Times Square vs. The High Line : The New Yorker
source: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2009/09/14/090914taco_talk_collins
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- slovelett
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A brilliant "Comment" in the New Yorker by Lauren Collins about some of New York City's new public spaces.
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In 1642, a wheelwright named Claes Rademaker, stooping over a chest of duffels cloth, which he had intended to barter for beaver pelts, was axed in the back of the neck. The murder occurred, the settler David de Vries wrote, “on the Wickquasgeck road over which the Indians passed daily.” This may be the first recorded mention of the Wickquasgeck, parts of which became Brede Weg, the north-south artery of New Amsterdam. Brede Weg was later Anglicized to Broadway, which, at various junctures and junctions—most famously, at Times Square—became many things to many people: casino, brothel, parade ground, planetarium, the Street of Broken Dreams, the Main Stem, the Great White Way.
[full article at link]
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And I have to point out this gem of a metaphor: "Whack a mole, and you may find, across town, the mole whacking itself." You'll have to read it to get the context.
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In 1642, a wheelwright named Claes Rademaker, stooping over a chest of duffels cloth, which he had intended to barter for beaver pelts, was axed in the back of the neck. The murder occurred, the settler David de Vries wrote, “on the Wickquasgeck road over which the Indians passed daily.” This may be the first recorded mention of the Wickquasgeck, parts of which became Brede Weg, the north-south artery of New Amsterdam. Brede Weg was later Anglicized to Broadway, which, at various junctures and junctions—most famously, at Times Square—became many things to many people: casino, brothel, parade ground, planetarium, the Street of Broken Dreams, the Main Stem, the Great White Way.
[full article at link]
--
And I have to point out this gem of a metaphor: "Whack a mole, and you may find, across town, the mole whacking itself." You'll have to read it to get the context.
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- groups:
- Opinion, Architecture
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- tags:
- New York City, Architecture, Times Square, Urbanism, 1 more
