Wednesday, February 12, 2020

The Lovely Trees

I tend to read too much about our society as a whole into relatively little things, such as baseball.  It's a problem of mine.  But I think one can often discern large-scale dysfunction in little horrors—in this case, the great new baseball plan for the postseason.

It seems to me, living where I do, that almost no one in America anymore can take over an institution and then simply continue to run it well.  Mending a crack here, replacing a rusted beam here.  Looking to the problems the future will bring, sure, and responding well to emergencies.

But essentially...caretaking.  When that's all that's called for.

Building up the endowment incrementally.  Making sure everyone is still having fun.  Making the necessary, small navigational corrections to keep everything on course.

Americans don't do that anymore, if we ever really did it well.  Now we do "creative destruction."  Now we "reinvent" everything.

You see it all the time in New York City.  Enormous, important public institutions constantly go on rampages just to suit the ego of the latest CEO or president—just to provide them with "a legacy."

Leaving a great, nearly perfect thing intact for another generation to enjoy?  NAH!  What kind of legacy is THAT?

So hence we get a huge, ugly building of condos built almost right in the choir loft of St. John the Divine's Cathedral.  NYU tears down the beloved old West Village block by block, more every year.  Cooper Union completely distorted the historic landscape of the East Village—and nearly bankrupted itself—building enormous, awful condos and office towers there.

And now, not far from where I live, we're getting this:  the American Museum of Natural History's latest addition.

https://ny.curbed.com/2019/6/12/18663003/american-museum-of-natural-history-richard-gilder-center-upper-west-side

The museum is one of the treasures of New York.  I've loved it ever since I first went there, sometime in 1963.  It seemed a little old and a little tired then, but none the less captivating, even awe-inspiring.

Some years back, some ambitious executive there decided to secure his or her legacy by chopping up part of the shady little public park next to the museum and building an oversized, completely incongruous new planetarium.  The new building did not even make a stab at fitting in with the old one, but hey, who needs any sort of symmetry or beauty in our public cityscapes?

Now, the next ambitious little fool running the place—I believe it's Ellen Futter, who as president of Barnard vandalized that once sweet little campus—is slapping on a huge, new section which, thanks to the wonders of modern starchitects, will look kind of like a melting marshmallow.  All so the museum can have a money-making, permanent live butterfly exhibit.

And the only thing to be lost?  Why, just another big chunk of that public park, and its tall, lovely trees that have been there for many decades.  Just another chunk of our collective urban soul.

But what's that matter compared to the legacy of Ellen Futter?  Hey, what did Ebbets Field and Brooklyn matter compared to Walter O'Malley's need to establish his legacy—and exponentially increase his bank account?

What did we matter to the brilliant Yankees owners who insisted on gutting the great cathedral we had, and putting up a succession of cheap plastic replicas?

Every year, every week, everyday in America now, the big new idea is to tear down something truly wonderful that people cherish, and replace it with a passing whim that will—not so coincidentally—fill some jerk's pockets with loot.

Turn a beautiful, treasured old sport into a reality TV show?  Sure, why not?  Gotta keep up with the times.






19 comments:

  1. Was listening to Michael Kay on the radio yesterday and they were all for this proposed change to the playoff system. "Is it going to completely ruin the game? Of course it won't!" (paraphrasing here). As if total destruction or not are the only two viable options. "The people that love baseball will still watch it." Of course they will, you dicks. What else are baseball fans going to do? It's not as if there will be many minor league teams left standing soon.

    What cynical crock of shit

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  2. Amen brother, Amen

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  3. I never got over them tearing down Freedomland to build Co-Op City.

    Doug K.

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  4. When a lot of us were kids, people had this habit of destroying or throwing away stuff that was "old." Everything had to be new, more modern, more stylish. That continues today, even though there is now a passing attempt to save old buildings and old neighborhoods. But if we don't keep tearing down and replacing and destroying everything, no matter how good or useful or beautiful it is, the system can't keep going. Bigger, newer, usually uglier...that's how our economy runs.

    I've reached the point in life--actually reached it awhile ago--where I don't see the point. If the constant destruction and replacement is necessary to keep this helium balloon inflated, what good is the balloon? Enough is never enough. Consume, destroy, trash, consume something else. It's a pointless endeavor, unless you consider chasing our tails a point.

    But every generation that comes along is taught that this is what you do. This is how you're supposed to behave. These are all the things you're supposed to want. It's insane, but nobody can stop it, and there aren't many who even want to.

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  5. As a longtime denizen of the West Village, I hear you loud and clear. Yes, NYC has famously eaten itself and rebuilt, but this iteration is different. Is it the incomprehensible degree of wealth that's behind it? Is it that we lived through the 70s and 80s here and, despite the crime, enjoyed the glorious wild west spaciousness of the deserted industrial areas? Is it just that the NEW New Yorkers are total fucking entitled assholes? All of the above? I don't know. I am probably going to get out of this neighborhood. If I don't end up in California, New Mexico or Florida - all possibilities - and I don't go where some teaching job may summon me, not likely to happen at this point, I may just end up in another part of the city. I have friends who have gone up to Nyack and Tarrytown but, as a Yonkers native, I am reluctant to head up there. Combine that with my inordinate fear of ticks and Lyme disease and I. JUST. DON'T. FUCKING. KNOW.

    Fuck the great powers. And I"m not talking about the WWI "great powers," mind you.

    Remember, unchecked growth is also akin to cancer.

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  6. I graduated from Cooper Union in 1980 and totally agree that their building spree is heinous not least because they had to institute tuition to pay for it. FREE COOPER UNION!

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  7. @Hoss...did you borrow the thread title from Bob Ross?

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  8. the karma rasa hati shit is getting kind of tired

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  9. A sorry trend in architecture of recent decades is “juxtaposition”. Deliberately making something stupid useless and modern right in front of, on, within, intersecting or otherwise destroying anything I actually like. Bronx Museum has a ridiculous glass awning. The Louvre has its Jersey Garden shopping mall roof pyramid plop in the middle. There’s a nice “Penn Station” in Baltimore blocked by a 41’ metal transsexual. I wish I could find the photo but stuck in my mind is a lovely Collegiate Gothic structure with a massive glass and metal shard stuck in the side randomly. It’s an affront to art when you use someone else’s art as your background.

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  10. No, ranger, I was just thinking of the trees. What's the Bob Ross piece (book? song?)?

    Beauregard, I hate that, too.

    And Unknown, you are exactly right. Cooper has an amazing history, created by benevolent, self-made millionaire to provide a free education for working people. It was tuition free for something like 150 years.

    Now it isn't. AND the neighborhood was wrecked in process. Whoops!

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  11. In recent years I have been increasingly perturbed by this trend of change for change's sake, heedlessly trying to "disrupt" established institutions with no respect for beloved traditions and no regard for the consequences. Since the inaugurators of such disruption live completely isolated from any consequences, they are free to run rampant, knowing that their iconoclasm will be acclaimed by sycophants, cement their legacy among their peers, and probably turn a short-term profit before they hop onto the next stage of their too-big-to-fail careers.

    I'm very glad to read all of your comments in this vein; it is always nice to see there are others who are similarly repulsed by the foolishnesses of our age. No doubt it's terribly old-fashioned and short-sighted of us to treasure old things that work and look askance at the exciting disruptive innovations; no doubt such naysayers have been criticising all progress since the Neolithic. But I think the modern age sets itself apart because modern civilisation is capable of such rapid and extreme transformations of the physical environment, and often seems to have lost its head entirely.

    Perhaps even ibu and Dr Olu share our concerns.

    Beauregard, your comment reminded me of the addition to the Militärhistorisches Museum in Dresden. Another architectural monstrosity whose ugliness is exceeded only by its needlessness. Modern starchitecture is horrendous enough on its own. When it is used to deface and destroy existing environments it is truly atrocious.

    https://www.inexhibit.com/mymuseum/military-history-museum-dresden-daniel-libeskind/

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  12. A long while ago, I was a (young) editor on a construction magazine. Electrical contractors. I went to Philly to do an article about a contractor who specialized in historic restorations.

    She (the daughter of the company founder) talked with me and showed me buildings -- how putting modern electrical stuff into old buildings was done right, and how it was done awfully wrong.

    Her company had done this for years and years. There was a cost, of course: To respect the building's internal (and external) structure was more expensive than just blitzing through an electrical modernization project.

    I've never forgotten that interview (and I interviewed hundreds of people for bidniz publications over decades). Altho now retired from writing/editing/publishing, I still look around with the eyes she refocused.

    I see mostly . . . dreck. New buildings mostly suck. Old buildings are mostly disrespected.

    There IS a way to do things right. What I learned from that lady contractor was: Most people -- including her competitors, but more importantly the owners of the builders -- don't give a shit.

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  13. @Hoss was thinking about the Joy of Painting guy...

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  14. It has reached the point here change is both inevitable and ugly.

    I moved to LA where everything is temporary and tasty.

    Also, warm and fee of ice.

    I miss the best of NYC.

    As people age, they appreciate those things older and more beautiful.

    We are reminiscent of an era we need really lived.

    Thanks for you sentiments and descriptions.

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  15. Thanks, ranger, I looked it up. He is a pistol!

    And yes, I think we're all in accord here.

    Not to interject politics, but traditionally, what we think of as "liberalism" and "conservatism" in America were two sides of the same coin.

    I think most liberals agreed with the cautions of Burke, the original, modern conservative, that traditions should be respected and changed only after due deliberation. The argument between the two sides—at its best—was over just how to make the changes that changes in the world require.

    Both rejected the idea that there was one plan or one philosophy—one magic pill—that would fundamentally change human nature.

    That could be a highly thoughtful, respectful argument. And if it often wasn't, at least it rarely descended to the sort of screaming and jabbery we have today.

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  16. 25 or 30 years ago, if you had said baseball would become like NHL hockey, with half the teams making the playoffs, I would've thought you were shitting me. Yeah, that time is now here, and it's even worse than any of us could've ever imagined. Pick your opponent? Cheating using buzzers and surveillance? One guy gets suspended half a season plus playoffs for slapping his girlfriend but cheating is not penalized? Three outcomes (homer, walk or strikeout) baseball? The nightmare never ends.

    The Hammer of God

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