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.