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Urban Journal
Seven to Save
By Michael Killeen, Metropolis Staff Writer
Urban Journal
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Looking North from 23rd Street, May 2000.
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Concept illustration of a reused High Line within a vibrant commercial
district (above, left). The High Line's path through the West Side
(above, right).
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The Preservation League of New York State announced
its third annual Seven to Save list for 2002 at a recent
Municipal Art Society (MAS) press conference. Two New York City sites are on it:
Eero Saarinen's TWA terminal at JFK and the High Line, the abandoned elevated
freight line that snakes 1.45 miles through the lower west side of Manhattan.
These two sites illustrate what makes certain designs enduring. The curvilinear
TWA building, built between 1956 and 1961, is in danger of being swallowed
up by the Port Authority's plan to build a new terminal curving around the
old one, making it marginal and treating it as an artifact.
The terminal's legacy is powerful and has influenced a number of important
works, including Australia's Sydney Opera House (Saarinen was a member of
that competition jury), and the winged shapes of many of Santiago Calatrava's
designs.
"You begin your experience of flight when you enter this building,"
says Preservation League president Scott P. Heyl. "Development will
diminish that singular experience."
Cautioning that he is not an automatic preservationist, Terence Riley, chief
curator at the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern
Art, weighed in with his support for the preservation of the TWA terminal.
"I do believe it is possible to supercede certain design accomplishments,"
he says, but the merit of Saarinen's design is clear. "It is one of
the most important buildings in the second half of the 20th century."
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Eero Saarinen's TWA terminal at JFK.
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The High Line demands protection because of its unique industrial heritage,
Heyl says. The freight trains are gone, but the site is prime and the views
unique; one can immediately envision a path down the middle of the currently
overgrown railbed.
Friends of the High Line wants to create a remarkable
public space by converting the structure to a pedestrian walkway similar
to the
Promenade Platee in Paris.
The High Line's fate is in the courts. In late December, former Mayor Rudy
Giuliani consented to the demolition of the line in an eleventh-hour move.
Friends of the High Line are fighting this on the grounds that this move
did an end run around the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure and so is illegal.
Although there was a standing demolition order in place from the Surface
Transportation Board for 10 years, deciding who would pay for it postponed
action. Supporters of the High Line are hoping for a political windshift
with the new city administration, as Mayor Bloomberg supported the High
Line when he was running for office. A few of his remarks are included in
the MAS's High Line exhibit, which runs until March 5.
Additionally, the National Endowment for the Arts recently awarded a $30,000
grant to Friends of the High Line for a design competition for future use
plans and designs for the former freight line.
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