Markets

Yesterday I visited the new flea market (dubbed Flea Market v.2) in Fort Greene, only a few blocks away from our house. I read about it in the Brooklyn Rail last week: it opened two weeks ago, after long months of organization and an intensive publicity campaign, through mailing lists, blogs and newsletters. The weather is worse than in the previous days, but the vast square in front of the school building at Lafayette and Vanderbilt is packed with people: strolling around, shopping or eating, sitting on the stairs leading to the building, the market found its place in the weekend schedule of the locals. The vendors include the Housing Works bookstore from SoHo, but mostly they consist of small businesses of the Brooklyn neighborhoods, like the recognizable French pastry set of Choice. An immediate success, the flea market works. Slightly detached from its original conditions, that is, remaining-abandoned-found objects for low price, it still represents (or reintroduces) a great variety of objects, goods, and social interaction. And according to the organizers, these are the points of creating a market.

Today after noon I went down to a presentation on the ground floor. The Department of City Planning conducted a detailed research to find out about the food supply of each neighborhood of New York City and now they presented it. Not very surprisingly, the areas with the lowest consumption of vegetables and fruits coincide with the areas with the least variety of food on offer and more importantly, with the areas with the most serious problems of obesity. The low variety of food available is a result of the scarcity of supermarkets and green grocery stores in certain neighborhoods. It seems that the City is serious about the health of its inhabitants. As a matter of fact, the City had better taking care of its folks: health problems and diseases return to the administration as extra costs, family and community tensions. What to do with all these findings? The City plans to create mechanisms to promote and support providers of fresh, healthy food.

These things happen in a city where development constantly revaluates the value of land and its uses. Where the world’s largest forces of real estate speculation are supposed to concentrate. If it’s possible here, why are we keep on eliminating our markets in Eastern Europe, in the name of development?

Promenade plantée

Paris Nordest

Paris, rue d’Aubervilliers

Back to Times Square

After spending months with researching the Grand Central Subdistrict and the area south of Penn Station, I’m back to Times Square. I went out recently a few times to look around in the Theater District, took photos and notes, and I was amazed how much the theaters which are supposed to be preserved and emphasized by all the planning mechanisms, are oppressed by the office buildings towering over them, except for, maybe the 42nd Street. In this case, the quare feet floor area commerce seems to be more difficoult to trace back than in the Grand Central area. Petterns are not as clear and future is more unpredictible.

Foster’s iconic architecture

If he leaves his traces in the central cities, these traces have to be remarkable. An office tower by Norman Foster on the Eighth Avenue, built over an existing building. It makes me wonder about Marcel Breuer’s proposal to build above the Grand Central: his 1968 plan projected a classic modernist office tower at the top of the Beaux-Arts station. It was seen as a blasphemy.

CUP in the New Museum

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.

Community Board 5

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.

Philadelphia

Pratt Institute Library

Ahogy kifelé kezdtünk lábalni a télből, elkezdtem iskolába járni. Híján annak az 1-3 ezer dollárnak, amibe egy tantárgy féléves költsége kerül, nem hivatalos keresésbe kezdtem, és sikerült megállapodnom egy-egy tanárral a CUNY Hunter College-ből és a Pratt Institute-ből. Egyúttal be is iratkoztam a Pratt könyvtárába, ami kincsesládának bizonyult: az a könyvtár, amit minden városban szeretnék a lakhelyemtől 10 percre tudni. Naponta 11-ig nyitvatartva, több emeletnyi könyv, katalógus és video várja, hogy felfedezzem.