Home at last

Last year, one of my Montaigne posts included his description of his library, which is one of the few things in life I’m envious of.

But now the New York Observer tells me it can all be ours — on Central Park West, no less — for a mere $7.5 million!

Seriously, go over to the architect’s site and check out the pix of this gorgeous duplex. Then send me money so I can buy the place. I promise I’ll let you come over.

(But I bet the co-op board has a “No dogs” policy. Grr.)

City of Glass Shards

In our last Unrequired Reading, I noted that Frank “curved metal surfaces” Gehry had been bounced as the architect of the Atlantic Yards (AY) arena project for the Nets, in favor of a design that will shave $150-$200 million from construction costs. At the time, I laughed over the depiction of the new arena design as an “airplane hangar.”

Now NYTimes’ architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff — whom I’ve goofed on many a time — offers up a cri de coeur against city politics and real estate development, treating Mr. Gehry’s dismissal by developer Forest City Ratner as a “blow to the art of architecture” and a “shameful betrayal of public trust.”

Architecture, we are being told, is something decorative and expendable, a luxury we can afford only in good times, or if we happen to be very rich. What’s most important is to build, no matter how thoughtless or dehumanizing the results.

Mr. Ouroussoff (the spelling of his name changes from byline to byline, seemingly, so if you look him up, you might try to search a variant spelling with one “s”) twice characterizes the original design for the surrounding AY buildings as evoking tumbling or falling shards of glass, as though that’s a positive thing, while the replacement design for the Nets’ arena by Ellerbe Becket goes within one sentence from “just sits there, adding nothing” to “deadly.” You really need to read it.

What I find sad/funny about this is that Mr. Ouroussoff seems only now to realize that real estate developers (including Forest City Ratner) generally don’t give a crap about architecture. They care about getting land cheap and making lots of money. And speaking of lots. . .

(Don’t get me started on how Mr. Ourousoff’s newspaper managed to demolish numerous businesses in the process of putting up its brand new building, which was developed by . . . Forest City Ratner!)

At one point, Mr. Ourousoff remarks that the abandonment of Mr. Gehry’s design is “the betrayal of a particular community,” but manages throughout the article to skirt the issue of the betrayal (and destruction) of the existing community. After all, it’s a busy intersection and, well . . .

Some people argued that it was overscaled — traffic would be a nightmare — and that it would destroy the character of the neighborhood. But to those of us who defended it, Mr. Gehry’s design was an ingenious solution to a seemingly intractable problem, one that would provide a focal point for an area (and arguably a borough) that could use some cohesion.

To me, it looks like Mr. Gehry was answering a question that no one was really asking. Except Forest City Ratner.

Bonus! I’m reminded of something I read about Donald Trump in the last year or so. An interviewer asked him why he doesn’t commission big-name architects to design really fantastic buildings. He replied (I’m paraphrasing), “Why bother? Between the zoning laws and the activist groups, it all gets stripped down to a big tower anyway.” So he cuts out the middleman and goes right for the big, uninteresting tower.

Double-Bonus! The best website I read about the ongoing disaster of AY is Atlantic Yards Report. And if you’re looking for more examples of what’s lost through NYC’s gentrification, visit Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York.

Triple-Bonus! NYmag.com offers an entertaining distillation of the article!

N.W.H.

I bought a brown fedora at Arnold’s Hats — in the location across from the Port Authority — about 10 or 11 years ago, so I’m kinda sad that they’re closing down.

Based on the Wall of Fame in that store, I was pretty sure I was the first white customer they’d had in a long time. Measuring my head, my salesman told me that I had a “football-shaped head,” just like his. That would make it more of a challenge.

My wife thinks that means I look like this (rt.):

bertenernie

Now that I haven’t shaved in a week, perhaps it’s more like this.

(Update: Sonofabitch! I should’ve named this post Milliner’s Crossing! Dammit!)

Dam, straight.

I took a half-day, ran some errands, and then got home with plenty of time to work on my post about John Lanchester & the metaphors of risk and finance. Or I could’ve written up the rest of my notes about last week’s Las Vegas trip, and posted the pix from that. Or I could’ve sprawled out on the sofa, read some Plutarch, and let the afternoon drift by.

Instead, I drove Rufus out to the pet store and then took him on a walk across the Monksville Dam. Enjoy the pix:

The 0-fer Intersection

Many years ago, when I was a micropress publisher, the first book I put out had an introduction written by Samuel R. Delany. This was a coup, because Delany had built a significant fan-following over his years in publishing, first in science fiction and then in the high-brow world of literary theory. He loved the short stories that we were publishing and, while his introduction may not have convinced a single person to actually read the stories, I believe his imprimatur did boost sales. I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that having his name on the cover helped us move tens of books. (I keeeed: I was not a good publisher.)

A year later, shooting the breeze in his impossibly book-lined apartment, Chip (as I’d come to know him) asked me what the press’ next book would be. I had no ideas, so he offered me two collections of his letters, one set from 1984 and another from the early 1990s. I looked over both sets of bound photocopies. I thought about the cachet of publishing new work by a guy who’d written some of the seminal science fiction (and fantasy) novels of the 1960’s and ’70’s. I considered the kindness he was bestowing by essentially offering to waive any royalties in order to strengthen the micropress.

And I told him, “Y’know, Chip, I’d love to say yes right now, but I have to tell you: I’ve never read a single book of yours. Given that fact, I’m a little nervous about committing to publishing a book by you.”

He chewed on his lower lip for half a second, reached over to one of the many bookshelves in his apartment, and said, “Well, why don’t you read the Einstein Intersection? It’s quick and somewhat representative of my earlier work. You can read it in a day or two and then let me know if you still want to publish my letters!”

I did, and I did and we published 1984 a year later. (Neil Gaiman gave us a blurb for that one; I’d actually read his work beforehand.)

So that’s our 0-fer of the week: I was once asked to publish a book by someone whose books I’d never read.

I’ve gone on to read a bunch of Chip’s work, including his best-known novel, Dhalgren. I’ve even volunteered to proofread his galleys under crazy time constraints (the all-time craziest being the 30 hours I spent poring over the reissue of The Fall of the Towers back in 2003). Despite my insecurities, we’ve stayed pals long after I closed the press down, and that brings me to the point of this piece: to wish my pal Chip a happy birthday!

Many happy returns, y’hirsute galoot!