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October 8, 2009
Blasting From the Past: Ouroussoff on a Stand-alone Arena (Two Cheers Forward, And One Absolutely Cheerless Look Backward)
Noticing New York
Michael D.D. White notes some contradictions in Nic Ourousoff's musings.
Now for the Ouroussoff quote we promised at the beginning of this post.- - As noted, Ouroussoff’s “two cheers” for the doctoring elements of the SHoP design consisted of praise for elements that will only be in place for so long as the arena exists as a stand-alone structure. But in March of 2008 Ouroussoff had some exceedingly derogatory things to say about how a stand-alone arena would be “a piece of urban blight.”
...Here is what Mr. Ouroussoff wrote in his March 21, 2008 article (emphasis supplied)
So if the decision to proceed with an 18,000-seat basketball arena but to defer or eliminate the four surrounding towers is defensible from a business perspective, it also feels like a betrayal of the public trust.
Mr. Gehry conceived of this bold ensemble of buildings as a self-contained composition — an urban Gesamtkunstwerk — not as a collection of independent structures. Postpone the towers and expose the stadium, and it becomes a piece of urban blight — a black hole at a crucial crossroads of the city’s physical history. If this is what we’re ultimately left with, it will only confirm our darkest suspicions about the cynical calculations underlying New York real estate deals.
Posted by eric at October 8, 2009 9:25 AM