text:
Manufacturing the Picturesque at Central Park
May 26, 2019 Assorted Art & Writing, Browse All Work
Figure 1. Map of Central Park in 1873
Central Park is not only the major recreational facility of Manhattan but also the record of its progress: a taxidermic preservation of nature that exhibits forever the drama of culture outdistancing nature. Like the [Manhattan] Grid, it is a colossal leap of faith; the contrast it describes – between the built and the unbuilt – hardly exists at the time of its creation.
– Rem Koolhaas, Delirious New York 1
Koolhaas lays out one of the challenges core to Central Park's construction: the tension between natural and manmade, urban and rural. What sets this park apart from most other parks is its yearning to seemingly become something that it clearly is not: natural. Many other pocket parks in this city incorporate existing topography and trees into their design – yet they are smaller. And from the confines of their interior, the sights and sounds of the city are hard to escape. Central Park succeeds in permitting its visitor to make-believe, at least momentarily, that they have left the city and are immersed in the countryside. The original park contained, for instance, a sheep pasture and barn, a nature preserve called "The Ramble," and a dairy for urban mothers to buy fresh milk.
The scale of Central Park and the engineering that went into its creation is not unprecedented – architects and engineers have completed far larger infrastructure projects. The New York City watershed, for instance, catches all the rainfall within a 2,000 square mile area, stores this water in 19 reservoirs, and then transports this water up to 200 miles in underground pipes that serve nine million people.2 Central Park, by comparison, was built by some of the same people but is a mere three-square-miles of "improved" wilderness. However, what is surprising is the degree to which Central Park's landscape features seem natural, as if land speculators and developers had chanced upon the park and left it as untouched as they had found it, except framed on four sides by the city grid (figure 5). So successful is this intervention that there is often the popular misconception that it is natural. This Huffington Post article, for instance: "I know that it may come as a shock to some, but New York's Central Park is not an act of God. It might seem that way, especially in the woodlands, which appear so authentically, well, natural."3
Figure 2. Earthworks projects in 1858, most likely in the vicinity of 72nd Street
In the 1857 text entitled "The Plan for the Park," the project's landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted (b.1822-d.1903), writes that it "seems desirable to interfere with its easy, undulating outlines, and picturesque, rocky scenery as little as possible, and, on the other hand, to endeavor rapidly and by every legitimate means, to increase and judiciously develop these particularly individual and characteristic sources of landscape effects."4 Olmsted's claim is a good place to start because it expresses a paradox central to the design. Olmsted's project "interferes" with the landscape "as little as possible" simultaneously with large-scale efforts to move soil, blast rock, and plant trees that employed – at the height of work – some 4,000 men.5 Rem Koolhaas interprets this quote from Olmsted as follows: "If Central Park can be read as an operation of preservation, it is, even more, a series of manipulations and transformations performed on the nature 'saved' by its designers."6
How can we reconcile these two seemingly opposed tendencies in Central Park – natural vs. manmade – when almost all manmade features are disguised as natural? I propose that we can better understand the park by dispensing with the pretense that it is in any way natural.
Central Park presents an unusually refined interpretation of nature. Of the approximately 20,000 trees of 175 species, solidly 60% are non-native to New York.7 Of the seven lakes contained within the park, none are natural to the terrain and are mostly the result of damning existing streams. Of the paths, trails, and roads winding through the park – with curves to match the contours of hills and valleys – none are original, nor do they correspond to pre-development dirt roads and Lenape Indian trails.8
Figure 3. Frederick Law Olmsted's 1857 drawing of the park before and after the planned "improvements"
Before work began in 1857, the pre-development topography was insufficient for use as a public park. The Manhattan grid – comprising some 2,000 plus city blocks each measuring exactly 200 feet wide – implies a flat terrain and originally made no accommodations for interfering rivers, hills, or marshes. Looking at a street map of the island, one might be surprised to learn that the terrain rises and falls the length of the island from zero feet at sea level to ~250 feet at its highest peak (figures 4 and 16).9 The name "Manhattan" is a Lenape Indian word that means "Island of Many Hills."10 Yet, despite the variety of sites planners could have chosen from, the park's rectangular boundaries were not determined by the availability of topographic features appropriate for a park.
Figure 4. "British Headquarters' Map" of Manhattan Island from ~1789. Only the shaded pink section at top of island is developed at city density. The rest consists of rolling hills, forest, and farmland that inspired Henry Hudson, the first European who "discovered" the island in 1609, to remark that: "The land is the finest for cultivation that I ever in my life set foot upon."11
Instead of topography, three main factors determined the location: One, planners needed to choose a site close to the expanding city yet far enough away that the land could be acquired cheaply and without displacing large numbers of residents. Two, the city's population had grown 160% in the twenty years from 1840 to 1860,12 and the city's existing Croton reservoir (then located in the exact center of the proposed park) was insufficient. The city needed a new reservoir; the most convenient location on the island for this reservoir was next to the existing (on the land shown in figures 6 and 7).13 The otherwise purely practical infrastructure of water supply could thus become a landscape feature occupying about 20% of the park's surface area.14 Three, the city planned to offset the approximately five-million-dollar price tag of land acquisition and construction through corresponding increases in the taxable property values of land adjacent the park. The architects also went so far as to suggest "a toll of three cents on visitors coming on foot, and six cents for all others" collected on visitors to fund park maintenance and offset construction costs. (This was never implemented.)15 Olmsted also writes:
Land immediately about the Park, the frontage on it being seven miles in length, instead of taking the course anticipated by those opposed to the policy of the Commission, has advanced in value at the rate of two hundred per cent per annum…. It is universally admitted, however, that the cost, including that of the original off-hand common sense blunders, has been long since much more than compensated by the additional capital drawn to the city through the influence of the Park.16
The park's location might be strengthened by the simple fact that a linear or smaller park along the waterfront would have fewer miles of frontage of taxable properties adjacent to the park. For instance, locating just one side Central Park along the Hudson and East River (instead of the island's center) would result in 2.5 miles less of abutting properties. Within the following decades, the properties in the Upper East and Upper West Side that overlook the park became (and remain) among the most expensive in the city. This method of development – sacrificing a fraction of the land for park use so as to increase the monetary value of the adjoining lands – was common in New York City (e.g., Gramercy Park) and particularly in London's fashionable west end neighborhoods.17 What makes Central Park different, though, is the unprecedented scale of this investment to boost civic pride and to increase property taxes.
Figure 5. A c.1836 engraved map of mid-Manhattan with the outline of the future park drawn in orange ink c.1858. The incongruity between the park's outline and the topography is also illustrated by the fact that the park's northern boundary (originally at 106th street) would require blasting through a one hundred foot high solid-rock mountain to make way for the perimeter street.
Given these priorities – real estate and infrastructure interests over aesthetics – the choice of location was not ideal (figure 5). The rough terrain was mostly barren of trees and was a mosquito-laden wetland. (More readily converted terrain was originally proposed along the East River in the vicinity of Roosevelt University.) Before beginning the architect's work of planting trees and building scenic garden features, the first major task was to prepare the land and make it suitable for public use. To that effect, Olmsted contracted the engineer (and later military coronel) George E. Waring to drain the swamp. Waring directed 400 men to construct some 105,000 linear feet (32 kilometers) of drainpipes over two years (figure 8).18 His military-style approach toward clearing the park followed him into later life when he became New York City's sanitation commissioner. As commissioner, he required all his street cleaners to wear white pith helmets (identical to those worn by European colonists in Africa) and then declared the war on filth. Given his interest in sanitation and dislike of dirt, his answer to the park commissioners' question is revealing:19
Commission's Question: "To what degree shall the park be drained?"
Waring's Answer: "Totally."
Q: "By what form of drains?"
A: "Earthenware, of varying calibers."
Q: "At what depth?"
A: "Three feet in open glades, four feet in forested areas."
Q: "For best economy, by contract or days' work?"
A: By days' work because of the endlessly varied conditions requiring uncommon on-site super vision."
Figure 6. Buried Pipes in Connection with the New Reservoir, c.1862
Figure 7. General View of N. Reservoir from 102nd St. October 23, 1862. All the land visible here is now buried beneath the reservoir.
Another requirement asked of the planners was to incorporate a new reservoir into the park (figures 6-7 show terrain beneath reservoir). The existing stone reservoir and Croton Aqueduct, completed 1842, were no longer sufficient despite Walt Whitman's claim that: "Ages after ages these Croton works will last, for they are most substantial than the old Roman aqueducts."20 To augment the Croton's capacity, the new reservoirs combined covered approximately 20% of the park's surface area over terrain that otherwise would have become parkland. Before Olmsted had even submitted his plan in 1857, the engineer Egbert L. Viele, who had been surveying the parkland since 1853,21 had decided on placing this reservoir on a natural depression in the land, to be augmented by an earthen embankment around the perimeter. Olmsted's final proposal follows the contours of Viele's proposed reservoir exactly.
Figure 8. Map of drainage system on lower part of the Central Park as far as completed up to 31 December 1858. 59th Street is at left, 5th Avenue is at bottom, and 8th Avenue (i.e. Central Park West) is at top. This map only illustrates the paths of future carriage roads within the park – the thick white lines that wind through the landscape. Red lines indicate the paths of buried clay pipes that drain water from the marshy soil – and continue to do so today. Shaded gray areas correspond to areas to be raised with dirt fill. The shaded blotches are for preserved boulders protruding above ground. The slightly off-kilter rectangle in center is for the area drained to create the Central Park Mall – the only geometrically symmetrical part of the park design.
Although the park was extensively surveyed and re-landscaped there was, nonetheless, an attempt to appear rustic and unkempt. The architect, Calvert Vaux, blanketed the park in little pavilions and bridges made from unpolished and rustic wood with bark still on the beams – perhaps a 19th century re-reading of the primitive hut.22 The passage from the southern to the northern reaches of the park was also a parable in the march of civilization and progress. By this time, the city was advancing northward up the island from its historic center in Lower Manhattan. Within forty years, the island would be completely built-up. With this recognition of urban sprawl, Olmsted possibly named the park's 18 entrances to reflect the city's movement. In order from south to north, the names are as follows: Artisan's Gate, Merchant's Gate, Scholar's Gate, Woman's Gate, Inventor's Gate, Miner's Gate, Mariner's Gate, Engineer's Gate, Gate of All Saints, Woodman's Gate, Boy's Gate, Girl's Gate, Stranger's Gate, Warrior's Gate, Farmer's Gate and Pioneer's Gate. This list almost reads as a list of social classes in increasing order of proximity to raw nature.23 The design features also evolve over distance. The southern reaches (also the busiest section due to its proximity to the city center) was built first and included more pruned botanic features, rectangular parterres of trees, and the proposed flower garden. The northern reaches (also surrounded mostly by farmland at this time) were intentionally more heavily forested, had fewer of the signature covered bridges, retained the park's largest rock escarpment, and for the first few decades of its life contained no statues, monuments, or plaques commemorating important people. By contrast, about two dozen monuments to Western Civilization's great cultural and political leaders were all concentrated in the south: William Shakespeare (1872), Thomas Moore (1879), Alexander Hamilton (1880), Beethoven (1884), Columbus (1894), etc.24
Figure 9. The extent of northward marching urban development by 1857 with the outlines of the park traced above. Notice how large the park is relative to the city's surface area, and how the city becomes rural traveling north. View this animation online.
At this stage, we might arrive at a better understanding by shifting the descriptive language used. Perhaps we should describe the park not in terms of nature or landscape – given that considerations of the natural were not foremost in the design. Perhaps we might do better to describe in terms of infrastructure, engineering, movement, and social class. Indeed, one of the strengths of Olmsted's proposal – and one of the reasons he won out of the 33 designs submitted – was his decision to separate the park by four different classes and speeds of movement (figures 10 and 11), each of which corresponded to a width of road and minimum permitted turning radius (color-coded in figure 12).25 This detailed plan for road separation and drainage were finished before the architects had even begun working on planting diagrams or selecting which species of trees would make for the most varied landscape composition. One, because of the park's length, size, and location, there would be many vehicles passing through the park, not for leisure, but simply to pass from one side of the park to the other as fast as possible. For these vehicles, the engineers planned four buried transverse roads with entirely separate right-of-way. These straight and wide roads at no point intersected other types of traffic. Two, the next highest speed of road was for slightly slower carriage traffic within the park. While the relatively straight transverse roads were for practical through-traffic, the carriage roads were for leisure. Three, the next highest speed consisted of a narrower and more curving path than the carriage roads, this one for horseback riders. Horseback riding was a popular leisure and sporting activity – these roads are now largely used for joggers who move faster than pedestrians but slower than vehicles. And four, the most ubiquitous road type of all consisted of mostly unpaved gravel paths for public use on foot only. With the help of bridges and tunnels (figure 11), at no point did these various systems of conveyance intersect, leading Olmsted to claim: "By this means it was made possible, even for the most timid and nervous, to go on foot to any district of the Park designed to be visited, without crossing a line of wheels on the same level, and consequently, without occasion for anxiety and hesitation."26
Figure 10. Author's diagram of road types
Figure 11. 1862 cross-section of transverse road. Notice how the trees above the road are purposely drawn so small, as if to exaggerate the tunnel's monumentality.
WALK RIDE DRIVE TRANSVERSE
Incidentally, these different paths would have also corresponded to different social classes. The wealthiest individuals – those who could afford a carriage, horse, and driver – would implicitly have exclusive use of the carriage roads, while horseback riders had their separate right of way, and service vehicles were segregated below grade. Elizabeth Blackmar and Roy Rozenzweig write: "In the decade after the opening, more than half of those visiting the park arrived in carriages (which less than 5 percent of the city's population could afford to ow, and each day there were elaborate carriage parades in the late afternoon."27 Yet, disproportionate design consideration and park surface area seems to be given to this minority of users on carriage and horse.
Figure 13. Engineering map of drainage ditches
Figure 14. Map of the same area once completed
Figure 15. Map of middle section of park between 79th Street and 97th street transverse roads, the empty area at lower left hand corner is the future site of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The blue road corresponds to the horseback trail, now jogging path. After passing through manmade forests, valleys, and tunnels starting at the 59th Street entrance, horseback riders' park experience culminated as they circled this manmade reservoir.
These maps of the park – color coded by road type – can help us begin to unravel the to degree to which the current landscape is manmade. At first glance, the smooth passage of roads and their organic contours may seem effortless, as if they were laid out along existing roads with regards to existing topography. But, by separating the different grades of traffic by color (figure 14) and upon closer examination there is a complex and extensive hidden infrastructure beneath these natural appearances (figure 13).
Figure 16. 1811 Commissioners' Plan
These maps also reveal a park that is not separate from or opposite to the city, but rather a continuation of the city. A glance at a map of Manhattan reveals two seemingly different philosophies of urbanism, as imprinted through the laying of road networks. Most of the island is covered in the orthogonal 1811 grid (figure 16). This grid gives no consideration to topography, nature, or aesthetics. And then, there is the three square mile area of Central Park with winding and seemingly organic roads. The absence of symmetry and straight lines might lead one to conclude that the park reflects an attempt to harmonize with nature. Existing popular literature commonly situates this park as a reaction to the grid's perceived faults and excesses.28 Upon closer examination, this park's near obsessive attention to detail, its concern with segregated movement, and its reliance on complex (but hidden) infrastructure reveals it to be a continuation of the 1811 grid's interest in real estate, property values, and engineering, rather than a prosaic and romantic reaction to excess urban growth. This infrastructure is also wrapped up in a coded message about the progress of civilization. The passage from cultivated south to rugged north can read as a condensed representation of the passage from the center of civilization to its undeveloped edges. One should also keep in mind that simultaneous to the construction of Central Park, engineers and developers were at work on the other side of the country clearing the American West for development. Within the following decades, the extent of farmed land would creep westwards on former Indian soil, generally following the paths of railroads toward California. Does the design of Central Park mirror 1860s American society's belief in the civilizing power of science and technology to tame the wilderness? Additionally, is Central Park's design just a matter-of-fact effort to boost the city's tax revenues, with no moral agenda intentionally encoded in the park design? Such questions might be impossible to answer, given the lack of conclusive evidence.
But, now is the time to return to the question we started with: How can we reconcile these two seemingly opposed tendencies – natural vs. manmade? I posit that by describing Central Park in the language of infrastructure and real estate – instead of nature and aesthetics – we can arrive at a more accurate assessment of the park's origins, objectives, and construction process. Seemingly, the only way to adapt this ill-suited site toward a park that fulfilled the 19th century definition of the picturesque was through public works that, upon their completion, effaced almost all traces of the people, trees, and landscape that existed before. While at work, Olmsted made this prediction on the future of Manhattan Island:29
The time will come when New York will be built up, when all the grading and filling will be done, and when the picturesquely-varied rock formations of the Island will have been converted into formations for rows of monotonous straight streets, and piles of erect buildings. There will be no suggestion left of its present varied surface, with the single exception of the few acres contained in the Park.
The park is an architectural contradiction of sorts. On the one hand, its rock formations, hills, and valleys look to a pre-developed and rugged Manhattan in the public imagination, a landscape more fictive than real. Olmsted thought it appropriate to leave the northern reaches of the park as wooded as possible with a c.1812 fortress left standing atop a mountain as a sort of picturesque ruin in the style of English garden follies. On the other hand, the park's very presence is a testament to the power of real estate interests, engineers, and the water supply board in shaping the city. This contradiction underlies the landscape features now almost universally praised for their vision, beauty, and harmony.
Figure 17. "Central Park Tunnel." Miners carve a future subway tunnel under the park in 1902.
Figure 18. "Men standing on Willowdell Arch." The chief engineers and architects pose for an 1862 photo above one of the park's signature tunnels.
To read or circulate this paper in print copy, please download as a PDF at this link.
To view where each image in this essay was found, click on image and link to source will load.
Rem Koolhaas, "Prehistory," in Delirious New York (New York: The Monacelli Press, 1994), p.21. ↩
Kenneth Jackson, Lisa Keller, et al., "Water Supply," in The Encyclopedia of New York City (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), p.1381-86. ↩
Charles A. Birnbaum, "The Big Task of Managing Nature at New York's Central Park," The Huffington Post, 12 September 2012, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/an-unlimited-range-of-rur_b_1870450? (retrieved 15 May 2019). ↩
Kenneth Jackson and David Dunbar (editors), "Selected Writings on Central Park, Frederick Law Olmsted (1858, 1870)," in Empire City: New York through the Centuries, (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), p.279. This anthology of urban history assembles various primary sources from across NYC history into a single book. ↩
Ibid., "Central Park," p.222-24. ↩
Rem Koolhaas, Delirious New York, p.23. ↩
Robert Demcker, "Central Park Plant List and Map Index of 1873," published by the Frederick Law Olmsted Association and The Central Park Community Fund, 1979. ↩
Concluded from comparing maps of the park pre and post construction. ↩
Hilary Ballon, "Introduction," in The Greatest Grid: The Master Plan of Manhattan 1811-2011 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012), p.13-15. ↩
Eric Sanderson et al., The Welikia Project, https://welikia.org/about/how-it-all-began/ (retrieved 15 May 2019). – Sanderson authored the most detailed description of Manhattan's pre-development topography. ↩
"Early Descriptions of New Netherland," New Netherland Institute: Exploring America's Dutch Heritage, https://www.newnetherlandinstitute.org/history-and-heritage/additional-resources/dutch-treats/early-impressions-of-new-netherland/ (retrieved 15 May 2019). ↩
"NYC Total and Foreign-born Population 1790 – 2000," NYC Planning Department, https://www1.nyc.gov/site/planning/data-maps/nyc-population/historical-population.page (retrieved 15 May 2019). ↩
"The Croton System," in The Encyclopedia of New York City, p.1382. ↩
The old rectangular shaped Croton Reservoir covered 8% of the park's area. The new reservoir covered about 12%. Values calculated by author using Google MyMaps. ↩
Olmsted, Frederick Law and American Social Science Association, Public Parks And the Enlargement of Towns: Read Before the American Social Science Association At the Lowell Institute, Boston, Feb. 25, 1870, (Cambridge: Printed for the American Social Science Association, at the Riverside Press, 1870), p.35. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008726621 (retrieved 4 May 2019). ↩
Ibid., p.35. ↩
Jon Campbell and Christopher Robbins, "The Origin Story Of Gramercy Park Is A Classic NYC Tale Of Real Estate Hucksterism, Cronyism, And Gate Crashing," The Gothamist, 28 June 2018, http://gothamist.com/2018/06/28/gramercy_park_history_amazing.php (retrieved 15 May 2019). ↩
Morrison H Heckscher, "Creating Central Park," The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, New Series, 65, no. 3 (2008): p.40, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25434142 (retrieved 15 May 2019). ↩
Ibid. ↩
Ironically, a mere 94 years after opening, the old Croton reservoir, deemed inadequate, was drained and filled with debris from subway excavations. ↩
"Creating Central Park," p.18. ↩
Patricia Heintzelman for the U.S. Department of the Interior, Central Park Nomination Form for NRHP, 1966, https://npgallery.nps.gov/AssetDetail/NRIS/66000538 (retrieved 15 May 2019). ↩
To my knowledge, the claim that Olmsted named the gates in 1862 to mirror the transition from civilization to nature has never been made before. However, Olmsted clearly describes his intentions in writing for the landscape to move from smooth to rough during the journey north; so it follows for the naming conventions to reflect this shift. ↩
Wikipedia assembles lists of monuments, parks, streets, etc. organized as metadata with lat-long coordinates. Plotting these coordinates on a map and eliminating recently added monuments reveals a clear spatial concentration of artwork and sculpture in the south. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sculptures_in_Central_Park (retrieved 16 May 2019). Identical list also found from NYC Parks Department: https://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/central-park/monuments (retrieved 16 May 2019). ↩
Landmarks Preservation Commission, Central Park Designation Report for the NYC Planning Department, 1974, http://s-media.nyc.gov/agencies/lpc/lp/0851.pdf (retrieved 15 May 2019). ↩
"Selected Writings on Central Park, Frederick Law Olmsted (1858, 1870)," in Empire City: New York through the Centuries, p.281. ↩
"Central Park," in The Encyclopedia of New York City, p.223. ↩
See Central Park's Wikipedia entry, for instance. ↩
Tagged architecture, essay, new york, planning
Architecture of Exclusion in Manhattan Chinatown
May 14, 2019 Assorted Art & Writing, Browse All Work, Walking in Manhattan
Canal & Mott Streets
In 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act restricted Chinese immigration to the US, prohibited Chinese females from immigrating on grounds of prostitution, and revoked the citizenship of any US citizen who married a Chinese male. The consequences of this xenophobic legislation led Chinese immigrants to flee racial violence in the American West and to settle in Manhattan's Chinatown. With a population now of around 50 thousand (2010 US Census), this remains the largest ethnically Chinese enclave in the Western Hemisphere.
Doyers Street – Barbershop Row
Thanks to New York's geographic location as a port city with high industrial employment easy connections to the American interior, this city became the primary point of entry for waves of immigrant groups in the 1800s: Irish, Germans, Italians, and Eastern Europeans. What makes the Chinese different, though, is the survival and resilience of the immigrant community they created. Other immigrant groups – namely the Germans and Irish – converged around large neighborhoods and surrounded themselves with familiar language and businesses. Of these 1800s enclaves, all have since disappeared as the children of these first-generation immigrants successfully assimilated into American society, earned higher incomes than their parents, and therefore chose to disperse to non-immigrant neighborhoods with better housing stock and schools. Yet, the Chinese remained.
The resilience of this community results from a confluence of factors: cultural, geographic, and (most of all) racial. Of innumerable immigrant groups to the US, the Chinese were among the only to have the most restrictive laws placed on their immigration. This stigma drove them toward three types of low-skilled manual labor – with which white Americans still deeply associate with the Chinese – laundries, restaurants, and garment manufacturing. Like the Chinese, other groups – particularly Irish-immigrant females – began working in these professions, but they soon climbed the social ladder.
Mosco & Mulberry All
As an architectural historian, I am fascinated about how this political and racial agenda of exclusion is imprinted in the built environment of Chinatown. To present this neighborhood's geography: For most of its history, Chinatown was bordered to the north by Canal Street, to the east by Bowery, and to the South and West by the city's federal courthouse and jail. The center of this community lies on the low wetland above a filled-in and polluted lake, called the Collect Pond. Historically, this area contained the city's worst housing stock, was home to the city's first tenement building (65 Mott Street), and was the epicenter for waterborne cholera during the epidemics of 1832 (~3,000 deaths) and again in 1866 (1,137 deaths). The city's first slum clearance project was also in Chinatown, at the present-day Columbus Park.
Race-based policies of exclusion can take different forms in the built-environment. The quality of street cleaning and the frequency of street closures are a place to start. Some of the city's dirtiest sidewalks and streets are consistently located within Chinatown – as well as some of the most crowded with street vendors (particularly Mulberry and Mott Street). Yet, as these streets continue northward above Canal Street, their character markedly changes. The sections of Mulberry Street in Chinatown are unkempt and always open to traffic and truck deliveries.
The street sections immediately north (in the enclave of Little Italy) are frequently cleaned and closed for traffic most of the year to create a car -free pedestrian mall bordered by Italian restaurants. These policies continue when examining the proximity of Chinatown to centers of political power and criminal justice. Since 1838, the city's central prison (named the Tombs because of its foreboding appearance) is located just adjacent to Chinatown. The Fifth Police Precinct is also located at the center of this community at 19 Elizabeth Street.
Bayard & Mulberry Grocery
Yet, although this neighborhood was ranked 58th safest out of the city's 69 patrol areas and has a below-average crime rate, the incarceration rate of 449 per 100,000 people is higher than the city average. NYC Open Data also reveals this neighborhood to be targeted for certain – perhaps race-specific and generally non-violent crimes – like gambling and forgery. Or, the only financial institution to face criminal charges after the 2008 financial crisis was the family-owned Abacus Federal Savings Bank – on allegations of mortgage fraud later found false in court by a 12-0 jury decision in favor of Abacus.
When it comes to tourism, Americans seem to have a paradoxical relationship with Chinatown's "oriental" culture and cuisine. On the hand, there is a proclaimed love of Chinese cuisine and art, as evidenced by the profusion of Chinese-themed restaurants for tourists in Chinatown, or as evidenced by the phenomenon in art history for western artists (and particularly French Impressionists) to incorporate decorative motifs from East Asian woodcuts and ceramics into their work. There is simultaneously exclusion of the people – from the society who created this food and art – from political power and social mobility. Still today, Americans seem to want competitively priced Chinese products without suffering the presence of the foreigners who produced these products.
Forsyth & Delancey Grocery
Let us clarify one thing: the division in Chinatown is by no means "apartheid." It is perhaps a division more subtle and difficult to notice. It expresses the kind of unequal treatment – antiquated housing, crowded conditions, and municipal apathy – that face many immigrant groups in the US. What we see in Chinatown is something altogether more complicated – as this neighborhood is also active in the process of gentrification with rising rents pushing out older Chinese businesses. If and when Chinese immigrants become fully integrated into American society, to what extent should the architectural fabric of this Chinese enclave be preserved, considering that its very existence is possibly a marker of race-based exclusion and the century-long challenge of the Chinese in America?
This essay originally appeared in the spring 2019 edition of the Asia Pacific Affairs Council journal at Columbia University's Weatherhead East Asian Institute. Click here to read this essay in its original format.
Tagged architecture, architecture of fear, essay, new york, politics, watercolor
May 8, 2019 Assorted Art & Writing, Browse All Work, Little Lectures
The Church of Saint-Denis and Gothic Architecture
The following presentation, given on 8 May 2019, accompanies my undergraduate thesis in the History & Theory of Architecture. The paper was written under the direction of Columbia faculty advisers Stephen Murray and Barry Bergdoll in the art history department. This work is a continuation of my computer animations and visualizations of Amiens Cathedral for Professor Murray, published here.
The full thesis is available here to read online. Scroll down for powerpoint presentation and model.
The abstract is copied below:
Around the year 1140 CE, a new style of architecture and way of thinking about how to construct buildings developed in Northern France. This way of building soon spread across Europe, seeding cathedrals, monasteries, abbeys, and churches wherever masons traveled. Centuries later – long after masons ceased building in this style – Renaissance architectural theorists began calling this style the "Gothic."
The one church traditionally associated with this 1140s stylistic shift from the earlier Romanesque style to the newer Gothic style is a small building just north of Paris: the Abbey Church of S-Denis. However, although the popular narrative of architectural history assumes this building to be the world's first Gothic building, little structural evidence to this effect survives. This thesis follows two strains of inquiry: 1) why this church is deeply associated with the origins of Gothic and 2) how surviving fragments of the 1140s S-Denis fail to support claims of the structure's primacy.
Why does this matter? S-Denis reveals a tendency to tell history – particularly architectural history – in terms of individual structures when, in fact, the origins of the Gothic style might be more complex. By abandoning a Paris and S-Denis centric origins story, we might be able to better appreciate the diverse array of local sources from which medieval masons found inspiration to build.
Computer Model
Central to the argument that the Gothic style originated at S-Denis is a misunderstanding and debate about the church's original appearance. Very little survives of the church that is claimed to have inspired the Gothic style. The computer model below illustrates architectural fabric original to the 1100s in red and later additions in white. This should lead us to question: Why and how did historians assert this structure as the first on the basis of relatively limited physical evidence?
Abbey Church of Saint-Denis by Myles Zhang on Sketchfab
Strangely enough, despite the widely accepted fact that S-Denis' architecture was significantly rebuilt, numerous scholarly and non-scholarly sources continue to assume this church to be the first. Copied below is a quote from S-Denis' official website:
The birth of Gothic art. The church, designed by Abbot Suger, kings' advisor from 1135 to 1144, was completed in the 13th century during the reign of Saint Louis. A major work of Gothic art, this church was the first to place a great importance on light, a symbol of divinity, in religious architecture.
Or this quote from medievalist Dieter Kimpel:
Suger, abbot of the most important of all the royal abbeys, that of Saint-Denis, and sponsor of the western part and the sanctuary of the abbey church, works considered rightly as a milestone in the history of the birth of Gothic architecture, left us a detailed account of his activity as abbot.
This misconception pervades scholarly and popular sources alike, including this church's Wikipedia entry:
The building is of singular importance historically and architecturally as its choir, completed in 1144, shows the first use of all of the elements of Gothic architecture.
An appendix of selected sources claiming S-Denis to be the first accompany pages 46-48 of the written thesis.
Slide Deck
Embedded below are the slides from this presentation.
Anyone is welcome to reuse, re-quote, or borrow the text, photos, animations, and drawings contained in this thesis for non-commercial purposes and with attribution to the author, in accordance with this creative commons license.
Tagged architecture, essay
Northeast Corridor Drone Flight
February 2, 2019 Browse All Work, Short Films
The Northeast Corridor is the busiest railroad in North America by passenger traffic. This drone flight follows a high-speed Acela train making this 456 mile journey from Washington D.C. to Boston via Baltimore, Wilmington, Philadelphia, Trenton, Newark, New York City, Stamford, New Haven, and Providence.
This animation was created using the Google Earth Pro desktop application. We began by tracing the full route of the Northeast Corridor onto three-dimensional satellite imagery of the world. We then programmed our computer to follow this route while running a screen-recording to capture the progress. Finishing edits were then made in Final Cut Pro, including the addition of the inset map at bottom, the speedometer and clock at upper left, and edits to the pacing and sound effects. The time and distance markers are calculated using Google Maps.
The above animation is annotated, click here to view the uncut 28 minute drone flight.
Audio effects are courtesy of Freesound.org.
Piano accompaniment is Metamorphosis by Philip Glass
performed by YouTube user: "Coversart"
Tagged architecture, film, models, photography, planning
Big Data and Historic Preservation in New York City
November 4, 2018 Assorted Art & Writing, Browse All Work
What can a data analysis of New York City's landmarks reveal about trends in the historic preservation movement?
The video above is a visual history of landmarks preservation in New York City.
All records are downloaded from NYC Open Data. Soundtrack is from freesound.org
There is an ongoing debate between in New York City between developers seeking to rebuild the city in the image of global capitalism and preservationists seeking to slow the rate of change and protect the appearance of the city's many and distinct neighborhoods. This debate plays out every year in the hundreds of buildings and structures that are added to (or rejected from) the Landmarks Preservation Commission's running list of landmarks (LPC). Once added, landmarked buildings cannot be modified without first seeking approval from the city. And, to date, there is no process for de-listing a landmark once added – unless (sometimes intentional) decay by neglect requires demolition. This aspect of preservation is particularly contentious for developers because the legal barriers of preservation law are permanent, binding, and affect all current occupants and future owners.
Historic preservationists are the arbiters of taste. The sites they preserve will become the aesthetic lens through which future generations will appreciate the city's past. The sites they do not preserve or neglect to protect from demolition will be lost to history – no longer a living testimony to vanished builders, architects, and immigrants. On the individual scale, preservation is about protecting structures of value. On the larger scale, preservation is part of a larger historical debate: Which aspects of the past are worth preserving? And what kinds of narratives can historians tell about cities, based on the material evidence that survives?
In this debate, there are many factors driving preservation: fear of losing heritage, fear of change, well-intentioned activists in the spirit of Jane Jacobs and NIMBYism, or concerned scholars and public servants who see something unique in the sites they add. The objective of this paper is to assess arguments made in favor of or against historic preservation through an analysis of publicly-available landmark records from the New York City Open Data website. We identified two datasets, both containing ~130,000 spreadsheet entries for every single LPC listing. The first dataset is entitled "Individual Landmarks" 1 and describes the date entered in the LPC database, the address, lot-size, the geographical coordinates of every single structure, etc. The second dataset is entitled "LPC Individual Landmark and Historic District Building Database" 2 and includes the construction date, original use, style, and address of all structures. We downloaded these two datasets as .csv files, imported them into mapping software called Tableau Public, merged them into a single file, and then conducted a data analysis – the results of which inform all the statistics presented here and drive the conclusions drawn in the following pages.
From this research methodology, we identify heretofore hidden trends in historic preservation. Firstly, we identify contextual preservation and historic districts as a means to protect the human scale of neighborhoods. Secondly, we identify a marked and potentially unjustifiable preference of preservationists for protecting pre-1945 structures. And thirdly, our data hints at the strength of market forces and developers in shaping the scope of preservation.
Case Study One:
Distribution of Landmarks over the Five Boroughs
Above is a tree map of the distribution of the 128,594 landmarks across the five boroughs. This includes both buildings and non-buildings, like street lamps, parks, statues, etc. The size of each rectangle corresponds to the number landmarks within one historic district. Or, in the case of the largest rectangle for each borough, the box represents the number of individual landmarks outside historic districts for that borough. The size of the box reflects the number of buildings within each district – the larger the box, the more buildings within that category. Each historic district is color-coded by borough and grouped alongside all the other districts within that borough. Manhattan. Brooklyn. Queens. Bronx. Staten Island.
125,594 records above
At first glance, we notice several trends. The densities and locations of preserved districts do not correspond to the most densely populated areas. For instance, Manhattan, with population only 19.3% of the citywide total, 3 has 30.46% of the landmarks. By comparison, Staten Island, with only 5.55% of the population, has 16.24% of landmarks – the greatest per capita number for all five boroughs. Or, the Bronx with 17.06% of people has only 5.36% – the lowest per capita. Given that the land area of Bronx (42.47 mi²) is comparable to Staten Island (58.69 mi²), and given that their histories are equally rich, then does the Bronx objectively have fewer landmarks worth preserving? Or, do preservation trends follow patterns of economics and race – with economically advantaged neighborhoods having stronger legal and political leverage to maintain and restore the appearance of their architectural heritage?
Manhattan Brooklyn Queens Bronx Staten Island
% of NYC population in this borough 19.30% 30.72 27.36 17.06 5.55
% of NYC landmarks in this borough 30.46% 25.65 21.98 5.36 16.24
Historic preservation does not operate off of a tabula rasa with objective standards and processes for listing, despite appearances to the contrary. There is an undeniably spatial pattern to urban growth and income inequality with a city segregated into districts by age of construction, race, and income. Historic preservation may operate on this unequal economic fabric.
Case Study Two:
Contextual preservation?
One of the most common criticisms of the preservation movement is that it limits economic development by preventing the demolition of older structures and their replacement with larger and more desirable new ones. Additionally, historic preservation is linked to a lengthy (and expensive) approvals process that developers must pass through. A committee of historians reviews each application and suggests revisions to ensure that new development is either a) "contextually" respectful of its neighbors if involving construction on vacant land or b) preserved the existing fabric if involving rehabilitation of an already landmarked building. 4
Developers often claim that historic preservation discourages development and reduces the potential of land to be profitably developed. To support this, developers will acknowledge that there doubtless are structures worth preserving, but that the same legal protections extended to genuinely historic structures are also extended to their less-significant neighbors. This criticism of preservation applies to vacant parcels within historic districts or more modern buildings that are surrounded by historic ones. Our data does not support this claim.
Within the city's unequal fabric with pockets of concentrated, wealth, poverty, and history, we identify three general categories of protected buildings. First, there are individual landmarks, such as bridges, large railroad stations, statues, or street furniture. While aesthetically and historically important, these individual sites are rarely adjacent to other landmarks. Also, new development can occur adjacent with few restrictions on zoning. No approval from the LPC is necessary – only construction permits and variances as needed. The case for preserving these structures is strong, as application for each was individually made and individually approved on a case-by-case basis by city government and often with approval from the landowner at time of designation. Grand Central Station and Saint Patrick's Cathedral are two examples. These structures, on account of their height, size, or appearance are genuine landmarks and place-makers in defining neighborhood identity.
Second, there are historic districts, comprising continuous stretches of smaller buildings. This includes structures of various age, use, function, and size. Preservation here is justified on the grounds that 1) the individual structures are historically unique or "significant" and 2) the relationships between these structures and the human-level streetscape they form are worth preserving. Here zoning and use restrictions may be restrictive as the majority of historic districts fall within mostly residential neighborhoods. Height limits are also stricter with the frequent stipulation that new additions must be setback from the main façade line and under one story. From the text of the 2018 city-wide zoning ordinance, zoning aims: "to protect the character of certain designated areas of historic and architectural interest, where the scale of building development is important, by limitations on the height of buildings." 5
303 President Street, Carroll Gardens: The brownstone in center used to resemble its neighbors but was modified before the neighborhood was transformed into a historic district in 1973.
55 West 83rd Street, Upper West Side: This c.1950 building on left has no historic value, but it is surrounded by historic structures on either side and across the street. Hence, the legal protection for the neighbors is extended to this building.
Third, there are contributing and vacant parcels within these historic districts. The protections applied to category two buildings are extended to category three on the grounds that development on these less important sites will affect the quality and aesthetics of adjacent structures. The best example of this kind of contextual preservation comes in the form of a series of structures. Most may retain their original appearance, but a few interspersed between post-date the neighborhood's age, are built in a different style, or suffered from demolition before the area was preserved. Above are two examples of these kinds of contributing structures.
If ever a case is made against historic preservation, the flaws seem greatest with this form of contextual preservation because these structures are preserved and their modification legally obstructed solely on grounds of their location. Additionally, there are numerous vacant lots within historic districts, where the argument could be made that the legalities of preservation disincentive the kind high-density development that is preferable to developers. However, an analysis of our dataset reveals that non-designated structures comprise less than 15% of all items within historic districts. The data is broken down on the table below, by borough and for the city as a whole:
Borough . Manhattan Brooklyn Queens Bronx Staten Island
Designated structures
(individual and districts) 32,376 28,680 25,560
Non-designated structures within historic districts 6,465 3,783 2,626 3,118
Number of vacant parcels within historic districts 40 457 74 444 29 1,044
Percentage of buildings in historic districts that are non-designated and/or vacant 16.731% 13.713% 9.5541% 17.054% 22.38% 14.74%
Borough totals 38,881 30,920 28,260 20,887 6,885
This yields 128,594 6 protected buildings (designated and non-designated). According to NYC's public database, there are 857,271 structures total in the city. 7 Meaning that protected buildings comprise slightly less than 14% of all structures in the city. In addition, the non-designated and vacant parcels within historic districts comprise less than 2.16% of the city's fabric. These values stand in contrast to comparable world cities like Paris and London, which are millennia older and have protected a greater percentage of their historic fabric. Below, for instance, are two comparative maps of the conservation areas (green) in the Westminster area of London 8 versus those in Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn (purple). 9
Conservation areas in Westminster
Historic Districts in NYC
Case Study Three: Keeping up to pace?
When the first batch of 2,312 historic structures was landmarked in 1965, their average year of construction was 1882 – representing an 83-year gap during which these structures were not protected. In 2018, the average construction year of newly landmarked structures is 1908, representing a 110-year gap. Thus in the 53 year life of the landmarks movement from1965 to 2018, the average age of a building when landmarked has increased by 37 years.
The more recent inclusion of modernist skyscrapers, like the Lever House (1982) and Seagram Building (1989), may give the impression that the criteria for what qualifies as aesthetically important and worth preserving has expanded. Our data does not support this conclusion, because while recent years have seen newer landmarks granted legal status, the rate of designation has not kept up with the rate of construction and, in fact, has fallen behind.
The graph below illustrates the date a structure was registered on the horizontal axis measured against its construction date on the vertical axis. Every single protected structure is plotted on this graph by color. Individual dots represent individual sites. The black trend line indicates the only moderate increase in the numbers of modern structures receiving protection.
5,451 records above
Is historic preservation falling behind, even though the rate of construction and population has increased? Or, is the city no longer building the kinds of structures deemed worthy of preservation? This 16-year gap could be a fluke, or it could be indicative of larger trends.
To qualify for landmark status in NYC, a building must be older than 30 years or older than 50 if added to the National Register. From a publication by the The Trust for Architectural Easements: "LPC property must be at least 30 years old – no exceptions – whereas a National Register property must be at least 50 years old, unless it is found to be of exceptional significance, in which case there is no age limit at all." 10 When the LPC was formed in 1965, none of the buildings from 1935 to 1965 would have qualified for designation. Today, as of 2018, any building from before 1988 could qualify. However, less than 5% of all listed structures date from the 43 years from 1945 to 1988 – a significant time in this metropolis' history as it transitioned from an industrial economy to the world's financial center and a major hub for tourism.
The graph below illustrates the age range of all landmarks and the distribution of landmarks by year. The horizontal axis corresponds to years, and the vertical axis represents the number of landmarks built in that year that are now included in LPC listings. Clearly, the vast majority falls within the 90-year span of 1850 to 1940, with few landmarks falling outside this range. The peak is in 1895 with 13,275 records from this year alone – a surprising anomaly. The rise and falls on this graph may also correspond to roughly 20-year periods of boom and bust recessions, along with corresponding halts to new construction. The shortage of pre-1850 sites is easily explained by the vagaries of time and the relatively smaller size of the city before 1850. But, the chronic shortage post-1940 may hint at a broader historical oversight or change in the way new buildings are designed and age.
93,691 records above
The LPC was created partially in response to the demolition of New York Penn Station in 1963. And, it was an attempt to prevent further destruction of aesthetically significant buildings, many of which had already been lost to progress and urban renewal. By the 1960s, urban renewal was winding down and New York was entering the prolonged recession of the 1970s and 80s, during which the rate of urban renewal and highway construction ground to a halt. In this light, the LPC originated as a post-facto response to demolition that had been going on for decades.
Despite the history of the LPC, must land marking occur after destruction has begun? There are doubtless hundreds of post-war buildings of significance – that have not yet been identified or deemed worthy. The question is not: Should we list these buildings? Rather, the question should be: Why are we not listing these buildings before they are threatened? And why should LPC status be limited to buildings older than 30 years? The demolition of the city's American Folk Art Museum by MoMA in 2014 is one example. 11 The Temple of Dendur and its custom-built exhibit hall is another instance of an interior landmark completed pre-1988 and potentially eligible for LPC status.
Case Study Four:
How might the preservation movement reflect economic patterns?
As land values increase, and as it becomes increasingly unsustainable to develop land with single-family residential structures and townhomes, newer buildings are more likely to be commercial, mixed-use, and multi-family. However, the historic preservation movement exhibits a preference toward land-marking residential structures. The table below illustrates the types of buildings preserved, their quantity, and the percentage of the total number of preserved buildings this quantity represents. The buildings are listed below by their original functions. So, a building designed as a factory but more recently converted to residential is still listed as "industrial."
Type of Building Quantity Percent of Total
Residential 35,575 27.66%
Civic 16,920 13.16%
Street Furniture 13,943 10.84%
Commercial 4,574 3.56%
Infrastructure 2,490 1.94%
Transportation 2,145 1.67%
Institutional 2,026 1.58%
Religious 1,509 1.17%
Mixed Use 1,324 1.03%
Vacant 1,178 0.92%
Military 759 0.59%
Industrial 436 0.34%
Outbuildings 12 32,391 25.19%
All other uses 14,970 11.64%
Totals 128,594 100%
The most salient figure in the above table is the disproportionate representation of residential and civic buildings that are preserved. For instance, as of 2018, Manhattan has 39,172 landmarked items. Of these landmarks, 35% (= 13,816) are residential use, 9% (= 3,443) are commercial, and 1.5% (= 650) are mixed-use. Mixed use, in this case, is defined by commercial on the lower level and offices or residential on upper floors. However, there are more commercial and mixed-use buildings in Manhattan than there are residential buildings. 13 So, the percentages of landmarked buildings are not representative of the percentage of residential versus commercial and mixed-use buildings that exist. In short, our data supports the conclusion that residential buildings seem more likely to receive landmarked status than commercial structures.
The numbers of landmarked civic structures strengthens the above conclusion. New York City owns 14,000 properties 14 across five boroughs. This MAS estimate does not include public monuments, statues, civic buildings built by the city and later sold, or civic buildings originally built for private use but acquired by the city. Yet, there are 16,920 landmarks designated as serving "civic" functions, including 11,726 landmarked items relating to hospitals and 571 related to armories. In fact, among all the 440 types of landmarks in this city, civic-related structures have the highest rates of landmark status and the rate of preservation closest to 100%.
What explains these inequalities? One explanation could be that civic sites, particularly those built in the early 20th century tend to be high quality, well built, and designed to articulate the civic values of democracy and government through the beauty of the neoclassical style. Therefore, these buildings are more likely to be deemed worthy of preservation. But, this interpretation is doubtful because there is little factual basis to assume that civic structures are "better than" commercial and mixed-use.
A more believable explanation could be that civic and residential structures are easier to landmark than commercial. The maintenance and upkeep of civic structures is managed by government and elected officials, who are responsible to voter complaints and community pressure. And, the public can threaten to vote out of office any leaders who neglect historic, city-owned properties. Additionally, there are few reasons for developers or residents to object to land-marking civic sites, as legally protecting these structures adds more red tape, not to city residents, but to the future bureaucrats who restore these sites. Again, this is speculation.
Still yet, there is a stronger factor influencing preservation. Civic structures are not subject to market pressures, and city-owned buildings do not have to help their occupants make a profit. For instance, the cost of rehabbing a historic public school building might more expensive than just demolishing and rebuilding it new, but the city is under less pressure to demolish the structure because, fortunately, city government is not run like a profit-driven corporation. And, so historically valuable but functionally outdated city buildings may be more likely to be landmarked and restored than demolished, as illustrated by the unequal distribution of building types in our data.
By contrast, commercial and residential structures are subject to strong market pressures favoring demolition. An old factory that has outlived its designed lifespan and is no long suitable for modern-day production line assembly will be abandoned or demolished if it cannot be converted. But, the process of conversion may require completely gutting the structure, environmental remediation, and a lengthy approvals process. If the cost of renovation is more expensive than the income the renovated structure can bring in, then there will be greater pressure to demolish than to preserve the fated structure. City-owned libraries and hospitals face less of this kind of pressure.
Our data also reveals a spatial concentration of residential buildings in historic districts. For instance, most of Manhattan's residential landmarks are concentrated within historic districts in the Upper West, Upper East, and skyscraper valley between Midtown and Downtown. Residential sites are more likely to be collectively landmarked as part of districts. As illustrated in the table below, 94.93% of residential landmarks citywide fall within historic districts, and only 5.07% are outside these districts:
Residential All Other Types
Within historic districts 35,029 = 94.93% 61,124 = 66.66%
Individual landmarks outside historic districts 1,872 = 5.07% 30,569 = 33.34%
Total Number 36,901 = 100% 91,693 = 100%
What explains the disproportionate protection of residential structures? One possible motivating factor could be income-levels in historic neighborhoods and associated protectionism. The map on the following page overlays the locations of historic districts over 2018 block-level census data for income levels and length of residence. Our analysis reveals a spatial overlap between historic districts and areas with higher incomes and longer-term residents. For instance, the average length of residence for residents in the Brooklyn Heights historic district is between 17.1 and 48 years and incomes range between $51,500 and $289,000, while the rest of Brooklyn averages between 10.3 and 12.8 years and under $51,500 income. Similar patterns play out in the Greenwich Village and the Upper West Side. In short, residents in historic neighborhoods seem more likely to stay-put, and length of residency may be a proxy for measuring the degree to which residents are invested in maintaining the physical appearance and improving their community. From this data, we posit that the relationship between historic preservation and length of residency is too strong and too consistent across the five boroughs to be correlation. There may be causative factors at play between income, emotional investment in one's community, and preservation, yet this remains to be conclusively confirmed by future data.
Click map to launch interactivity − opens in new tab.
Individual landmarks in red outside historic districts in brown tend to be commercial structures.
There is no immediately identifiable relationship between the siting of commercial landmarks,
and the income levels of their adjacent community.
The spatial relationship illustrated above is surprising for another reason: gentrification. Normally, gentrification in the past 20 years is associated with rising income levels and the displacement of existing residents. The physical appearance of historic neighborhoods should also make them more desirable for gentrification. However, the average length of residency is longer in historic than in non-historic districts, even though income (and presumably rent, too) are higher in historic districts. That is, neighborhoods with historic preservation more often have high and rising incomes with long length of residency. This seems contradictory because high-income areas should be more likely to push out longer-term tenants from the pre-gentrification era.
By contrast, neighborhoods without the benefit of historic preservation more often have high incomes and lower length of residency, meaning a high turnover rate. The Williamsburg neighborhood is one example with incomes over $51,500 (similar to Brooklyn Heights) but length of residency under 10.3 years. Additional research should examine if rent-stabilized apartments are more likely to be concentrated in historic districts. There is the possibility that the legal barriers of preservation make it more difficult for developers to push out existing residents, gut an old building, and then rebuild it to charge higher rent. Unfortunately, New York City Open Data has no information on the spread or geographical clustering of rent stabilized apartments.
These possible relationships between historic preservation and gentrification need to be confirmed by further analysis.
Conclusion: The Future of Historic Preservation
There are limits to our data – these statistics cannot reveal the intricacy of historic sites, the unique identity of each, or the reasons why each justify (or do not justify) protection. But, this data can reveal big picture trends in preservation, its biases, and some of its problems. While these trends are not visible from walking the street or looking at individual sites, they become visible through the lens of data. This data may also reveal causative relationships between income, length of residency, and the political strength of preservationists.
From this data-driven analysis, we can make deduct several conclusions:
Historic preservationists prefer to landmark and protect pre-WWII buildings, even though numerous post-war examples may qualify. As a result, there are a disproportionately high number of pre-war buildings with landmark status, and comparably few post-war landmarks – less than 5%. Similarly, the rate at which landmarks are designated has not kept up with the pace of new construction.
The market pressures to demolish civic structures are weaker than the market pressures to demolish commercial and residential. As a result, a disproportionately high percentage of city-owned or institutional buildings are preserved, and a disproportionately low percentage of commercial and industrial.
Tangent to the previous point, a disproportionately high percentage of landmarks are for residential use and fall within residential districts. This may indicate that landmarks preservation is a strategy for neighborhood protectionism – that is, an effort by residents to ensure that the appearance of their community is not changed due to new development. Neighborhoods of lower-density old buildings, like the West Village, retain their popularity, charm, and high property values thanks to strong legal barriers against change that could lead property values to depreciate. While these barriers may discourage and prevent developers from reaping larger profits by building higher and larger, they also ensure that existing residents' investment in their condos or homes will remain more stable.
The, economic success of New York on a global scale and its continuing construction boom has led to the demolition of many non-residential commercial landmarks that might have otherwise qualified for landmark status had New York not been as successful. In the words of Professor Kenneth Jackson: 15
History is for losers. By that I mean, cities which have chosen to preserve all their historical monuments and locations usually do so because no one else wants the land to develop. Modern progress has passed them by. New York's history doesn't litter the streets visually, it can be hard to find sometimes, but that is because the city is an economic winner on a global scale.
New York is indeed a winner "on a global scale," with Wall Street as a symbol of America's economic power, the United Nations as a symbol of political power, and the city's over three million foreign born as representative of power of immigration and globalization to shape a city. But, this progress comes at a historic and aesthetic cost – the consequences of which are reflected in the dark and sterile skyscraper canyons of Midtown, the worsening congestion in cars and subways, and (more pressingly) this city's fragility when faced with ecological pressures, such as flooding, hurricanes, and climate change. At the level of historic preservation, this progress comes at the cost of losing New York's distinctive architectural heritage to the force of globalized change. The Gilded Age mansions on Fifth Avenue and the built-to-last-forever Penn Station are gone, as are the picturesque skylines and distinctive ethnic neighborhoods of Berenice Abbott's 1930s photographs. The New York of today is different – whether it is architecturally poorer for progress can only be judged in retrospect. Historians prefer not to speak of what-ifs when writing about history, but would it have been possible to accept the benefits of progress without sacrificing history? This, however, is a question beyond the limits of data to contemplate.
The original datasets can be viewed or downloaded below:
Individual Landmarks from NYC Open Data
Individual Landmark and Historic District Building Database from NYC Open Data
Gentrification & Historic Preservation from Tableau Public
New York City Landmarks Preservation from Tableau Public
This author is not affiliated in any way with NYC Open Data, LPC, or the New York City government.
"Individual Landmarks," New York City: Open Data, https://data.cityofnewyork.us/Housing-Development/Individual-Landmarks/ch5p-r223 (retrieved 5 November 2018). ↩
"LPC Individual Landmark and Historic District Building Database" New York City: Open Data, https://data.cityofnewyork.us/Housing-Development/LPC-Individual-Landmark-and-Historic-District-Buil/7mgd-s57w (retrieved 5 November 2018). ↩
New York City's 2017 population estimate is 8.623 million. ↩
More on this topic: Rachel Mollie Levy, "Contextual Zoning as a Preservation Planning Tool in New York City," (Master's diss., Columbia University: Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, & Preservation, 2015) https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/doi/10.7916/D8HD7TVM (retrieved 5 November 2018). ↩
"General Purposes of Residence Districts," in The Zoning Resolution: Web Version, (published by New York City Zoning Department, 2018), pp.252-53. https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/planning/download/pdf/zoning/zoning-text/allarticles.pdf (retrieved 5 November 2018). ↩
The total for all five boroughs is 127,833. Including landmarks not registered in any borough, like Ellis Island, the total is 128,954. ↩
New York City Planning Department, "Spatial Data Properties and Metadata," from MapPLUTO, (published to the web, 2018), pp.5 https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/planning/download/pdf/data-maps/open-data/meta_mappluto.pdf?v=18v1 (retrieved 5 November 2018). ↩
"Conservation Areas," City of Westminster, https://www.westminster.gov.uk/conservation-areas (retrieved 5 November 2018). ↩
Published by NYC Zoning Department, "NYC_Historic_Districts_2016," ArcGIS 9geographic information system), https://data.cityofnewyork.us/Housing-Development/Historic-Districts/xbvj-gfnw (retrieved 5 November 2018). ↩
Anthony W. Robins, "Differences between Landmarks Commission Designations and National Register Listing," in Similarities and Differences between Landmarks Preservation Commission Regulation and Donation of a Preservation Easements, (Prepared for The Trust for Architectural Easements, 2009), pp.10, http://architecturaltrust.org/~architec/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/1a-2009-0512-Robins-Report.pdf (retrieved 5 November 2018). ↩
Michael Kimmelman, "The Museum With a Bulldozer's Heart," The New York Times, January 14, 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/14/arts/design/momas-plan-to-demolish-folk-art-museum-lacks-vision.html (retrieved 5 November 2018). ↩
"Outbuildings" mostly include garages, stables, street furniture, and accessory structures, generally small. This category skews our results. Since many accessory structures were turned into residential structures, the actual percentage of residential dwellings should be slightly higher than 27.66%. ↩
Manhattan has more residential than commercial landmarks even though more people work here than live here. On weekdays, 3.1 million people work in Manhattan, while only 1.6 million live here. ↩
"New York City owns or leases 14,000 properties around the five boroughs—a public asset roughly the size of Brooklyn." From: "Public Assets: Mapping the Sixth Borough of New York," The Municipal Art Society of New York, https://www.mas.org/initiatives/public-assets/ (retrieved 5 November 2018). ↩
"Quotes from Kenneth Jackson," CULPA, http://culpa.info/quotes?professor_id=97 (retrieved 5 November 2018). ↩
Tagged architecture, data visualization, essay, film, new york, planning, politics
New York Penn Station: Past and Present
October 28, 2018 Assorted Art & Writing, Browse All Work, Drawing New York
Published by Viewing NYC on 15 May 2019.
Through Penn Station one entered the city like a god. Perhaps it was really too much. One scuttles in now like a rat.
– Vincent Scully
Bird's Eye View from Northeast to Southwest in 1910-20
Human beings, myself included, have an unfortunate tendency to appreciate people and things only after they are gone. Pennsylvania Station is the catalyst for the historic preservation movement.
– Kenneth Jackson
The old Penn Station, completed 1910, had 21 tracks on 11 platforms. The new Penn Station has 21 tracks on 11 platforms. In the demolition process, not one track or platform moved. This similarity enables us to situate parts of the old structure in relation to the new. The photos below compare this structure past and present. The old photos are drawn from the digital archive of the New York Public Library, Historic American Buildings Survey, and Library of Congress. The current photos were all taken by Myles Zhang in March 2019. Current photos are as close as possible to the original camera angles. However, some changes in the station layout and access rights to the areas above make complete accuracy prohibitively difficult.
Curious how New York Penn Station influenced landmarks preservation? See this video from Khan Academy.
Main Facade Center to Northeast in 1963 by Walker Evans
Main Facade Center to Northeast in 2019
We begin our approach to old Penn Station at the intersection of Seventh Avenue and 32nd Street. When the station opened in 1910, and before the subway lines were extended south along Seventh and Eighth Avenue, this was the main axis of approach. A temple front with six solid stone columns and a rectangular pediment above greeted visitors. Three eagles adorned either side of the clock, six total. After demolition, two of these eagles survive and are now placed on concrete pedestals in the adjacent plaza. Originally, one entered Penn Station at street level. Now, one descends about 20 feet to an underground corridor.
Main Facade from 32nd Street in c.1911
Main Facade from 32nd Street in 2019
This is the same entrance, viewed head-on from 32nd Street. Beneath this street, the Pennsylvania Railroad constructed its double-track tunnels stretching from here to Sunnyside Yard in Queens, and onward to destinations in New England and Long Island. These two tunnels survive, but everything above ground does not.
South Facade toward Northwest in 1962 by Cervin Robinson
Now Madison Square Garden in 2019
This is the view from the 31st Street side between Seventh and Eighth Avenue. The mass of the main waiting hall rises in the center, as indicated by the arched thermal window. The colonnade at center left corresponds to the taxi and car drop-off and pick-up area. After demolition, developers erected the round mass of Madison Square Garden on the foundations of the former waiting hall and train concourse.
Main Facade from Southeast in 1962 by Cervin Robinson
Main Facade from Southeast in 2019
This is the view from the corner of 31st Street and Seventh Avenue. Contrary to appearances, the old structure was entirely steel frame with limestone and granite facing. Only the columns on the main façades were solid stone.
Main Facade from Northeast in 1962 by Cervin Robinson
Main Facade from Northeast in 2019
By the 1960s, the structure was sooty with car exhaust, as seen in the above photo from 33rd Street and Seventh Avenue. The rest, however, was in excellent condition.
Shopping Arcade and Waiting Hall
Arcade in 1911
The same space in 2019
After entering Penn Station from the Seventh Avenue side, a long vaulted shopping arcade greeted visitors. The shops here were the only source of outside income for the railroad at this location. In later years, the shops did not even provide enough rent to cover the $2.5 million spent yearly on upkeep (1961 value from Ballon on p.99). Considering the size of this double-block and its prime location in Midtown, the old Penn Station generated precious little income for its owner. Currently, the lobby of Penn Plaza occupies this location — an office building with 700,000 square feet of space. Formerly public space is now rendered private. Also, note the statue of Alexander Cassatt at center right (President of the Pennsylvania Railroad).
Waiting Hall Entrance from East to West in 1900-20
Now a basement in 2019
Proceeding down the arcade, one entered into the main waiting hall — a vaulted space about 150 feet high by ~300 feet wide. One descended a wide pair of stairs — note the statue of Cassatt in the niche. This was one of the largest internal public spaces in the city.
Arcade at Entrance to Waiting Hall in 1905-15
This is the door into the restaurant. The arcade is on the left hand side. The stairs descending to the waiting hall are on the right hand side. Hilary Ballon writes that this "vestibule was a transitional space; it was dimly lit and nearly square to counter the directional force of the rooms on either side. It provided a moment to pause and prepare for the grand descent into the waiting hall" (p.62). This part of the building now roughly corresponds to a sub-basement buried below the walkway linking Penn Plaza to Madison Square Garden.
Waiting Hall from East Entrance in 1911
This is the view down into the waiting hall. The coffered ceiling and thermal windows are modeled on the Baths of Caracalla in Rome. In the rectangular panel beneath these windows are maps of the United States and the rail networks of the Pennsylvania and Long Island Railroad. Contrary to appearances, this space contains little stone. The entire frame and support structure is of steel beams with plaster above (for the vaults) or thin limestone panels (for the walls). Ballon writes: "For those approaching from the arcade, the directional contrast in the waiting hall also created a sense of space exploding horizontally. The freestanding fluted Corinthian columns and robust curls of the acanthus leaves, the strongly projecting entablature blocks, and layered ceiling offers these sculptural features made the weightless volume of the waiting hall seem weighty. Like the plenitude of a sheltering night sky, the enormous space was both humbling and uplifting" (p.64).
Waiting Hall to Arcade in 1962 by Cervin Robinson
Here's the view back up the grand stairs, this time from the waiting hall toward the arcade. The original Penn Station had no escalators from tracks to concourse or waiting areas to street level. Passengers would have had to carry their luggage up and down steep stairs; the architects of Grand Central observed this problem at Penn Station. Grand Central has ramps instead of stairs to ease movement between levels. The escalator shown in this 1960s photo is a later addition.
Waiting Hall in 1962 by Cervin Robinson
The same space n 2019 by Cervin Robinson
This is the waiting hall in the 1962, months before demolition began. The roof and walls are visibly sooty. Where this space once stood is now a parking lot for trucks and buses using the loading dock beneath Madison Square Garden. The wall of windows at left is Penn Plaza. The sliver of building at right is the Garden.
Waiting Hall from South to North in 1911
Now a void between Madison Square Garden and Penn Plaza
This older photo was taken in the morning, as the sun rose over New York, penetrating the east-facing windows, and illuminating the waiting hall. Most of the old station's public areas and track level were touched by natural light. By comparison, no natural light enters any part of the new Penn Station. Currently, this area is a difficult-to-access parking lot — patrolled by armed guards with bomb-sniffing dogs.
Train Concourse
Concourse from ~Track 16 in 1935-38 by Berenice Abbott
Concourse from ~Track 16 in 2019
After passing through the waiting hall, visitors entered the train concourse. This was also a massive room, bathed in natural light, about ~300 feet long, ~200 feet wide, and 90 feet tall. From here, large chalkboard signage (erased and written manually) directed passengers to their right track. The above photo shows the two levels — the lower for arrivals and the upper for departures. Ballon describes the end of this journey from arcade, to waiting hall, to concourse: "The spatial compression directed attention down to the tracks, where were illuminated by natural light and visible through the cut-away floor. The vista of the sky above and tracks below created a sense of transparency in the concourse, as if the visitor was seeing with x-ray vision" (p.68).
This 1930s photo by Berenice Abbott shows the intricate web of ironwork supporting the skylights.
Concourse Northern Exit ~Track 16
Concourse Northern Exit ~Track 16 in 2019
The upper level of the concourse had four exits: three minor exits north toward 33st, south to 31st, and west to 8th Avenue. The main and most ornate exit from the concourse was toward the waiting hall and 7th Avenue. Shown above is the 33rd Street exit. The wide dark exit to the right leads to the pick-up point for "Carriages and Taxicabs."
Concourse from North to South in 1962 by Cervin Robinson
Concourse from North to South in 2019
This is the view northwards from the 31st Street entrance to the train concourse. This photo now corresponds to the VIP entrance for spectators at Madison Square Garden.
Concourse from North to Southeast in 1905-1915
Here is the concourse again. In the old photo, the left exit leads to 33rd Street while the larger and arched right exit leads to the waiting hall and a baggage concourse. No trace of the old structure remains in the new photo. This is still a train concourse — except now with oppressive drop ceiling and exits to Amtrak trains.
Concourse from Northeast to Southwest
Concourse from Northeast to Southwest in 2019
Concourse from South to North in 1910
Concourse from Track ~6 to Northeast
Concourse from Track ~6 to Northeast in 2019
Many of New York's greatest landmarks feature Guastavino Tile vaults. Penn Station too. The main area of the train concourse was covered with glass. But, the lateral row of vaults with an oculus in the center of each was made of Guastavino. No trace of these self-supporting terracotta tiles survive at Penn Station, except for a single vault at the southern exit for the local southbound One Train.
Concourse from Track ~10 in 1962 by Cervin Robinson
Concourse from Track ~10 to Southwest in 2019
Concourse from Track 6 to North in 1910-15
Concourse from Track 6 to North in 2019
Concourse from Track 6 to Northeast in 1910-15
Concourse from Track 6 to Northeast in 2019
This is the view from Track Six up past the lower concourse for arriving passengers, the upper concourse for departures, and toward the glass vaults. When this structure was demolished, Madison Square Garden was erected on the exact same bedrock foundations. The locations or number of tracks did not change, nor have the locations, width, or size of almost all stairwells. As seen in these photos, a few new supports were added to support the now much heavier structure above.
Concourse from Track 6 toward North in 1910-15
Concourse from Track 6 toward North in 2019
The failure to rebuild the now grossly inadequate Penn Station is not about lack of money. Built for 200,000 commuters in 1910, today, 650,000 people go through Penn Station each day, more than the daily passengers for all three major New York City-area airports combined. The failure to rebuild is not about lack of demand either; these numbers are expected to continue growing.
This is, more than anything, a failure of political will and a lack of interest in sustaining and improving the nation's critical rail infrastructure. The current station makes a profit for its management — from the stadium and offices above. Any new station that restores natural light to track-level and revalues the passenger experience over profit is unlikely to be as lucrative. Few tangible profits are to be made from beauty.
Tagged architecture, demolition, destruction, film, new york, photography, planning, politics
Oxford University in a Box
October 1, 2018 Browse All Work, Handmade
This is a paper architectural model of the University of Oxford. The model folds out of a re-purposed, antique leather box measuring 7 by 14 inches with a depth of only 1.5 inches.
One half of the model features the historic university buildings: The Radcliffe Camera, Bodleian Library, Sheldonian Theatre, Church of Saint Virgin the Mary, and the Clarendon Building. The other half features the campus of Saint Catherine's College.
This model is made from paper cutouts, measured and folded to form the shape of various buildings. Below is the image of one of these cutouts before assembly, and the groundplan of the campus before the paper buildings were mounted on cardboard.
This model in a suitcase will be a souvenir of my study abroad experience. Below is a view of this model with my hand for scale. Attaining this amount of precision in so small a model is difficult, but it is possible. This model represents about two weeks (or 100 hours) labor.
Tagged architecture, models, watercolor
Computer Models of World Heritage
September 6, 2018 Browse All Work, Computer Made
Beginning in 2016, I became involved in building interactive computer models of world architecture and heritage. Through computer modelling, there is the possibility to broaden the audience of a work of architecture beyond the small number that may actually visit the building in person. World heritage sites or buildings of cultural importance are of particular aesthetic and research value as computer models can reveal qualities of their construction and design that are otherwise invisible to the naked eye. A few of these models I created are featured below:
Click image to launch models in virtual reality. → Opens in new tab.
Amiens Cathedral in France and the Kaaba in Mecca (Saudi Arabia) are two of the most cogent examples of the technical possibilities of computer models. By building a model that is accurate to the measured foot, one can then view the building from beneath, above, or from unique angles that are otherwise impossible for the public to view in person. The view of the Kaaba from directly above is one such view that is possible to simulate through computer models, but is impossible to view from in person. This is due to religious and legal sanctions against flying above the Kaaba. The view of Amiens Cathedral from directly below is another example. The computer model strips away the layers of earth beneath the foundation, thereby suspending the cathedral in mid-air and permitting an imaginary view which, while theoretically existing, is humanly impossible to view.
These same models also allow us to strip away unnecessary or obstructive additions to better appreciate specific aesthetic qualities of the building. Such details include people, street furniture, and neighboring buildings that block certain angles of view. The Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque of Jerusalem (which are surrounded by trees and ancient Roman-era walls on all sides) or Amiens Cathedral (surrounded by the medieval and mostly modern urban fabric of the city) are two examples of this phenomenon. Similarly, models permit us to restore structure to their original appearance as originally intended to be viewed by patron and mason, such as this model of the restored Parthenon.
Overall, the possibilities and applications for modelling are growing, and the state of the field today is by no means static. Future developments in computing, internet speeds, virtual reality, and photogrammetry will certainly permit further advancements in this field of technical and academic research.
A Few Theoretical Views of Architecture
The Kaaba from Above
Al-Aqsa Mosque from Beneath
Amiens Cathedral from Below
Hypothetical Cross-Section of Amiens Cathedral, based on a drawing by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc.
Tagged architecture, collection, models, photography
August 5, 2018 Browse All Work, Drawing New York, Handmade, Short Films
A Map of Campus
This drawing depicts every building, window, tree, and architectural detail on campus as visible from an imaginary perspective 500 feet above the intersection of 110th and Amsterdam and looking northwest toward campus. The number of windows on each facade and details are faithful to reality. There are about 2,000 windows in this image and about 50,000 individual lines. The image measures 26 by 40 inches and is framed in my room on campus. The personal objective of this project was to create a souvenir through which to remember my formative experiences and time at Columbia.I draw the little world I find at Columbia so that, years from my graduation date, I can look at this image and reflect on the formative four years I spent here.
The perspective in this image was formed by using Google Earth satellite photos combined with information extracted from Google Maps street view. To read an interview and article about this project: click here.
Ink Drawing of Columbia University. Measures 26 by 40 inches. Click image to launch full resolution.
Columbia in a Box
Before my first day as a Columbia College first-year, I assembled a miniature model of Columbia's campus out of folded paper and cardboard. This creation, featuring most of Columbia's Morningside campus, folds out of a vintage cigar box that measures a mere 5 by 9 inches, and 3 inches deep. The model was made by taking flat sheets of paper, etching the silhouettes of the campus structures onto each sheet, decorating these sheets with windows and architectural details, and then finally cutting out the silhouettes and folding each into the shape of the structure. Each building is made with no more than one sheet of folded paper.
Timelapses of Morningside
This is a project of six time-lapse sequences of Columbia. I placed a camera horizontally above my desk as I draw and paint each watercolor. Painting is meditative for me, and each painting an opportunity to reflect on my formative time at Columbia University.
Van Am Quad
Butler Library
College Walk
VanAm Quad
Low Library
Tagged architecture, film, models, new york, photography, watercolor
How to Run a Canal
June 11, 2018 Browse All Work, Short Films
The film featured below illustrates the opening and closing sequence of an early canal lock: The Duke's Lock on the Oxford Canal.
"The Oxford Canal is a 78-mile (126 km) narrow canal in central England linking Oxford with Bedworth, near Coventry. Completed in stages between 1770 and 1790 during the English Industrial Revolution, it connects to the River Thames at Oxford and is integrated with the Grand Union Canal. The canal was for approximately 15 years the main canal artery of trade between the Midlands and London; it retained importance in its local county economies and that of Berkshire.
"Today the canal is frequently used in weekend and holiday narrowboat pleasure boating, as seen above with rented narrowboats passing through Duke's Lock, No. 44."
– adapted from Wiki.
Tagged architecture, film, waterfront
Evolution of the English Country House
May 24, 2018 Assorted Art & Writing, Browse All Work, Short Films
This four minute animation traces the evolution of English country house design from the period 1660 to 1715, which was broadly defined by the arhcitectural style of the English Baroque. Roughly between 1660 (near the end of the English Civil War) and 1715 (with the beginning of the Georgian monarchy from Germany), English Architecture witnessed a profound shift in country house design from the compact and square-ish form of the fortified Elizabethan and late-medieval country house to the more open and less compact plan of the Baroque and later Palladian country house. This shift too in design followed a new embrace of the aesthetic relationship between country house and its surrounding, bucolic landscapes. The objective of this animation sequence is to visually illustrate these aesthetic and architectural changes. Click to watch the video above, or watch the slideshow automatically play below.
This animation sequence is part of the progression to my degree in Architectural History & Theory from Oxford and Columbia University.
Music: Franz Schubert_ Piano Trio in E Flat, Op. 100. Link to soundtrack.
Link to powerpoint presentation here.
Creative Commons permission is granted to download and circulate this video for non-commercial purposes, provided attribution is given to Myles Zhang.
Tagged architecture, film
Digitizing the Gothic Cathedral
March 27, 2018 Browse All Work, Computer Made, Little Lectures
Read more about this project here and here.
My objective is to recreate Amiens Cathedral as it appeared in the 15th century. My method described above and presented at St. Catherine's College at Oxford University in spring 2018 is to build an computer model of the entire cathedral, accurate to the foot, photo-realistic, and fully interactive. My hope is to find new and creative ways to engage students and visitors with this architecture.
I am further expanding upon this work for my senior thesis and by building computer models for Columbia's Media Center for Art History. I also created computer simulations for the Eiffel Tower's construction sequence and of a small parish church in Burford, England.
This project would be impossible without the invaluable and expert guidance of my faculty mentor and medievalist Stephen Murray, who taught me in the Fall 2016 Bridge Seminar Life of a Cathedral.
Tagged architecture, film, speech
Eiffel Tower – Animated Construction Sequence
January 19, 2018 Browse All Work, Computer Made, Short Films
The Eiffel Tower was built during 18 months – between August 1887 and March 1889. This film shows the construction sequence, starting with the foundations et ending with the completion of the cupola. I downloaded Sketchup to create the computer simulation, and the post-production was made with iMovie. This model and video represent about two days work, or twenty hours.
The source file for the model was downloaded here from the Sketchup 3D Warehouse, a database of free architectural models. Or, to view this model in virtual reality, please click here. The historic construction photos featured in this video were downloaded here from the Eiffel Tower's Wikipedia page. And the blueprints consulted to create this animation are from a 2002 reprint of the Eiffel Tower structural plans.
The start of the erection of the metalwork
7 December 1888 Construction of the legs with wood scaffolding
20 March 1888 – Completion of the first level
15 May 1888 – Start of construction on the second stage
21 August 1888 – Completion of the second level
26 December 1888 – Construction of the upper stage
15 March 1889 – Construction of the cupola
Tagged architecture, film, models
Burford Church – Two Minute History
December 2, 2017 Browse All Work, Computer Made, Short Films
Beautiful Burford Church in Summer
Construction Sequence
At the conclusion of my year as an art history student at Oxford University, I chose to base my final research project on Burford Church in Oxfordshire County, England. This is a Grade I listed structure by English Heritage, roughly constructed between 1175 and 1475, with continued modifications in the Victorian era. With the generous supervision of my art history tutor, Cathy Oakes, I visited this humble parish church and constructed a computer model that documents the structure's gradual construction and expansion over nearly 300 years work. I converted the finished model into a short, two-minute film, featured below. The original source files for this project can also be freely downloaded here from the "3D Warehouse", a database of architectural models for the use of designers, historians, and researchers. The subtitles of this sequence are transcribed here:
Around 1175, work begins on the Norman church – a simple structure with choir, nave, and tower between. Here we see the structure being erected from east to west. Notice the round Norman windows.
By 1200, a small side chapel is added to the south of the tower. An aisle and entrance foyer on the south are also added. These changes require demolishing part of the existing structure.
By 1250, the side chapel is demolished and replaced by a north transept, south transept and expanded chancel.
By 1400, a crypt is added and the tower extended up. At this point, the architectural style changes from Norman to Gothic – from round arches to pointed.
The local cloth merchants also construct a guild chapel – detached from the main church and built at a slight angle.
By 1475, the guild chapel is partially demolished. On its foundations the Lady Chapel is built.
Meanwhile, most of the remaining nave is demolished to construct two aisles on either side of the nave, a larger west window, and new clerestory-level windows.
Two chapels are added on either side of the choir as well as a 3-story entrance tower. Neither of these additions are visible from this angle.
This completes the construction sequence of Burford Church.
We are now circling around the church – working our way clockwise.
The film below is a brief visual analysis of the church's architectural fabric. Through my analysis, I seek to understand the following: What is the visual language of Burford Church? What aspects of medieval social and cultural history can be deduced from the church's decoration? And, in the absence of a written historical record, how can we detect the sequence in which the church was erected on the basis of architectural fragments alone?
View from main street of Burford toward the church.
View from the churchyard.
West façade on left and the Lady Chapel on right.
West façade and entrance.
Norman era entrance to the church, dating from around 1175.
Door from churchyard to chancel.
Nave.
The Steeple.
Zoning and Affordable Housing in Newark
September 19, 2017 Assorted Art & Writing, Browse All Work, Newark Activism
In the summer of 2017, I helped oppose the gentrification and rezoning of the Ironbound neighborhood of Newark. The area was zoned for buildings no higher than eight stories, which was respectful of the small and community scale of the existing structures. City officials, however, proposed rezoning a large section of the Ironbound for 18-story structures – four times taller than any other structure in the immediate area.
Motivated by profit, a large parking corporation and other landowners lobbied the city to increase the maximum allowable height – thereby increasing the value of their land and threatening the existing community with gentrification. The small streets and infrastructure of the Ironbound would not have been resilient or large enough to support such a large increase in density.
To oppose this ill-devised proposal, I created a computer simulation of how the neighborhood would appear, were the proposal passed. This computer simulation and the proposed legislation were also the subject of a Star Ledger article by human-interest reporter Barry Carter. I am providing the link to this article here. This computer simulation was also watched by members of the City Council and the property owners effected by this legislation. I also spoke five times before the City Council and at community meetings to oppose this project and argue for development in Newark that is genuinely sustainable and genuinely respectful of the existing community and the city's people.
Speech before the City Council on Tuesday, September 19
https://www.myleszhang.org/files/2017/09/City-Council-speech-2f7i8ws-11d7eiw.mp3
The text of this speech is transcribed below.
I'd like to speak on why opposing MX-3 is consistent with supporting inclusionary zoning.
To my knowledge, 7 members of the City Council voted in favor of inclusionary zoning. This is an important move to protect our city most vulnerable residents and to preserve affordable housing in our downtown.
MX-3 and upzoning will jeopardize this important piece of legislation.
inclusionary zoning kicks in when (firstly) developers build structures over 30-40 units and (secondly) they request a variance to build this structure.
But, when an area is zoned for larger and taller structures developers can build more and larger structures WITHOUT requesting a variance to build larger. And when developers do not need to request a variance for height, it is less likely they will need to include affordable housing in their project.
In effect, MX-3 will remove the requirement to build affordable housing in the effected area. When zoning is overly generous to developers and zoning permits overly large scale, develops do not need variances. And when developers don't need variances, they do not have to built affordable housing.
In addition, since MX-3 could be expanded to anywhere within a half mile radius of Penn Station, it is quite possible that MX-3 could be expanded in the future. In effect, this would eliminate the requirement for developers to build affordable housing in this area. Upzoning does not benefit affordability.
Secondly, what is sustainability?
Sustainability and transit-oriented development is not just about a short distance to Penn Station. It is not just about green roofs or any type of development.
Sustainability is about affordable housing that we the people can afford to live in. We don't want luxury condos for the 1% in the MX-3 area. We want development that our residents and you can afford.
All of us can agree that WE ALL WANT DEVELOPMENT. But, we want development that is 1. Affordable 2. Respectful of the Ironbound community. And 3. Respectful of our city's diversity and history.
MX-3 is none of these things. It is about landbanking and benefiting the 1% wealthiest outside our city. I encourage you to strike down MX-3 and to encourage instead an open dialogue with the community about SUSTAINABLE and AFFORDABLE development in our city.
Developers should come to Newark and development should happen. But, we should not upzone entire sections of our city, in effect removing the requirement for affordable housing, undermining the inclusionary zoning we just created, and jeopardizing the recent master plan we created with public participation.
Tagged architecture, data visualization, essay, newark, planning, politics, protest, speech
The Digital Cathedral of Amiens
May 16, 2017 Browse All Work, Computer Made
Cross Section of Choir
Cross Section from the Southeast Side of Cathedral
Research Abstract
As the apotheosis of Gothic architecture built during the 13th century, Amiens Cathedral is a dynamic and living structure. As the ninth largest Gothic cathedral in the world and one built in relatively short span of time, Amiens Cathedral exhibits remarkable stylistic unity throughout. Alongside the Parthenon, Amiens is taught each semester to several hundred students in Art Humanities. This has been a course required since 1947 of all undergraduate students in Columbia University's Core Curriculum. This cathedral and the animations I created are currently used in classroom instruction of 1,300 students per year.
My objective is to recreate Amiens Cathedral as it appeared in the 15th century. My method is to build an accurate computer model of the entire cathedral, accurate to the inch, photo-realistic, and fully interactive. My hope is to find new and creative ways to engage students and visitors with this work of architecture.
The final video sequence is in two parts. One, a three minute construction sequence of the cathedral's erection between 1220 and 15th century, which has been viewed over 30,000 times on YouTube. Two, an eight minute fly-through of the finished work of art. Viewers approach the cathedral through the narrow medieval city streets and circumnavigate the exterior from bird's eye and ground level. Viewers then enter the cathedral and are guided through the complex interior spaces. This trilogy is complemented by historically appropriate music from 13th century French composer, Pérotin and 15th century composer Josquin des Prés, who is incidentally also featured on the Music Humanities component of Columbia's Core Curriculum.
Amiens has undergone significant revisions and the destruction of almost all its original stained glass windows and large parts of its nave. Through digital modeling, it is possible to restore the structure to its idealized appearance as its initial architect intended. Through video, we can recreate and expand the intended audience of this building, recreating digitally the experience of pilgrimage. Through virtual reality, we can encourage new ways of engaging with art and architecture.
A building is dynamically experienced as a sequence of sights and rooms. A research text about such a building, however, can only capture a limited amount of a structure. Photography, computer simulations, and film are, by comparison, dynamic and sometimes stronger mediums to communicate the visual and engineering complexity of a building. This project seeks to capture that dynamism through a visual, auditory, and user interactive product.
Students can download this model and freely edit, revise, and explore from their personal computer. Over 2,000 students and scholars have downloaded and 3d printed this model, which is currently being used by students at Reading University (UK) to study acoustic archaeology. This model of Amiens Cathedral is built with free computer modeling software called Sketchup. Sketchup has a wide range of drawing applications, architecture, interior design, and civil engineering. And, for computer modeling software, it is easy to use. With just a few commands, such as draw, pull, animate, and toggle, students and teachers unfamiliar with the program can build their own models in minutes.
Watch the two films below, followed by links to explore this model in virtual reality. I am further expanding upon this work for my senior thesis and by building computer models for Columbia's Media Center for Art History. I have also created computer simulations for the Eiffel Tower's construction sequence and of a small parish church in Burford, England.
This project would be impossible without the invaluable and expert guidance of my faculty mentor and medievalist Stephen Murray, who taught me in the Fall 2016 Bridge Seminar Life of a Cathedral. This project is also featured here on Columbia University's website. My video lecture about how I created these animation is published here.
Cross Section from Southwest
Amiens Cathedral: A Guided tour
A guided tour of Amiens with music composed by Perotin: Viderunt Omnes, most likely composed in 1198, twenty-two years before construction started on Amiens. Viewers approach the cathedral from the west, as pilgrims would have in the Middle Ages. Viewers then circle above and through the complex system of flying buttresses that support the cathedral. The animation finishes by visualizing the cathedral from below the foundations in an abstract fashion. Starting from the concrete ground-level view of the pilgrim, the animation becomes increasingly abstract and digital.
Amiens Cathedral: Construction Sequence
The construction sequence of Amiens Cathedral with music by Pérotin: Beata Viscera written circa 1200. A text narrative written by Stephen Murray is transcribed below:
1220-c1225
Master Robert de Luzarches began work on the foundations
and lower wall. He may have been assisted by Thomas de Cormont
Master Robert de Luzarches and Thomas de Cormont constructed the south nave aisle
rapidly to provide space for liturgical celebrations
Master Robert de Luzarches and Thomas de Cormont built the north nave aisle
soon afterwards
1240s-c1250
Master Thomas de Cormont constructed the upper nave
and belfries of western towers
Master Thomas de Cormont died having completed the upper nave,
begun the upper transept and laid out the lower choir
Master Renaud de Cormont completed the upper transept and upper choir. The axial
window of the choir clerestory was installed in 1269
Main roof installed from east to west
Construction of west towers
Old steeple destroyed by lightning; construction of the grand clocher doré
completed c1533
Amiens Cathedral: In Cross Section
The third video is the most abstract in the trilogy. Here, I juxtaposed interior and exterior views of the cathedral, exploring the relationship between interior and exterior spaces. The sequence opens and closes with an abstract cross section of the cathedral from below. Music is by Josquin des Prés: Mille Regretz.
Section from South Façade of Cathedral
Section from Above
The Cathedral from your Computer
An Interactive Animated Glossary of Amiens Cathedral
In addition to viewing digital cathedral in film, visitors can explore the cathedral for themselves in virtual reality.
Here is a model of a single bay of the nave of Amiens Cathedral, with labyrinth below. I imported actual images and textures into the model to create a photo-realistic effect. Click on individual numbers to see the names of the corresponding components of a medieval cathedral. Or orbit around this model to view from different angles. To learn more about this animated glossary of Amiens Cathedral, click here.
Please be patient while this model loads. Click and drag mouse to navigate around structure. Shift click to pan. Click the cube icon on the lower left hand corner of window to view in full screen. If you are on your tablet or smart phone, click the optical icon to view this model in virtual reality.
Interactive Model of the Exterior of Amiens Cathedral
I have uploaded just the exterior of Amiens for online viewers. Unfortunately, due to file size, it is not possible to view the entire model online. But, it is possible, to download this model to one's computer and then edit in greater detail. Please be patient while this model loads.
Section of the Nave Roof
Section of West Façade
The Exterior Sequence
Below are a few film stills taken from the animation sequence of Amiens Cathedral's exterior. Hover over image to display caption. Click thumbnail to view high resolution image in gallery.
South Side of Choir
The Buttresses and Rear of West Façade
Amiens Cathedral from Above
We enter the city of Amiens from the east and pass through the medieval city gates.
As we wind through narrow alleys, as pilgrims do, the cathedral peers over at us from above.
As we approach, the cathedral's imposing mass comes into full view. We are presented with the West Façade, nearly 120 feet wide and 200 feet high.
West Façade
We now circle the cathedral. North Transept and Fâcade.
The Choir and Apse
North Transept and Entrance
The Treasury Below and Choir Above
Apse and Hemicycle
South Façade and Transept
The Buttresses
An Architectural Marvel
The Interior Sequence
Film stills of Amien's interior. Hover over image to display caption. Click thumbnail to view full size in gallery. Gallery is organized linearly to evoke the sequence of walking through the interior spaces.
The Nave at Amiens, looking toward the choir.
Nave Aisles
Clerestory Level of Apse
Bracing and Joists Supporting the Roof
View of Choir from the Crossing
View of Choir from the Nave.
Choir Hemicycle
Triforium level of choir
North Transept
South Transept and South Side of Nave
View from Crossing, down the Nave and towards the West Façade.
North Aisle of Nave
Radiating Chapels of the Apse
Clerestory-level Stained Glass Windows of the Nave
Clerestory-level Stained Glass Windows of the Choir
Triforium-level Bar Tracery of the Nave
Triforium-level Bar Tracery of the Choir
View of the System of Joists and Beams in the Forêt
Dynamic Angles
Computer modeling allows one to explore angles of view not possible in reality. Of particular beauty are the view of Amiens from below. With the layers of earth and foundation removed, one looks up the grid of vaults and the forest of columns. The view is simultaneously a plan of the cathedral and a worm's eye view, simultaneously of a real cathedral and an imagined world.
Cross Sections
by Myles Zhang
Development of the Gothic Cathedral: An Evolution
Amiens is at an apex in the development of Gothic cathedrals. The earliest cathedrals were modeled after Roman basilicas with two narrow aisles on either side of a long, rectangular open space spanned with wood trusses. This is best exemplified in the plan of Old Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome. Later Gothic cathedrals in following centuries modified this simple model. The dimensions and height of the cathedral grew, alongside the complexity of its vaults, columns, and ornaments. In short, the form and floor plan of the medieval cathedral evolved in response to changes in the use of the church and the rituals of the Mass.
Below are two animated videos illustrating the evolution of the Gothic cathedral: In cross section at left and in plan at right.
Development of a cathedral nave from Early Christian to High Gothic. A process of evolution and synthesis.
Development of the cathedral floor-plan over 1,000 years. Animation courtesy of Columbia University.
This project would not have been possible without the generous help and expertise of Professor Stephen Murray at Columbia University's Department of Art History & Archaeology. I am also indebted to Center for Career Education for funding this project through its Work Exemption Program. This project was inspired by a similar video trilogy from the 1990s about Amiens Cathedral: Revelations.
Tagged architecture, essay, film, models, photography
Newark Celebrates 350
August 17, 2016 Browse All Work, Drawing Newark, Short Films
As Newark celebrates the 350th anniversary of its founding in 1666, I created this series of drawings based on historical images and maps of Newark's downtown. The above video briefly summarizes 350 years of Newark's history in two minutes.
The sound track accompanying this video was assembled via free audio clips from Freesound. As Newark develops from a small town to a bustling industrial metropolis, the sound track shifts from recordings of quiet woodlands to the din of the vibrant city. And as time passes, the skyscrapers we now see in Newark's downtown gradually rise.
History is learned textually through reading books, newspapers, and original documents. But, history is experienced visually and acoustically in a way that engages all the senses. History is dynamic, vibrant and three-dimensional, but it is recorded via two dimensional means. This brief history of Newark aims to visually and acoustically represent history as a living and fluid process of transition and change. My aim is not to comprehensively represent Newark's history but to offer insight into the scope of feel of this storied city's history.
As Newark looks forward to the future, it stands on 350 years of history that shape the social, economic, and political forces that drive this city forward.
Tagged architecture, demolition, drawing, film, newark, planning
New York Chinatown: Time Lapse
August 7, 2016 Browse All Work, Drawing New York, Short Films
A 60 hour time lapse of New York City's Chinatown, accompanied by the Chinese song: Feng Yang (The Flower Drum).
The original watercolor measures 26 by 40 inches with the tenements of Chinatown in the foreground and the skyscraper canyons of Lower Manhattan rising above.
View of Chinatown bounded by the Bowery, Canal Street, and Columbus Park.
Tagged architecture, drawing, film, new york, photography, watercolor
What does "progress" mean to the American city?
July 27, 2016 Assorted Art & Writing, Browse All Work, Drawing Newark
To view photos of progress in Newark, explore the interactive map above. If you are having difficulty using this map, please watch the accompanying video tutorial here.
In 1916 and with great fanfare, Newark celebrated the 250<sup>th</sup> anniversary of its founding in 1666. Massive classical columns sculpted of plaster were erected at the city's main intersection of Broad and Market Streets. Soldiers soon off to WWI marched down Broad Street with Colt rifles in hand. A few months later, women followed in their footsteps carrying banners reading: "The girls behind the men behind the guns." The United States, though not yet in the midst of Europe's World War, would soon be at battle and suffer 116,000 deaths, mostly caused by disease and influenza. Women had not the right to vote until 1920 and blacks, then a minority in Newark, lacked some of the basic human rights many of them sadly still lack.
Soldiers celebrate Newark's 250th Anniversary.
Soldiers March down Broad Street.
The Girls Behind the Men Behind the Guns – Parade of the 312 Infantry Division.
And yet the citizens of Newark, alongside much of America, had come to believe that the future held great things in store for them. In a mere fifty years, America had transitioned from an agricultural to industrial economy, developed the world's most extensive rail system, introduced electricity in every major city, and could boast the world's largest industries from Chicago's packinghouses to New York's Wall Street stock market to Newark's 37 breweries, countless tanneries, machine shops, and insurance companies. America had also the world's most extensive power grid and the world's most affordable and durable car: Henry Ford's Model T. The way of life was rapidly changing, often for the better. At this rate of progress, the future looked promising. And as World War One drew to a close in 1919, America told herself that this would be "the war to end all wars" and confidently looked toward the future in hope of unremitting progress.
Drawing by Winsor McCary, which first appeared in a 1928 article "Newark 58 Years from Today"- when Newark would be 150 years from the year of its 1836 incorporation as a city.
Indeed, leaders of the time predicted what the future would bring to cities like Newark and New York. Artists completed whimsical predictions of the Newark of 1986, a city of dense skyscrapers, railroads spewing outwards in all directions, and all manner of blimps and airplanes flying in the sky above. Planners like Harland Bartholomew drafted a master plan of Newark with infrastructure fit for a city of three million (Newark's population in 1909 was a mere 280,000). Newark corporations like Public Service planned for the future by building the nation's largest trolley terminal in 1916, capable of accommodating over 300 trolleys an hour. In fact, even the use of the words "future" and "progress" in printed media sharply increased after World War I, peaking around 1920 and declining every following year until World War Two.
Now, as Newark celebrates its 350th anniversary in 2016, the city has opportunity to reflect on the past, at the Newark of 1916, and ask: What is the nature of progress?
A century ago, progress meant change; progress meant ceaseless improvement and the forward march of society. Today, after witnessing a century with two world wars, an almost fifty-year cold war, decolonization, and the emergence of an interconnected world economy, the implications of progress seem more ambiguous and less naively optimistic. Progress <em>does</em> mean an increasing standard of living, greater educational attainment, and a longer lifespan thanks to advances in public health. But, progress has also led to the decentralization of cities and the loss of distinct urban neighborhoods, processes that continue to play out today. Progress now means many much more than it did a century ago. Unlike the planners and artists of 1916, who predicted that progress would mean the never-ending onward and upward climb of Newark and America, society now knows that progress has not delivered on all it has promised.
America's Unhealthiest City
In many regards, Newark is a better city than it was in 1916. Newark, alongside the New York metropolitan region, is now more interconnected to the world economy. The average age of death has risen from age 50 in 1920 to about age 80 today. And, unlike the 1890s when the US Census Bureau deemed Newark as America's "unhealthiest city," Newark citizens now have better access to medicine at the city's many hospitals. Admittedly, Newark is still a city of great poverty with 79,000 residents (or 28% of the population) below the poverty line. But, being in poverty today is very different from being in poverty a century ago when private charities were the extent of the public's social safety net and when government did little to aid those in poverty. Our present society is, in many regards, more democratic, more egalitarian, less socially stratified, and a lot wealthier than before.
Newark's Predominant Ethnic Groups in 1911
At the same time, often in the same name of progress, Newark has sacrificed large amounts of its cultural and architectural urban fabric. In the 1920s, Newark was home to countless densely built immigrant enclaves. Springfield Avenue was home to Newark's Jewish community and its many businesses. A few blocks to the North was Newark's Seventh Avenue Italian Community. And, behind City Hall was Newark's Chinatown with its restaurants and alleged dens of vice. In the following decades, as the predominantly white population of second and third generation immigrants fled Newark for the suburbs, they left behind them the fabric of old and now empty neighborhoods. With time, many of these neighborhoods fell prey to demolition and urban renewal. For instance, the old Jewish and German communities of Springfield Avenue are now predominantly empty land, low-density public housing, and strip malls. A similar fate met Newark's Italian community when it was forcefully evicted to construct the low-income Columbus Homes, ironically named in honor of the Italian explorer. Meanwhile, Newark's Chinatown, Greektown, and other small communities are now largely devoid of large population or are dedicated to the ubiquitous parking lots of downtown Newark (click here for interactive map).
In the belief that the new is inherently better than the old, much of the city's architectural fabric was outright demolished or replaced by structures inferior to what they replaced, as these images often testify to. The sterile housing project, strip mall, and block of low-income housing are not necessarily more beautiful than the dynamic neighborhoods of churches, businesses, and tenements they replace. Such is the direction progress can take.
Downtown Newark in 1873 and 2016. Note the near complete loss of the neighborhood and its replacement by the city's hockey arena at bottom and parking garage at top. In over a century, all but a handful of the structures pictured in 1873 were demolished.
A walk through Newark's Central Ward will illustrate this direction of development. Let's take a walk up Springfield Avenue, one of Newark's major commercial thoroughfares linking the city's center to its outlying suburbs. We stand in a desolate intersection at the corner of Prince Street and Springfield Avenue. In the distance rise the skyscrapers of Downtown. In front is a wide and street empty of pedestrians. Springfield Avenue slices diagonally through the urban grid, a band of asphalt with the faded markings of yellow and white lines indicating where to drive. On one side, is a vast empty lot now being developed into low-income housing. On the other side, is a low-slung housing project built to replace the decaying urban fabric. The scene is one of near desolation with few pedestrians and thousands of cars.
But, a century ago, this neighborhood was a vibrant immigrant community comparable to New York's Lower East Side. Three and four story tenements edged up on either side of the street. Horse pulled trolleys and then electric streetcars plied up and down this street delivering immigrants to and from work. One block ahead was the Prince Street Synagogue, one of the city's many vibrant churches and now an empty shell. A few block behind were three of Newark's largest factories now closed, the Krueger Brewery, Pabst Brewery, and General Electric. Around us were crowded streets and the sound of horses on cobblestone pavement. This neighborhood, among many in Newark, was a dynamic one inhabited by subsequent waves of English, Irish, Germans, Jews, Italians, and finally Blacks during the Great Migration of the 1930s, each generation of immigrants leaving their mark on the built environment.
Prince Street in 1916 and 2016 respectively. The complete and total loss of a neighborhood.
As the flow of immigrants slowed and as industry ebbed away, this neighborhood has gradually vanished without the people that cared for and resided in it. Industry too slipped away with the consolidation and closure of nearby factories to move abroad, the subsequent loss of employment, and later riots that rocked the city in summer 1967. Newark and its reputation are still recovering from this loss of industry and employment, as the appearance former neighborhoods like this one attest to.
Scenes of contrast much like this one play out across Newark to varying degrees. The manifestations of changes to the built environment may vary from street to street and from building to building but the social and economic factors motivating these changes remain consistent: white flight, the automobile, loss of industry, suburbanization, racial tension, urban renewal, among other factors too numerous to discuss in detail.
A city is more than its monuments. A city is more than its grand civic structures and skyscrapers. A city is a collection of structures, small and large, wood and stone, humble and grand. Newark has dutifully maintained its large monuments: cathedrals, skyscrapers, and civic structures. But, Newark has not successfully maintained the cultural and urban fabric of its tenements, town-homes, warehouses, and single-family homes. Individually, these small-scale structures are seemingly unimportant. But, collectively, they constitute the living and breathing heart of Newark.
Circa 1916, the Prudential Headquarters at left and the City Post Office at right. Both later demolished.
My belief is that by examining individual instances of changes to the urban fabric, one can gain a more accurate understanding of the nature of progress in the American city. Though individual instances of say a church's or factory's demolition and the disappearance of a neighborhood might seem to be events independent of larger social and historical trends, these individual historic events can and do provide hints and are visual evidence of larger historic movements. By comparing scenes of Newark then and now, one can start to understand the bigger picture how cities developed historically, how suburbanization and de-industrialization affected the city, and most importantly one can start to question the nature of progress.
In many regards, one can examine these images and wish that society still built structures as tall, as proud, and as ornamented as those of a century ago. But, one must also recognize that the built environment of a century ago was the unique product of its time and is in fact inseparable from its era. The same culture and society that laid forth the grand boulevards of Paris, the skyscrapers of Newark and New York, and the vast parklands that surround many American cities, was also a society that denied women the right to vote, blacks the right to participate in society, and colonial peoples the right to govern themselves.
In fact, one could posit that the beautiful architecture of early America and its vast public works at the turn of the century would not have been possible without the wealth derived from imperialism, the availability of cheap labor, and the masses of immigrants willing to work twelve hours a day in trying working conditions. To embrace the beauty of the past, one must also recognize the concomitant negatives that made this beauty possible to begin with.
We can examine these images of vanished urban fabric of tenements, churches, factories, and densely packed neighborhoods. But, we must recognize that neither past nor present is superior to the other. The built environment of each era is merely the product of its society, culture, and economy. The objective of examining this visual history is not to pass judgment on past or present but to objectively understand where Newark was, where Newark is, and where Newark will be in the near and distant future. A century after 1916, we look forward to the future.
Click here for an interactive map about Newark's vanishing heritage.
A century after 1916
Gould and Humboldt
Krueger Auditorium
Temple B'Nai Abraham
Prince Street
Wiss Scissors Factory
Women and Children's Hospital
Downtown Newark
Prudential and Old Post Office, both now demolished.
A Not So Perfect Past
Downtown Newark in 1912 and almost a century later in 2016. Note that the building at right, in construction in the first image, is now abandoned and awaiting restoration.
Tagged architecture, demolition, destruction, essay, newark, photography, planning, politics, ruins
New York: City of Immigrants
July 17, 2016 Assorted Art & Writing, Browse All Work, Drawing New York
As northbound Broadway dips down to the valley of 125th Street, the subway soars above. A jumble of steel slicing through the orthogonal city grid. A massive arch, 250 feet from end to end. Two hundred tons of mass channeled into four concrete pylons, resting on the solid bedrock of Mannahatta.[1] It is the intersection where the underground and aboveground worlds of New York converge.
The subway, the alphabet lines that snake their way beneath the city and above the boulevards. Take the Ⓑ to Brighton Beach, the Ⓙ to Jamaica, the Ⓕ to Forest Hills. From the towers of Midtown, to the factories of Flatbush, to the shouts of Shea Stadium, the subway is a panoply of color, motion, and people. For the price of $2.75, the world is within reach. Chinatown, Little Poland, Russia, Greece, India, and Italy, all neighborhoods joined by the umbilical cord of the subway. New York is a world unto herself, knit together by the bands of black asphalt and steel subway track.
Voice of the City by Joseph Stella, 1922.
Once wooded island of the Lenape Indians, now home to a peculiar race of people. Every day, New Yorkers step to the tune of the stoplight. Every day, they ride in sardine can subways. Like smoked ham on the butcher's hook, they hang from subway straps. And, at their respective stops, they scramble on to work, home, and family. All New York is a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their entrances as subway doors slide open, and they time their exits to the familiar recording of "Stand Clear of the Closing Doors Please." [2]
New York, New York, home of the Lenape, town of the knickerbockers, and city of immigrants and refugees. The Irish fleeing famine in 1845, the Germans fleeing Revolution in '48, the Italians in '71, and now waves of Dominicans and Mexicans, Chinese and Czechs. As the metropolis pulsates in motion, the spirit of the city evolves with each wave of newcomers who ride her subways, inhabit her humid tenements, and dream of home, family, and future.
In 1856, Walt Whitman published "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry."[3] He writes of immigrants and bourgeois businessmen alike, all part of "the simple, compact, well-join'd scheme, myself disintegrated, every one disintegrated yet part of the scheme." The scheme of the city. The cogs of capitalism. The human machinery of the metropolis. To each immigrant her place, to each worker his seat, and to each vagabond a place in the breadline. Together they form the metropolis.
Whitman also writes:
Others will enter the gates of the ferry and cross from shore to shore,
Others will watch the run of the flood-tide,
Others will see the shipping of Manhattan north and west, and the heights of Brooklyn to the south and east,
Others will see the islands large and small;
Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half an hour high,
A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence, others will see them,
Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring-in of the flood-tide, the falling-back to the sea of the ebb-tide.
Rome is nicknamed the "Eternal City" for its ancient architecture and generations of development. But, New York too is an "Eternal City" of sorts. Its skyscrapers may rise and fall with changing tastes and a growing economy. But, people are the "eternal" constant that marks life in this city. A city with over three million foreign born from all corners of the world. A city whose functioning depends on the legions of immigrant window washers, janitors, and taxi drivers without whom this urban machine would screech to a halt. The centuries of men and women of New York, city of immigrants, capital of finance, and home to over eight million. In 1856, Whitman wrote of a fluid and dynamic city of people not unlike the New York of today.
New York, you have not the tree-lined boulevards of Paris, the pomp of London, the antiquity of Rome, the parks of Peking, or the beauty of Budapest. But in your diversity of people, cuisine, and culture, you are something far greater. You are home to a city of strangers, a city of neighborhoods, a city of sound. A city of subways, taxis, and buses flowing from the canyons of Midtown to the quiet bedrooms of Westchester and Park Slope, like rivulets of water. Flow on city, flow with the tide, and glide through the eras. Flow on Isle of Mannahatta for "a hundred years hence". A ship anchored on bedrock between the two proud rivers of the Hudson and East.
1890s Burial at Hart's Island – Jacob Riis
1991 Burial of Infants with AIDS – Claire Yaffa
But, New York, you too are home to the injustices and inequalities urban life nurtures. Hart Island, New York's pauper's cemetery, is the final resting place of over a million mostly unknown corpses, the tired, the poor, and the huddled masses of immigrant New York. Over a quarter million infants are buried here, each one in an unmarked coffin hewn of pine, the size of a shoebox. Mass graves three coffins deep and 25 long. Nearby Riker's Island, America's largest jail, imprisons 10,000 a night awaiting trial in the city's many courthouses. The South Bronx, per capita income $12,500, is a mere mile away from the Upper East Side, per capita income $85,000+. The glassy condos of Manhattan are priced at a million plus per piece, but these homes are only made possible by the immigrant workers and janitors paid $10 an hour to sweep the hallways of dust and wipe the windows of grit. And, every night, they too return to their homes in the gritty outer boroughs. They too ride the subway that burrows underground, as generations have before them.
In the 1880s, social reformer Jacob Riis was working on How the Other Half Lives. [4] Through photography, he captured the squalor, darkness, and misery of New York's impoverished immigrant community. He showed children at work in sweatshops, vagabonds at work collecting the refuse of those more fortunate. He exposed the darkness of another world a few steps from Wall Street and a few miles from the opulent mansions and department stores of Fifth Avenue and Ladies' Mile. That very same year, on March 26th 1883, the Vanderbilt Family of railroad fortune hosted the largest and most expensive costume ball in New York history, costing six million in today's currency. While the idle rich came dressed as the "Count of Monte Cristo" and "Otho the Barbarian," the poor slept in squalor a carriage ride away in the Lower East Side. As the New York Sun reported three days later, "[This] festivity represents nothing but the accumulation of immense masses of money by the few out of the labor of the many." [5]
1890 Cover Page of Riis' Book
Garment Sweatshop with Child Labor – Jacob Riis
The Vanderbilt Mansion
With a taxidermied cat on her head, Miss Strong attends the Vanderbilt costume ball.
Though a century has passed since Riis, New York still is a city of social contrasts and economic disparity. Ironically, Jacob Riis' Lower East Side is now a fashionable community for the upper middle class. But, the eternal New York City of immigrants endures in the outer boroughs of Flushing, Queens, Jackson Heights, South Bronx, and Bed Stuy. And, in many regards, their social condition is not too different from Riis' era. His images of New York testify both to how much and to how little New York has changed. America's Eternal City still is a place of great inequity and injustice.
New York aggregates and accents both the dynamism and the dangers of urban life. New York, a place of wealth and of anonymity. New York, a place for the powerful and for the disempowered. To appreciate the beauty of this environment, one must realize that this city too, like Chicago, Paris, and London "has been [and still is] one of the dark places of the earth." [6] New York, like any living individual, has both beauty and darkness. This product of human labor and ingenuity is only as perfect as its imperfect Creator.
Subway by George Tooker, 1950.
As E.B. White wrote in 1949: "The city is like poetry: it compresses all life, all races and breeds, into a small island and adds music and the accompaniment of internal engines. The island of Manhattan is without any doubt the greatest human concentrate on earth, the poem whose magic is comprehensible to millions of permanent residents but whose full meaning will always remain illusive." [7] Over 400 years since New York's founding in 1609 by the Dutch, these words remain true as each generation of Men and Women creates the City in their own image. [8]
A City of Immigrants: Then and Now
For more about walking in New York, click here.
[1] Before Manhattan was settled by Dutch explorers in 1609, it was known by the local Lenape Indians as Mannahatta.
[2] Adapted from "All the World's a Stage" by William Shakespeare
[3] "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" from the 1849 book Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman.
[4] How the Other Half Lives by Jacob Riis, 1890.
[5] The New York Sun, March 29th, 1883.
[6] Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, 1899.
[7] Here is New York by E.B. White, 1949.
[8] "So God created mankind in his own image."
Tagged architecture, drawing, essay, new york, watercolor
Jane's Carousel
July 15, 2016 Browse All Work, Drawing New York, Handmade, Short Films
A wind-up music box featuring Jane's Carousel along the Brooklyn Waterfront. When closed, the antique cigar box measures a mere 7 by 7 by 3 inches deep. When open, the Brooklyn Bridge and historic Jane's Carousel fold out. The carousel spins to the tune of the music while the moon gently slides across the night sky. Materials: $4 cigar box, $5 wind-up music box, electrical wire (for trees), plastic lids for wheels, string (for motion), tape measure (for spring), tin foil (for water), and thick paper.
New York Skyline
Jane's Carousel along the Brooklyn Waterfront
The Brooklyn Bridge
Jane's Carousel with my hand and a pen for scale. Dimensions: 7 by 7 by 3 inches.
Tagged architecture, film, models, new york, photography, watercolor, waterfront
June 20, 2016 Browse All Work, Walking in Manhattan
Strolling in New York City is a world tour. The street fairs of Spanish Harlem mesh into college town Columbia. Columbia gives way to the shabby chic of the Upper West Side. A few blocks farther and I am drowned by the tourists of Times Square. Even further, and I reach the mindless bustle of Wall Street brokers. There could be no more fitting a place for the United Nations.
I stroll and try to identify the passing languages. Spanish in the outer boroughs. Polish in Greenpoint. Russian in Brighton Beach. Cantonese in Chinatown. French and German in SoHo.
Reading "Here is New York" by E.B. White, I realize how little New York has changed in the past sixty odd years. Sure, the streets, cars, and tenements are different. But the essential spirit of dynamic and diverse urbanism remains. Here is New York.
Click here to learn more about my New York walks. Or, click on the images below for full resolution.
Day One: Chinatown and Lower Manhattan
City Hall Park and the Financial District
View of Chinatown towards Lower Manhattan
Henry & Market Streets – Tenement Row
Overfilled Trashcan
Mulberry St. Fortune Teller (center)
Mosco & Mulberry Alley
Flâneur picks his teeth in window reflection.
Delancy St. Tenements
catcaller on Broome St.
Broome St. Buddhist Temple
Day Two: SoHo
Mercer Street in SoHo
Water Tower on Lafayette
Bodega Ads on Houston
Canal Street Back Alley
Street Performers
Cast Iron on Broadway
Broadway and Broome
Rooftop Garden View
Subway Entrance
Prince and Mott Streets
Looking Up Lafayette
The Puck Building
Taxis on Houston
View Toward Manhattan Bridge
Locked Alley
Man Unconsciously Modeling
View Toward Bowery
Glass Portholes on Sidewalk
Lower Broadway
Greene & Prince Streets
Crosby & Broome Streets
Mulberry & Jersey Streets
Mulberry Street German School
Prince & Mulberry Streets
Day Three: The East & West Villages
By the Bowery
Fantasy Parties sells erotic paraphernalia.
The Modern Family
Washington Square Park Arch
Justin the Statue: I get used to this. I do this to supplement my income for most of the year.
Elderly man watches little children roll by on tricycles and scooters.
New York's first public library is in foreground.
Wizened Hobo
Jefferson Market
Wayne the Bird Dude: I've been spotting birds in this park for over twenty years. You should look my name up on Instagram.
Colonnade Row on Lafayette Street
Love and Luck
Snoozing Woman
1st Ave Sunset
1st Ave Streetscape
Day Four: The High Line
9th Ave. & West 14th St.
Washington & Little West 12th
9th Ave & West 14th St.
High Line & Gansevoort St.
Latino family traverses West 14th.
High Line & 19th
Homeless man naps as tourists pass.
Old & New New York
Tagging?
Pedestrian passes gentrification in action.
Gentrification at West 28th
Rooftop Grafitti
Day Five: Madison Square
View Towards Midtown
23rd Street
23rd & 5th Avenue
Day Six: Midtown
Preaching Armageddon in the Capital of Consumerism: Times Square
The Polish Embassy
Jihadist proclaims that "America will soon be destroyed by fire!"
Empire State from Greeley Square
Queensboro Bridge
Elderly man approaches and extracts a crumpled and blurry image of a dollar sign from his bag.
Hey, can you draw me some money bags.
Me: Sure.
You know, it's for my product. I'll pay you well. What's your name?
Me: Myles Zhang
You Chinese? You parents from China?
Me: No, America.
No, China…!
He walks off.
An Latin American immigrant drives up in Midtown in his pickup truck.
Him: How far is the statue of Liberty from here?
Me: Oh… About seven miles.
Jurgen from Germany
A homeless musician approaches and observes my painting of Grand Central.
Jurgen: You are an artist.
Me: No, that is a title I have yet to earn. Are you from Germany? You sound like the director Werner Herzog.
Jurgen: Herzog? Him? His films put me to sleep. [Jurgen shows me his noteboook.] If I lived in Nazi Germany, the Nazis would burn my work, maybe even me. My grandfather, he used to go to rallies to give the Nazi salute. I still don't know why he did that. I don't think he even knew.
Convert proclaims that "America will soon be destroyed by fire!"
Convert preaches the impending doom of America on Sixth Ave and 34th: "The US government, they invented this virus that will kill off all the black people."
Day Seven: Central Park
Bethesda Fountain
8th Ave Lake
Two lovers. One rock.
Wollman Rink toward Midtown
Heckscher Playground toward 59th St.
The Ramble
Day Eight: Riverside Drive
Inside Riverside Church
Riverside Church
125th Street Viaduct
72 Street Viaduct
Grant Memorial
George Washington Bridge from Riverside State Park
Day Nine: Morningside Heights
Apse
Union Theological Seminary (120th)
Columbia University: Low Library
Columbia University: Lowe Memorial Library
Columbia University: Saint Paul's Chapel
Philosophy Hall
Panorama of Low Library
Cathedrals of Industry: Saint John the Divine and the 125th Street Viaduct
For more about Saint John the Divine, click here.
Day Ten: Harlem
The composition of the watercolor below is based on the spiraling arc of the Golden Rectangle.
The 125th Street Viaduct
Dyckman Street Strip Mall
Sherman Street Apartments
Boudega sells ice cream, cigarettes, & chewing gum (190th).
Mixed Race Couple (159th)
GW Bridge Causeway (178th)
Theater repurposed as United Palace Church (175th).
Aidan (at left) plays with friends (159th).
Play Street (159th)
Townhomes (159th)
Squatter's entrance to vacant townhome (159th).
Jeo (in blue) plays checkers on a garbage can (159th).
Strip Mall (192nd)
Aubudon Terrace (156th)
The pants in center are by Josefina and cost $198.
C-Town Grocery (150th)
Sign reads: Please put trash in can and do not leave out.
Subway Viaduct (135th)
Newspaper clipping at lower right celebrates Obama's inauguration.
A curbside shrine to murder victims. A $2000 reward is promised for tips leading to perpetrator's arrest (152nd).
"The island of Manhattan is without any doubt the greatest human concentrate on earth, the poem whose magic is comprehensible to millions of permanent residents but whose full meaning will always remain elusive."
– Here is New York by E.B. White
Tagged architecture, collection, drawing, new york, photography, walking, watercolor, waterfront
Murphy Varnish
June 11, 2016 Browse All Work, Drawing Newark
Murphy Varnish, built in 1886, is one of Newark's oldest factories still standing. Its elegant brick walls and detailed brickwork reflect a time when industrial structures served more than just utilitarian purpose. They reflect a time when industry was central to Newark's wealth and key to its future success. Murphy Varnish is not just a factory; it is a monument to industry and beauty built to endure (historically landmarked by the National Park Service). Recent renovation efforts promise to turn this derelict structure into a community of apartments.
The summer after my first year at Columbia University, I had the privilege of working with Studio for Urban Architecture & Design (SUAD), the firm hired to redevelop this derelict factory into some 40 apartments. During my time at SUAD, I observed firsthand the workings of a small architectural firm and the inspiring conversion of an old factory into something viable and living. As my internship neared its end, I photographed the historic factory and created a detailed watercolor rendering of the finished conversion, both featured below.
During these formative three months, I learned that architecture is more than the creation of art and beauty for their own sake, but a means to build a stronger city and more stable society through inspiring architecture. For decades, Newark has seen architecture that does not connect to the city's rich history or value aesthetics. Prefab, cookie-cutter homes are often built here, but do not respect their historical or urban context. They are set back from the street with little more than driveways and vinyl siding for decoration. Large corporate monoliths rise in the downtown, but through catwalks and the absence of entrances on public streets, their occupants need not engage with the city. Every morning and every evening, they can ride to and from Newark without setting foot outdoors or on city soil. Even in terms of historic preservation, the city has seen so much of its old architecture lost to parking lots, urban renewal, and urban blight.
It is in this context that Murphy Varnish is a unique endeavor in Newark's redevelopment. In a city once home to thousands of small factories, Murphy Varnish is one of the few that remain. Old maps of the Newark will reveal the presence of dozens of factories in the vicinity of Murphy Varnish and comparable to it in scale. In the past few decades, all of these industrial structures have been demolished and replaced by empty lots and distasteful prefab homes. Now, Murphy Varnish stands alone in a now largely residential neighborhood; it serves as a unique reminder of the past and hopeful beacon for how old industry can be converted into residential. The process of renovation might not be as easy as demolition, but it is in the longer run far more respectful to the neighborhood's and city's history.
As I begin my second year of college, I return to campus with a greater appreciation for historic preservation. I return with deeper admiration for the tireless efforts of Newark activists and architects to preserve the city's rich architectural heritage for future generations. Thank you!
Permaskin is God.
This project was made possible by a generous grant from Columbia's Center for Career Education.
Scenes of Murphy Varnish before Work Began:
Murphy Varnish before restoration began.
Neighborhood resident Angel and his dog Tigressa stand before Murphy Varnish.
Murphy Varnish – Constructed 1886
New Jersey Railroad Ave.
Murphy Varnish stands in a sea of empty fields and shoddy Bayonne Boxes.
Angel and his dog Tigressa stand before Murphy Varnish
Pedestrian passes by Murphy Varnish.
Bargain or Scam?
NO TRESPASSING GUARD DOG
248.5 Chestnut St.
Bayonne Boxes and Empty Lots
A Work in Progress:
Emaciated tree trunks embedded in the factory's perimeter fence.
Four Floor Renovation
Third Floor Renovation
View from inside Factory
Dormer Window
Up the Chimney
The Finished Conversion:
(As Proposed)
Watercolor rendering completed for SUAD of the restoration project.
Tagged architecture, collection, demolition, destruction, drawing, newark, photography, ruins, watercolor
Say no to Edison Parking!
May 27, 2016 Browse All Work, Newark Activism
Interactive Map of Newark's Blighted Parking Lots
Comparative Views of Downtown Newark, Then and Now
The views below provide a brief comparison of Newark in the 1960s and now. This gives a loose idea of the kind of human scale architectural fabric demolished to create parking.
Central Avenue between Broad & Halsey in 11959, demolished by Edison Parking
Central Avenue between Broad & Halsey in 1978, demolished by Edison Parking
Corner of Central & Washington in 1959, demolished by Edison Parking
Washington Street between Bleecker & Central Avenue in 1978, demolished by Edison Parking
Mulberry & Market in the 1950s, currently owned by Edison Parking
86-88 University Street, demolished by Rutgers
Washington Street School for the Dead in 1978, demolished by Rutgers
Eagle Street in 1978, demolished by Rutgers
15 Burnett Street in 1978
University Street in 1978, demolished by Saint Michael's Hospital for emergency parking
Park & Clinton Avenues in the early 1900s, currently a parking lot for Sacred Heart Cathedral
Temple B'Nai Abraham, demolished to construct parking for the Essex County Hall of Records
The 18000-seat Tivoli Theater in Roseville section of Newark, demolished to constuct low-income housing project
Newark's Parking Crisis
Edison Parking, among many other local institutions such as Rutgers and UMDNJ, has engaged in the systematic destruction of our city's heritage. In the James Street Commons Historic District, for instance, Edison Parking and Rutgers are the single largest contributors to demolition between 1978 and today, both demolishing dozens of nationally landmarked properties. As Edison Parking continues to consolidate its properties into larger and larger parcels, the question arises: How will this entity develop this land? Will future development respect old Newark a