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June 7, 2009
Hanger Wan
Gumby Fresh
Here's one that was missed yesterday. Gumby Fresh muses on both last week's state oversight hearing and Frank Gehry's departure from the proposed Atlantic Yards project.
About the hearing:
I'm still unsure about the provenance of the people who were so insecure about the Atlantic Yards rationale that they needed to drown out a rather milque-toast set of interrogations. I read variously that they were genuine unionised construction workers or a mob assembled by the community groups that Ratner has paid to support the project. That said, I have an enduring fascination with the iconography of the American hard-hat. That the use of the hard-hat in the practice of wedge politics still has an edge even as America's native working class has largely abandoned the construction sector to recent, usually non-union, immigrants, and the country's heavy industry sector has hollowed out.
About Gehry:
I was tempted to carve out the news about the replacement of Frank Gehry with the hanger-building hacks into its own post, but the pub beckons, and I don't have much to say about architecture.
I'll just leave you with this datapoint. Last year, the Louisville Arena Authority started construction on a $238 million arena with a capacity of 22,000 seats. That can host ice shows, concerts and swimming. Even after tossing Frank Gehry's design and "value engineering" the hell out of the arena, they've managed to come up with an $800 million arena that won't host ice hockey and has a capacity of 18,000. AND IS UGLY AS HELL.
I'm not going to go over the model again. I'm not even going to argue about whether New Yorkers are going to pour three times as much love into a second-rate NBA basketball franchise as the good people of Louisville will into their top-ranked NCAA basketball franchise.
Let's remember the lower naming rights payments from Barclays, the slowing economy, the lackluster suite sales, the crumbling political support and say: Good. Luck. With. Your. $800 million. Hanger. Brooce.
Posted by steve at June 7, 2009 6:47 AM