Sunday afternoons want me to stay in Brooklyn. But I resist the seduction of the Madison Street, and head for the New Museum. I met several times with different members of the Center for Urban Pedagogy, but I was interested in Damon: he’s next on my list of interviews. The subject of the talk in the Lower East Side, and long-time residents’ organization to avoid displacements and rent increases. The discussion starts in a predictable way, but after a good half an hour it takes a sudden turn. A question from the audience introduces an idea whose significance is hardly recognized. She talks about the ecological footprint, a notion omnipresent in the politically and environmentally conscious press of the US. She doesn’t articulate clearly her question, but I continue her train of thought. There sould be a way to think about our social footprint. To have a set of information about where I move: who lived there before, how can I avoid changing the rent structure of the neighborhood and to make it lose its rent-controlles status, how can I contribute best to the local economies, how to participate, how to engage? We all know the dynamisms of ‘cutting-edge’ neighborhoods, but often fail to personalize the responsabilities.

Two Community Board 5 meetings this week, in two different available spaces in Mid-Midtown. This is not the equivalent of the infamous public hearing procedures well-known in Budapest. Community Boards are formal groups representing a certain district and articulating the consensus reached among the community members. The CB expresses its opinion about each development projects in its neighborhood and approves or disapproves it. CBs have no right to veto – but they are influential in emphasizing the problems and weaknesses of the projects, and thus affecting the further procedure.

The recent developments plans in the CB 5 are very illustrative. Jean Nouvel’s MoMA extension in the 53^rd Street and Norman Foster’s new Lexington Avenue tower will both change the Midtown skyline, and will significantly charge the area with people, deliveries – traffic. The Board is not intimidated by the star architects: its membership includes Rockefellers and prominent real-estate attorneys, ie. professionals who are totally aware of the area’s development potentials and have their own vision about it. The nimby-attitude is also represented, of course. But the point is elsewhere: on debate and the public clash of interests and ideas.

Elkeveredtem a West Village Historical Society esedékes találkozójára, amelyet Warren Shaw arrogáns, de meglepően hiteles előadása töltött ki. A közönségben, mint a műemlékvédő csoportosulások többségében idősek voltak, akik mintha a saját múltjukat féltenék a beruházól és ingatlancápák megállás nélküli támadásától. A West Village-ben komoly hagyománya van a városvédelemben: az amerikai mozgalom gyakorlatilag innen indult útjára, Jane Jacobs, New York  egyik félistene vezetésével. Shaw előadásának fonalát a(z építészeti) jövő-víziók megújulásra való képtelenségére vezeti ki. Megkérdezem, hogy mit gondol az egyre szaporodó vészhelyzet-megelőző és kezelő építészeti pályázatokról. Ezek nem egy átalakuló, de jelenlévő jövő-tudatosságot bizonyítanak? Shaw kitérő választ adott.

A New Museum megkezdte “esti iskoláját”. A budapesti Tranzit szabadiskolához hasonló, zárt és nyitott foglalkozásokat Boris Groys előadása nyitotta meg, telt ház előtt. Groys a “kommunizmus utáni vallásról” beszélt, összekapcsolva az iszlám terrorizmus videó-alapú kommunikációját a közel-kelet kommunistái által bevezetett öngyilkos-merényletekkel.

After Beckett, I leave the theater quickly. I still hope to catch the mysterious meeting of ‘young design and urban professionals’, Metropolitan Exchange, just a few blocks away from the BAM. I received an invitation from Tom with whom I met a few days earlier. He said he couldn’t come – but I should go.

I have no idea what to expect. While looking for the building, scanning the facades for numbers, a lady turns towards me and asks what am I looking for. 33, I answer, 33 Flatbush Avenue. This is where I go, she says, so she took me to the house, and let me in. You’re lucky, she goes on. The doorbells don’t work, you need to call someone’s phone to get in. Helped by her confidence, I do get in. I go up to the 6th floor, and timidely step out of the elevator. I came to a meeting, I start, but I’m some hours late, I turn to the first talking couple. You’ve arrived in the right time, a young woman says, come on in, and have a drink. She sounds german, and I make the connections between Philippe’s greetings and the MEx’s member list. Are you Kaja, I ask. How do you know, she’s surprised.

I engage in the conversation. Her partner in the post-presentation discussion is the owner of the building, I never learn his name. He’s been owning the building for decades, he explains. In the mid-70s, when New York was practically bankrupt, you could buy a square foot for 6 dollars, he tells me. In Midtown, Downtown, anywhere. I was hesitating between a Midtown building and this one, and I bought this one. I regretted many times, but now it’s my turn. I have some ideas how to use the building and what to do about the neighborhood.

The neighborhood is excellent. In the very center of Downtown Brooklyn, a block from the BAM, the Metropolitan Exchange building is located right in the middle of Brooklyn’s emerging cultural district. Why’s the name, I ask. Did you see the sign on the building? Yes, I saw it. It must have been a bank before. Yes, it was a bank, the Chemical Bank, but the signs are left here from a film shooting. They used the building as background setting, and they had to replace the bank’s logo, as it was easily recognizeable. they proposed to change it for something else. I asked them to find out something that I’ll like, so that I can keep it after the shooting. They came up with the ‘Metropolitan exchange’ idea, and I liked it. I think it incorporates perfectly the idea I want to fulfill with this building.

The monthly meeting of ‘young design and urban professionals’ around the round table on the 6th floor of 33 Flatbush Avenue, bears the same name. Everybody seems to be illuminated by the presentations I missed. I am all but disappointed: I am in a city that offers so much to talk about that a new platform is born every week, on every corner.

mlk-we-shall-overcome.mp3

January 21 was Martin Luther King’s Day. A national holiday, thanks to a group of students and teachers who joined forces in some Midwest colleges, and repeatedly demanded from the authorities the recognition of the MLK Day. It was 40 years ago that MLK was shot in the face on his civil right campaign in Memphis.

They succeeded, thus creating another red letter day in the calendar. Nevertheless, the instant poll, organized daily in my regular Blue Spoon café, revealed that about a half of downtown workers, visiting the café, would work on January 21, despite its holiday status. I, as a municipal employee, didn’t.

So I went to celebrate. I walked down the few blocks from Classon Avenue, to ther Brooklyn Academy of Music, to enjoy the free program supported by the local shopping center. The program consisted of verious performances, a screening, and a civil rights movement concert, by famous gospel singers. I chose the screening. BAM’s movie theater was packed: you could sense the excitement of the spectators, mostly Afro-Americans. The movement songs on the screen were rapidly joined by the audience: they were all known and all sung throughout the room; a very touching moment.

The movie was capturing: it told not only about the heroic struggle of Memphis union and church leaders standing up for the city’s sanitation workers rights, but also the strategic mistakes MLK made in the course of his campaign. Leaving the theater, I had no illusions about the success of the civil rights movement: our beloved neighborhood, although good-willingly balancing between gentrified tidyness and black poverty, is a good example for a highly polarized society.

A héten írtam a Tranzitnak egy filmről és a személyiség-középpontú társadalomról.

Már Velencében is láttam ezeket a jellegzetes árnyjátékokat. Kara Walker a rabszolgatartás történeti ikonológiájának feltérképezésére tette fel a karrierjét – és ez jó döntésnek bizonyult. Az USA déli részén született afro-amerikai művésznő a rabszolga(tartó)-társadalom folklórját dolgozza fel animációs filmek és festmények formájában.

Minden télen újra rendezik soraikat a Sarki Medvék. Ők főként orosz New York-iak, akik télen sem hagyják abba a coney island-i strand látogatását. Január elsején csoportos fürdőzéssel köszöntik az újévet.