Let's not forget that a few years ago, Cooper Union was making moves to erase Taras Shevchenko Place from the map. The Ukrainians went wild. [NY Times] [Brama]
Then Cooper Union tried to reduce the transparency of their "communal hive," thereby blocking views of St. George's church. The Ukrainian community was not happy about this. [Villager] [Brama]
There was even talk about demapping Astor Place. [Villager] This was around the time Cooper Union was leasing the Astor Place parking lot to the green monster. [Voice]
Then, "in a bizarre twist," Cooper backed off the demapping plan and, apparently, returned to their original design for transparency.
What's an effective way to get your enemy to surrender? How about threatening them with more damage than you will actually cause so they feel relieved when you back off those threats? It's a perfect way to take the fight right out of them. At the same time, you just keep grinding them down.
Super-gentrification is trauma. When someone is in the midst of trauma, they often dissociate. They go limp. Such a defensive strategy can look like surrender. This argument is used against victims of rape: "She relaxed, she stopped fighting, so she must've wanted it." Let's not be fooled by appearances.
Cooper Union began the bulldozing of Astor Place at the turn of this century. [NY Press] The plans were in place for a long time. Remember it was they who rented an old gas station to the controversial Bowery Bar in 1994. [NY Times]
There will only be more from Cooper Union to come. [Curbed] What else is there to do except surrender? But I hope that, from all the links provided above, it's clear that this surrender has been nothing close to amicable.
2 comments:
That Sun article was such a spin job. No facts whatsoever. It seemed designed to perpetuate the preposterous notion that Thom Mayne's hideous buildings are admired by people who aren't architecture critics.
"Many in the Ukrainian community were initially opposed to nine floors replacing the drab, two-story 1912 Hewitt Building, but the renderings showed the structure to have such lightness, permeability, and transparency that the community eventually surrendered to it, amicably."
Give me a break. The Hewitt Building was understated and dignified. There is no way this new monstrosity won anyone over.
I will NOT surrender either--all this is shit--shit stinks-
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