{"id":996,"date":"2006-06-20T06:06:17","date_gmt":"2006-06-20T11:06:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/dont-be-frank\/"},"modified":"2006-06-20T06:15:52","modified_gmt":"2006-06-20T11:15:52","slug":"dont-be-frank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/dont-be-frank","title":{"rendered":"Don’t Be Frank"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jonathan Lethem has an open letter to Frank Gehry<\/a>, enumerating reasons to pull out of Bruce Ratner’s “development” project for Brooklyn:<\/p>\n

The proposal currently on the table is a gang of 16 towers that would be the biggest project ever built by a single developer in the history of New York City. In fact, the proposed arena, like the surrounding neighborhoods, stands to be utterly dwarfed by these ponderous skyscrapers and superblocks. It’s a nightmare for Brooklyn, one that, if built, would cause irreparable damage to the quality of our lives and, I’d think, to your legacy. Your reputation, in this case, is the Trojan horse in a war to bring a commercially ambitious, but aesthetically\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u20ac\u009dand socially\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u20ac\u009ddisastrous new development to Brooklyn. Your presence is intended to appease cultural tastemakers who might otherwise, correctly, recognize this atrocious plan for what it is, just as the notion of a basketball arena itself is a Trojan horse for the real plan: building a skyline suitable to some Sunbelt boomtown. I’ve been struggling to understand how someone of your sensibilities can have drifted into such an unfortunate alliance, with such potentially disastrous results. And so, I’d like to address you as one artist to another. Really, as one citizen to another. Here are some things I’d hope you’ll consider before this project advances any further.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’d write more about it, but I’m way<\/em> hungover from last night’s foray to Fenway Park. On the positive side, I maintained my cover throughout (“I’m a Kansas City Royals fan!”) and thus didn’t get killed by the local fans. More later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jonathan Lethem has an open letter to Frank Gehry, enumerating reasons to pull out of Bruce Ratner’s “development” project for Brooklyn: The proposal currently on the table is a gang of 16 towers that would be the biggest project ever built by a single developer in the history of New York City. In fact, the … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Don’t Be Frank”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-urban-issues"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-g4","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4028,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-june-5-2009","url_meta":{"origin":996,"position":0},"title":"Unrequired Reading: June 5, 2009","author":"Gil","date":"June 5, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Now, where did I leave those links? Oh, yeah! Right under the \"more\" link! I can't think of a good way to write about this post, but I've been saving it for nearly a month, so here it is. * * * This shit always happens in Harlem. * *\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Architecture"","block_context":{"text":"Architecture","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/architecture"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":608,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unreal-city-under-the-brown-fog-of-a-winter-dawn","url_meta":{"origin":996,"position":1},"title":"Unreal city, under the brown fog of a winter dawn","author":"Gil","date":"July 5, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Okay, I've goofed on Frank Gehry before, with his \"Ooh! Look at me! I'm using curved metal surfaces AGAIN!\" But nothing really prepared me for his inane new design for Brooklyn, centering on Bruce Ratner's new NBA arena for the Nets (guess what? It uses curved metal surfaces!) Yes, as\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Architecture"","block_context":{"text":"Architecture","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/architecture"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2071,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/a-brooklyn-accent-okay","url_meta":{"origin":996,"position":2},"title":"A Brooklyn accent, okay?","author":"Gil","date":"May 23, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Happy 125th birthday, Brooklyn Bridge! Here's my post from last September about walking across the bridge with my pal Mark.","rel":"","context":"In "Urban issues"","block_context":{"text":"Urban issues","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/urban-issues"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1073,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/engines","url_meta":{"origin":996,"position":3},"title":"Engines","author":"Gil","date":"August 10, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"This neat post from Virginia Postrel is about a Metropolis writer who recently read Jane Jacobs when examining criticism of the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, which is also discussed in the new issue of New York. Or, as the NYTimes (in bed with the project's real estate developer) sez,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Architecture"","block_context":{"text":"Architecture","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/architecture"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4493,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-sept-25-2009","url_meta":{"origin":996,"position":4},"title":"Unrequired Reading: Sept. 25, 2009","author":"Gil","date":"September 25, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Okay, I'm getting to this late; our conference really wiped me out this week. But it was a raging success, so I'm happy. But exhausted.. If you're looking for some weird and fun links, just click \"more\"! Lisa Simpson, in this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics! * *\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics (explicit)"","block_context":{"text":"Politics (explicit)","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/politics-explicit"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8314,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/podcast-i-was-a-teenage-structuralist","url_meta":{"origin":996,"position":5},"title":"Podcast – I Was A Teenage Structuralist!","author":"Gil","date":"November 3, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show: Richard Gehr - I Was A Teenage Structuralist! \"I've read enough Roland Barthes and Foucault to know it's all fiction, man.\" Richard Gehr's new book, I Only Read It for the Cartoons: The New Yorker's Most Brilliantly Twisted Artists (Amazon\/New Harvest), profiles a dozen New Yorker cartoonists.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?t=voyantpublishing&l=as2&o=1&a=0544114450","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/996\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}