This website includes dozens of videos, hundreds of essays, and thousands of drawings created over the past twenty years. Search to learn more about the history of buildings, places, prisons, Newark, New York City, and my PhD research on spatial inequality.
This short film features Anchor Stone Blocks. They are a unique set of vintage, German-made, modular, stone building blocks from the late nineteenth century.
On a warm Sunday in August 2014, bulldozers started tearing away at a historic, turn-of-the-century loft space. Although the first floor was sealed with cinder blocks, the upper floor was adorned with large Chicago-style windows, intricate white terracotta carvings, and Greco-Roman ornament. The building was so sturdy it took demolition crews hours of pounding and smashing to weaken the structure. When the outside walls fell, they exposed sturdy concrete floors over a foot thick and thousands of steel re-bars for added durability.
Situated on the corner of Washington and Bleecker Street, the two-story structure stood in the heart of the James Street Commons Historic District. Normally, such a structure would never be demolished but… The property’s owner is Edison ParkFast, one of the largest landowners in Newark and a company with a business model linked to gentrification and lawlessness. Its owner, Jerry Gottesman, spent $1 million to oppose the High Line because he feared the public park would decrease his property values. Gottesman’s company also owns Manhattan Mini Storage, whose billboards in New York City cynically read – “Bloomberg is gone. Time to put the bikes away.” To profit from blight, this landbanker buys cheap land, waits for its value to improve, and then profits without investing anything to improve the community. While waiting, Edison ParkFast generates huge revenue from surface parking – often ten dollars an hour for one parking spot. Multiply the results by 60,000 parking spots daily!
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Illegal Demolition
Illegal Demolition
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In fact, demolition is in Edison’s selfish self-interest. Real estate is taxed according to the value of the structure, not the land. Therefore, Edison’s huge land holdings share almost no tax burden. Meanwhile, developed properties – whose residents might have invested thousands in upkeep and preservation – are taxed disproportionately higher than Edison’s lots. Edison doesn’t even pay for storm water runoff, which is calculated by a property’s water consumption. In other words, the public subsidizes surface parking. Under the current land-use policy that financially incentivizes demolition, Edison’s greed and urban blight is rewarded.
Edison’s evasion of the law is a high art. In this case, the building Edison destroyed is on the National Register of Historic Places and is protected by local and Federal law. All the same, this parking mongol quietly acquired surrounding land. Then, Edison removed the historic property’s windows and poked holes in its roof to cause water damage. Finally, Edison hired an unlicensed engineer to inspect the property. Edison then obtained a demolition permit from Newark’s corrupt Engineering Department, without approval from the Landmarks and Historic Preservation Commission. In one weekend, this historic building and its many stories were purged from history.
When the public noticed the illegal demolition, it was too late. The Landmarks Commission called an emergency meeting to discuss the crisis. Sitting directly behind me was a heavy suburban lady, working for Edison. Upon learning no city code enforcement officers were present, she whispered under her breath, “Yes! Excellent!” and promptly left the meeting.
Joined by many outraged citizens, I spoke before the Commission:
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My name is Myles. I am a life long Newark resident.
Parking is a travesty. I have seen:
– Too many viable buildings demolished in the name of progress.
– Too many parking lots erected to serve commuters indifferent to Newark.
– Too many vacant lots awaiting non-existent development.
This blight of so-called “development” must stop. Newark is a city with a strong history. Its buildings are testament to that. Yet, unscrupulous developers’ utter disrespect for our heritage threatens our urban identity.
Newark has future potential. Its buildings are testament to that. Yet, unscrupulous land banking slows down the development our city so desperately needs.
Newark is a lawless city. Its buildings are testament to that:
– Parking developers have no right to illegally demolish historic structures. They do so anyway.
– Parking developers have no right to channel millions of gallons of storm water runoff without paying a cent. They do so anyway.
– Parking developers are not above the law. They think they are anyway.
Those who break the law must be held accountable.
Letting unscrupulous destruction continue without government oversight is permitting lawlessness to continue.
Letting Edison Parking demolish our architectural heritage is telling them, “Go ahead, do it again.”
A thief does not think he will be caught. A thief does not stop until he is punished.
I realize Newark’s Historic Preservation Commission does not have the power to levy fines or jail these surface-parking criminals. But this commission has:
– The power to lobby for stronger legislation that will protect our neighborhoods.
– The power to prevent continued parking construction.
– The power to force corrupt city officials to do their job.
I admire the invaluable service you have rendered this city so far. I encourage you to do more. I encourage you to fight these ignorant developers. Even if victories may be Pyrrhic, at least there is the comforting knowledge that one fought greed, corruption, lawlessness, and ignorance.
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Progress Inc.
Polhemus House demolition
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In 1978, the James Street Commons were made a historic district. In the Federal approval process, each building was meticulously identified and photographed. Each time I review these images, I remember demolished buildings and our lost heritage. Edison ParkFast is not alone. Other institutions in this historic district also contribute to the destruction of public assets and, therefore, to the loss of their own city’s identity. For instance, a few years ago, Rutgers University schemed a land-swap with Jerry Gottesman. Rutgers owned a historic Art Deco building from the 1930s. Edison owned a parking lot. Rutgers exchanged their building for the parking lot, knowing full well this transaction would doom the old building to rubble. As a result of this short-sighted practice and the frequent demolition of Newark’s architectural fabric, Rutgers has painfully transformed itself into an inferior commuter school, with inadequate housing in the immediate area for students and faculty to live and walk to work.
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Commercial buildings on Washington Street (demolished by Edison ParkFast)
Meatpacking district (demolished by so-called developer Marc Berson
Plane Street homes (demolished by Edison ParkFast)
Orange Street homes -(demolished by Rutgers University)
School for the Deaf (demolished by Rutgers University)
High Street warehouses (demolished by the New Jersey Institute of Technology)
1880s fire alarm box (removed by the City of Newark)
Eagle Street brownstones (demolished by Rutgers University)
1828 Lloyd House (sold by preservationists to Rutgers University and consequently demolished without public approval))
45 Bleecker Street (demolished by Rutgers University)
Detroit represents the shortcoming of American-style, car centric urban development. Wide highways slashed through decaying neighborhoods now serve a city devoid of people in whole neighborhoods. In a city that lost 60% of its population since its 1950 height, extensive infrastructure designed to serve millions of people now serves thousands. After Detroit’s July 1967 civil unrest, over 200,000 whites fled Detroit in fewer than five years. Now over 50,000 homes lie vacant and decaying.
During WWII, Detroit was dubbed “the arsenal of democracy” for all the military equipment that rolled out of its auto factories. Planes from Detroit went on to bomb European cities. In a form of fitting, yet ironic, justice Detroit, too, has been bombed. Except this time, it’s a city destroyed from within by the American forces of racism, the automobile, and anti-urban government policies.
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Renaissance Center (colloquially known as Detroit’s Death Star)
The Caroline Crosman School (built 1911)
Drink liquor then “Save Your House.”
Black Power mural welcomes visitors.
Your rights?
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Attempts to rectify Detroit’s fallen status fall short. Everywhere there are fields of surface parking lots, where there were once businesses, people, and wealth. A near-empty monorail system circles a quiet downtown. Downtown is a skyscraper graveyard full rotting Art Deco architectural gems and empty storefronts. Renaissance Center soars above downtown, secluded from the aging and indebted city. The imposing appearance of the nearby Greektown Casino abuts the ominous city jail. Suburban residents travel to Detroit for sports games at Comerica Field; they return afterwards by car to their safe, quiet, and white communities.
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Ten-year-old pumps his own gas
Man repairs fan
The atypical homeless lady: white and blond
Man waits to cross Woodward Avenue
Homeless shields himself from the camera’s stare
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Detroit represents flaws in American culture across levels: government policies that encouraged suburban development at the expense of cities; corporations that developed America’s love of car culture; planners who designed cities and city life around the car. Most of all, Detroit represents the failure of American democracy to end racial segregation. Over fifty years after the end of legal racial segregation, Detroit is a city divided along borders of race and class.
Detroit’s fitting Latin motto is: “Speramus Meliora; Resurget Cineribus.”
We hope for better things; it shall rise from the ashes.
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Recycling center
Toy car crash
Is this advertisement for Obama’s campaign of HOPE and CHANGE an ironic critique of progress?
Drink liquor then “Save Your House.”
Your rights?
Industry and religion
Ford’s River Rouge Factory
Power lines at River Rouge
Lone home in a former neighborhood
Lone home, weedy lots
Nobody knows Detroit’s exact number of abandoned structures.
Former auto body shop
Freshly painted business on empty street
Freshly-painted service station near site of Detroit’s 1967 civil unrest
Candy store littered with used needles
On Devil’s Night (October 30) thousands of homes fall prey to arsonists.
Yoga shop abuts demolition site
Demolition of Brewster Douglas Homes
These columns once supported the roof of an industrial temple, the Packard Auto Plant.
Once active railway abuts the Packard Auto Plant.
The Packard Motel has very good internet ratings.
Michigan Central Station was once the world’s tallest train station at seventeen stories.
Renaissance Center (colloquially known as Detroit’s Death Star)
Vacant skyscrapers
Graffiti lion perched on derilict factory.
Homeless man begs for alms at empty intersection.
Teddy bear pinned to wreckage of burnt home.
Man waits to cross Woodward Avenue
Man repairs fan
Homeless shields himself from the camera’s stare
The atypical homeless lady: white and blond
Ten-year-old pumps his own gas
The Caroline Crosman School (built 1911)
“This is the most fun I’ve ever had in school.” (graffiti from abandoned Caroline Crosman school)
“This place is beautiful.” (graffiti from abandoned Caroline Crosman school)
Visitors to the ruins of vanished Greece, Carthage, and Rome do not see whole structures, so much as shards of memory and the detritus of a lost civilization. Ruins’ emotive power comes less from seeing them intact and more from imagining them as they once were. There is something powerful about “the lost cause.” The imagery of loss draws viewers in to imagine a civilization that was or still could be if history had gone differently. Roman culture and art left a visible impact on the built environment, and on how later civilizations constructed their own identities through claiming legitimacy (real or imagined) descended from Rome. The aesthetics of the southern plantation house, the US state capitals, and thousands of old bank buildings evoke the imagery of Roman columns, white marble, and solid proportions. What material legacy will our own civilization leave when it, too, splinters apart? Who or what is included in the process of memory making? Who is left out?
There are many ways to answer this question. One way is to compare the principles of ancient architecture with the realities of modern culture, and to see where they diverge. This divide is well illustrated by one book: De Architectura or The Ten Books on Architecture, written around 30-15 BCE by Vitruvius, a Roman architect and engineer. From the Renaissance to the Industrial Revolution, architects drew on the content of this book as a user manual and their profession’s “Bible.” Vitruvian design principles guided Palladio for his Venetian villas, Brunelleschi for his Florentine dome, and da Vinci for his drawing of Vitruvian Man. In the face of centuries of tradition, modern architecture diverges from Vitruvius’ aesthetic standards. The globalized world of today with its shimmering skyscrapers, speeding trains, and growing reliance on the Frankenstein of technology makes Roman technological achievements seem small and quaint by contrast. Rome and Vitruvius were steeped in the ornament of tradition and precedent that modern architecture dispenses with. Roman culture seems to have little do with, or say about, modern culture and architecture.
In De Architectura, Vitruvius identifies the three principles of good architecture: beauty (venustas), quality (firmitas), utility (utilitas). The built environment must fulfill all three; to pass the test of time is the measure of good design. I will establish the relevance of each of these principles to modern design thought.
Visiting China in 2011, I was shocked by the reach of globalization. On the train, I witnessed an endless treadmill of mile after mile of identical crops, villages, and cities. The polluted skies and downcast weather hinted at the consequence of growth. Returning home, I earned greater appreciation for my own artistic creations. They seemed so much more innocent – a naïve refuge from reality.
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Scenes filmed from Levittown, Pennsylvania are paired with the corniest rendition of the Star Spangled Banner I could find.