[This post is a response to Huxtable’s critique of the Marine Midland Building and its surroundings in her article “Sometimes We Do It Right.” I agree with her assessment of the space, but I think that the space has not been corrupted, as she predicts, and that it continues to be a remarkable planning ideal despite the changes in society’s predilections.]
Ada Louise Huxtable was not staring at the screen of her iPhone, like I was, as she made her way to the Marine Midland Building at 140 Broadway in 1968. Fast-forward 50 years and New York is still “very, very good,” but it is different, and so are its people. Five decades after the completion of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill’s (SOM) landmark building, there is still much to see, but a lot to miss as well.
Most New Yorkers today will reach downtown Manhattan by way of the subway. And every New Yorker is an expert at navigating this confusing and dirty system that delivers them to some of the best urban experiences in the world. But en route to your final destination, much of what New York has to offer goes by unnoticed when you’re sending a message or selecting a song from your playlist; especially when your phone has mapped out your whole route, and you just need to follow the blue line to get that Instagram-ready photo you’ve been waiting for.
I don’t claim to be above this. I didn’t realize that I’d be passing through Calatrava’s Oculus on my way to follow in Huxtable’s footsteps. It didn’t matter to me where I got off, just that it was the fastest way to reach where I was going.
But Calatrava is an attention grabber, and I couldn’t help but feel excited walking through his immaculate and pristine transportation hub another time. When I stepped out into the bright, warm day, I turned around to take a look at the winged structure- One World Trade rising gloriously in the background. This wasn’t what I came to see, but I was happy that Calatrava took me out of my digital euphoria.
That’s the thing, though: Calatrava demands your attention. His creations are hard to miss or ignore. The space I was interested in, and that Huxtable lauded as a “stunning success in urban design,” is more subtle. Although selfie sticks and tourists pretending to be professional photographers abound, the pictures they take aren’t meant to capture the graceful flow of the plaza and buildings at 140 Broadway.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Calatrava knocked sense back into me and made me pay attention to the urban fabric I was walking by. A city may be defined by the discrete places that conjure in people’s minds when its name is mentioned, but a city is only forged by the unnoticed structures and voids that knit these places together.
Directly across from the Oculus on Church Street stands the 55-story Millennium Hotel, stable after the structural problems it faced following the 9/11 attacks. On its left, across Dey Street, is a Century 21 Department Store clad in masonry, and southwest of that along Church is a city-mall with the likes of H&M, Eataly, and Banana Republic emboldened on its glass facade.
Expensive hotels, clothing stores, and ‘bougie’ food places abound but most people walk by all of these without batting an eye. They’ll stop and marvel at Calatrava, but the humdrum of everyday modernity doesn’t interest them. That’s okay, and the stores aren’t architectural wonders, but what’s interesting is that the world we live in didn’t have to be this one. The path to 140 Broadway, from all directions, is much different now than it was 50 years ago, and these paths are a not-so-subtle reminder of the consumerist society we’ve grown accustomed to. What could this place have looked like if the world went in a different direction? Today, you can almost feel the money being spent all around you, if you’re paying attention.
All of that melts away, though, as you turn left on Liberty Street and Isamu Noguchi’s “Red Cube” comes into view. Suddenly, there’s barely a store in view. One Liberty Plaza, another SOM building which can be easy to miss along Church, rises on your left, and Zuccotti Park, not yet completed in March 1968, opens up on your right.
At last, standing between Cedar and Liberty Streets and facing east, I took a moment to take it all in. This was where Huxtable wanted someone like me to experience, and I was happy to be there, but at first, it all just felt so normal. Noguchi, as Huxtable foresaw, was the main attention grabber. Group after group of giddy adventurers stopped to snap their pictures before hurrying on their way.
At first, I wanted to yell at them: “Yes, the cube is marvelous, but look at what else you’re missing!” But then I realized that their inclinations were okay. As long as Noguchi, and Calatrava a few blocks away, could grab attention, Marine Midland and 140 Broadway will be content to sit in the background, happy to provide refuge and beauty in a more understated way. That realization was, for me, when “this small segment of New York” went beyond normal.
I took the path that Huxtable had laid out for me, though admittedly, snapped over one-hundred pictures along the way (I just couldn’t help myself). I let her words flow through me as I walked the travertine plaza and identified the buildings she mentioned in her review. All of this was under appreciated by everyone else buzzing around, I thought, and what should that make me feel? The urge to yell was back, but I found respite in what I saw that Huxtable had left out.
Something about this plaza matters to people, even if they don’t realize it. Is it the elegant curtain wall of Marine Midland, the properly sized marble blocks, the varied style of the buildings, the accent of the cube, and the brilliant views that mattered to Huxtable? Or is it the warm copper glow of the windows, the benches shaded by birch trees, and the wafting, delicious smells of the various food-carts lined up along Broadway?
The correct answer, I think, is that it’s all of those things. The better answer, though, is that just like me, other people want to be here, too.
People bought their lunch from the food-carts and went across to Zuccotti to eat and chat. Some sat beside Marine Midland and took a glance at their reflection in the window as their children spun in circles with innocent glee. A business woman had a smoke at the corner of the plaza while a teenager jumped in a bragging attempt to touch a corner on the cube. Why were these people here?
For five decades this “carefully calculated channel of related space and buildings” has persisted and the destruction that Huxtable warned us of has not come to bear, for the time being, at least; but the city, and the world, has changed. The Twin Towers have come and gone, leaving behind waterfalls and bollards in their wake, David Childs’ ‘beautiful yet compelling’ creation has been topped off, Calatrava has had his fun, iPhones and Androids capture our lives even as we’re oblivious to the hotel-clothing-food jamboree that envelopes us. But New York’s spirit remains, neatly and thoughtfully expressed at 140 Broadway and its immediate environs.
Not everyone will stop to appreciate this spirit, or put it into words, or capture it on their phones save for its most provocative features. But “color, size, style, mass, space, light, dark, solids, voids, highs and lows” work together, from subway stop to plaza, so that they can sense it, and that keeps them coming back.
One cannot believe in cities if one does not believe in life. – Anonymous
New York at its Best 