fraught with disagreement, it feels like nothing great can every be accomplished. ‘Appeasement’ rather then ‘achievement’ is the word of the day.
And the difference that this will make = ZERO!!!
This piece illustrates perfectly the misguided approach of the arena opponents. In an age of soundbites, they insist upon issuing long-winded screeds. I can’t think of a better way to ensure that potential allies will NOT read this guy’s viewpoint.
10:01, you’re in no position to criticize anyone for posting anonymously, given that you did so yourself.
i <3 lethem… and the municipal arts society, and anyone else with power and influence who’s willing to criticize the ratner/gehry plan.
for decades, brooklyn’s been the dumping ground for misguided urban ‘redevelopment’ schemes, while manhattan residents have been sophisticated enough politically to stop bad ideas. will this be brooklyn’s westway? or is lethem right about brooklyn’s low self-esteem and the “pervasive mood of resignation”?
You go, Jon! I am e-mailing this article to everyone I know on both sides of the issue. I already got a call from one pro-AY person I know, who said, “I never really knew what this project was about — I mean it all sounded good. I’ll have to take a closer look now.” Little by little we will progress to ultimately stop this travesty. Remember Westway?
Isn’t Gehry just a hired gun, Ratner’s b****, if you will? The real people to go after are the “cultural tastemakers,” whose interests mesh seamlessly with those of rapacious developers. The tastemakers (who, among others, include key players within government) ultimately don’t give a fig about bulk and scale. Their primary concern is to get “architecturally significant” buildings built, in a larger quest to reassert NYC on the international architectural scene. Essentially a deal has been struck among the cultural and moneyed elite (to the extent they represent different people – after all, the key tastemakers are moneyed). Here cultural interests align perfectly with commercial – there’s both cultural status and money in architectural “branding,” and a Gehry is a win-win for both.
People and neighborhoods do not factor into this equation.