AN URBAN HIGH

 HOW ONE MAN’S VISION REVITALIZED NEW YORK REAL ESTATE

and PROVIDED A PERPETUAL URBAN HIGH

It's almost as if the whole of 20th century architectural form -- from early brick geometries to glass-paneled perpendiculars to undulating choruses of banding -- convened to pose for this picture which I took (with my iPhone!) from New York City's High Line. Would that the visionary of this great elevated park, Peter Oblenz, had lived to see the beauty and vitality his grand scheme has contributed to New York life --  a park in the sky, pastoral, futuristic, yet accessible to everyone. Obletz lived alongside the abandoned elevated Tenth Avenue train track that ran down the middle of the street (and, with distressing frequency, ran down pedestrians; The street was nicknamed Death Avenue.) His vision would be hard won, require decades to manifest, and would transform an industrial derelict a paramount  example of urban reclamation and a signature New York destination.

 The original High Line was built in the thirties to service the warehouses along the West Side. No sooner was it built, however, than train traffic slowed to a trickle, thanks to the familiar death blow of the Depression and the popularity of truck transport. The last train ran on the High Line in 1980 (carrying, it is said, a load of turkeys on Thanksgiving morning), leaving the artery to rust and grow wild with weeds. Conrail, the railroad that owned the High Line, wanted it gone, as did a consortium of local property owners, led by one of the area’s largest interests, Edison Parking, and the City. The only reason it remained in place is that, essentially, no one wanted to pay to take it down. And so the High Line languished. Then, Peter Oblenz began rallying for the site's reclamation.

 It would be a decade and half before a not-for-profit group of neighborhood residents, business owners, design professionals and civic groups formed Friends of the High Line to carry forth Oblenz's mission. They garnered notable and powerful New Yorkers in the art, architecture, and civic world to support the vision of an elevated park. These efforts, of course, pleased no one who’d been entangled in the long battle to topple the High Line. For 20 years, local property owners were the main opponents to the park-conversion plan. At the height of the battle with Friends of the High Line, Edison Parking launched a propaganda campaign. One flyer read, “”Money doesn’t grow on trees, and last we checked, it isn’t growing in the weeds of the High Line.”

 Ultimately, the possibilities of the High Line caught the public imagination, and movers and shakers were able to persuade all the property owners to sign over their rights using the tool of allowing the owners to transfer their development rights to surrounding properties. They then rezoned parts of West Chelsea to allow for new, larger developments.

 Today the High Line is one of only two elevated parks in the world (the other, in Paris).  A Standard Hotel, built to straddle it, is among the City's fashionable, and a new branch of the Whitney Museum of American Art has come to the neighborhood. The landscaped walk-in-the-sky is planted with wild flowers, carving its way for  miles through the urban fabric two to three stories above ground.  Framed mostly by the backs of buildings and billboards, with occasional views opening out to the Hudson or across Manhattan, it is a voyeur's paradise, a nature-lover's retreat, an urban oasis.  Its uncanny isolation is magical, for  the park is integrated into the urban fabric so seamlessly as to be nearly invisible.

 As a result of the Peter Obletz' vision, its articulation, and the forbearence of those he motivated, even the humblest civic undertaking in New York today has become viewed as a potential gold mine. What the High Line achieved for pedestrian pleasure, it also accomplished for the future of urban design. City planners who once had to coax developers to build in rundown neighborhoods are groping for strategies to keep them at bay.

THE VISIONARY’S IMPACT

HOW ONE MAN’S VISION REVITALIZED NEW YORK REAL ESTATE
and PROVIDED A PERPETUAL URBAN HIGH

It's almost as if the buildings convened to create a portrait of 20th century architectural form -- brick geometry, perpendicular glass paneling, undulating choruses of banding. Such a view! I took this photo (with my iPhone!) from one of New York City's greatest civic sites, the High Line, the elevated garden walkway linking three Manhattan neighborhoods with acres of open space atop an abandoned rail deck. Would that the visionary who conceived it, Peter Obletz, were still alive to rejoice in its pleasures and success.

Part of the High Line's allure is its physical isolation, carving its way for miles through the urban fabric two to three stories above ground. It is framed mostly by the backs of buildings and billboards, with occasional views opening out to the Hudson or across Manhattan. It has provided Manhattan with a park in the sky (one of only two in the world -- the other being in Paris), pastoral, futuristic, yet accessible to everyone.

Obletz lived in the then-dilapidated neighborhood where the Tenth Avenue train track ran down the middle of the street and, with distressing frequency, ran down pedestrians. (The street was nicknamed Death Avenue.) He began rallying for his reclamation idea nearly 30 years ago, but it was not until 1999 when a not-for-profit group of neighborhood residents, business owners, design professionals, and civic groups formed Friends of the High Line to engage the city's notables in its cause.

The original elevated railway track was built at the turn of the century to serve the warehouses along the West Side. Train traffic soon slowed to a trickle, however, thanks to the familiar death blow of the Depression and the popularity of truck transport. The last train (said to be carrying a load of turkeys on Thanksgiving morning) ran on the High Line in 1980, leaving the artery to rust and grow wild with weeds. Conrail, the railroad's owner, wanted it gone, as did a consortium of local property owners led by one of the area’s largest interests, Edison Parking, and the City. At the height of the battle with Friends of the High Line, Edison Parking launched a propaganda campaign. One flyer read, “”Money doesn’t grow on trees, and last we checked, it isn’t growing in the weeds of the High Line.” And so the High Line languished for decades.

But once the cause became invested with a certain intangible downtown sexiness -- -- a landscaped aerie planted with wildflowers, an urban oasis, a scenic retreat --  the possibilities for the long-neglected piece of industrial detritus began to excite the potential donors needed to fight for its cause. Movers and shakers of the art and architecture worlds, civic powerhouses, and celebrities such as Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick got involved, and the vision began to take root.

Property owners were persuaded by the Department of City Planning to sign over their rights using the tool of allowing the owners to transfer their development rights to surrounding properties. Then parts of West Chelsea were rezoned to allow for new, larger developments.  In fact, the partnership between city planners and High Line advocates was one of the most sincere efforts in recent memory to protect the public interest from an onslaught of commercialization. The final zoning regulations for the area require setbacks to protect some major view corridors; at other points, buildings are allowed to shoot straight up to maintain the sense of compression that is part of the High Line’s charm. The core of several blocks, meanwhile, remain zoned for manufacturing in the hope of maintaining some of the area’s character.

Today, a dozen or more luxury towers and a new branch of the Whitney Museum of American Art have claimed the High Line neighborhood. The Standard Hotel actually straddles the Line. The surrounding neighborhood, too, has been  revitalized, and real estate prices, which have escalated more than 30 percent,  are now among the highest in the city. Because of Obletz' vision and the efforts of those he motivated, even the humblest civic undertaking has now become viewed as a potential gold mine.

MAKING SHIRLEY'S PORTRAIT of HER and HER PORTRAIT

Our neighbor Shirley, who died last summer, was as indelible a presence in the neighborhood as was her startling makeup and Indian black hair. A tiny woman in brilliant red lipstick and vivid circles of rouge, she walked up and down the neighborhood for at least four hours -- or eight miles -- a day. A vision of perpetual, steady motion, her head bent forward, her frozen shoulder curved behind, she was a moving fixture enveloped in an aura of happiness. “When I’m walking, it’s like I’m in heaven,” she used to say.

No one knew how old Shirley was, except Harold, her deeply protective husband who was retired from his career as a welder for Pan American Airlines and who wasn’t much for talking. I guessed from her height (maybe 4’10”) and sun-stained skin and fragile-looking bones that she might be around eighty. Of obvious Cherokee descent (her hair was obsidian black and her cheekbones angled high), she grew up on Florida’s west coast in deep orange grove territory where, on her walks to school, she encountered all manner of “Swamplandia’s” creatures. When the School Board insisted she ride the school bus, she refused. Her mother stormed the School Board office, arguing on Shirley’s behalf…and won. Shirley walked the several miles and several hours each way, in bliss.

Her mother must have adored her, for when she asked Shirley what kind of dress she’d like for her first grown-up outing, Shirley showed her a picture of Suzy Wong in a frock with a Chinese collar. Her mother sewed the dress for her and added a bauble that Shirley wore around her ear. Years later, she would have a portrait painted of herself taken from a photograph of her in the dress and bauble. This portrait was the beginning point of our friendship.

I, too, am an avid walker. And whenever Shirley and I crossed paths in the neighborhood, we’d stop and chat. Usually about our mutual love of being in nature. “I could live happily under a tree,” she’d say. “I could live happily in a tree,” I’d answer. When I revealed to her that I was an artist, she asked if I’d like to see the portrait. It seems Shirley also loved to paint, and it was this passion, along with her love for the memory of that dress and her mother, that had prompted her to have this special portrait made.

I was eager to see this evidence of Shirley’s history. Waiting outside the chain link fence that surrounded the ramshackle house where she and Harold lived, I contemplated Shirley’s devotions – walking, communing with wildlife, and now, it seemed, art. Harold emerged through the front door carrying the portrait. Even from the sidewalk, I could see that it was elegant and articulate. Up close, I could easily detect not only the determination Shirley possessed in her youth, but also her youthful beauty.

Colorful, dare I say dramatic makeup was only one among Shirley’s notable features. Her black eyes were starkly framed by bangs and braids. A beautician once convinced her to cut off the braids. She compensated with braided wisps which lent her an incongruous twist of urban chic.

Shirley’s smile outshone everything else. I never once encountered her on my dog walks when she didn’t greet me with a grin so generous it could fill a movie screen. “You look so pretty today. I love what you’re wearing…or, I love those earrings…or I love the color of your shirt,” she’d say. And she truly meant it. She was easy to delight.



I asked Shirley if I could bring over my camera and photograph her with the portrait so I could do a painting of her. Harold granted permission and chaperoned the event. Later that year, 2009, I invited them over to my house a few blocks away to see the finished work. The painting is nearly life size, and I titled it, “Shirley, Now and Then.” Harold nodded at it. Shirley grinned and glowed. “You’re a really good artist,” she told me. Then I took a photo of her standing next to my painting of the picture of her holding the portrait and then another photo of her standing next to my painting holding the photo of her holding the portrait. (Very post modern, indeed.) Now, added to her compliments about my appearance whenever I saw her was always praise for my talent.

Shirley and I often talked about animals – my dogs, the squirrels and birds she fed, her own dog, Bonnie. Bonnie was a sweet old pit bull who, apparently, loved to dance. Music was yet another of Shirley’s passions, and she told me how every night she would put on a record and dance. (Learning this was reassuring, because I’d never been entirely sure their house had electricity). Bonnie, it seems, also loved dancing. Upon hearing the music, she would stand up on her two hind legs and “walk” across the floor to dance with Shirley.

For years, Harold and Shirley bought birdseed to spread around the front yard poincianas where Shirley also fed individually-named squirrels and foxes. You might have taken her for St. Francis of Assisi…or Snow White (if Snow White could be a tiny Cherokee woman with vivid lipstick and wispy braids), surrounded by adoring woodland creatures and glowing with beneficence. (Knowing, squawking blue jays perched on Shirley’s shoulders as she tossed morsels to the assembly, their tails a riot of twitching arabesques. Then, money got tight (I assume Harold and Shirley lived on his Social Security), and Harold determined that the wildlife food was too much of an expense. The feedings stopped. Still, a squirrel or two would often trot alongside Shirley on her walks, chattering, maybe scolding, but undoubtedly sustaining the bond.

Long after telling me the story of Bonnie the Dancing Dog, I asked what had happened to Bonnie. Dade County, it seems, had passed an anti-pit bull ordinance restricting the breed from residential neighborhoods, and the dog police had come and taken Bonnie away. Shirley related the story to me soberly, but without anguish or even nostalgia. I was crushed. Shirley resumed her walking.

THE CULTURAL GLUTTON FEASTS AGAIN: THE ART BASEL REPORT

Every year, the biggest decision when attending the annual international Art Basel Exhibition in Miami Beach is whether to focus on the art or on the people. The cast of characters is feathered, tattooed, bejeweled, and otherwise sartorially splendid. The art fair offers one of the greatest shows on earth: more museum-quality art under one roof at one time than, probably, any time in history. Not to mention the city-wide satellite exhibitions. All of which draw thousands of artists, dealers, brokers, viewers, reporters, and party-goers. Last year I reveled in the great many exhibits of work by the 20th century American abstract landscape painter Milton Avery and a whole slew of Lucien Freud portraits. This year there were numerous 20th century female artists one seldom sees, like the ceramic artist and painter Beatrice Wood (who died at the age of 105 and lived on Hershey chocolate) and surrealist sculptor Leonore Tawney, as well as a few Alice Neel portraits. One year I discovered an gallery showing the work of Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhove, the German-born Dadist and friend of Duchamp. Among my greatest discoveries this year was a Swiss gallery showing the work of Gitte Schafer whose small pristine framed assemblages moved me as much as the little Joseph Campbell box sculpture of five tiny wine goblets each holding a marble.

Among my favorite installations was a display of life-size, tunnel-headed costume sculptures by the Chicago artist Nick Cave made of thousands of iridescent buttons.  His work always combines high fashion, science fiction, and sheer beauty in startling ways.

Another of the crucial decisions  to be made each year about Art Basel is what shoes to wear. I’m known for being fascinated by my own feet — a childhood of running barefoot, decades of dance training in everything from ballroom slippers to tap shoes and jazz thongs, eras of wearing platforms and stilt-high heels, and, today, the omnipresent sandal (I do, after all, live in Miami). This year, by happy accident, I came upon the Croc store on Miami Beach’s famed Lincoln Road. There, aside from hideously wonderful signature slip-on that I do my gardening in, was, lo and behold, an entire selection of Crocs in an array of styles and all with the same springy, durable weightlessness that gives the brand its signature desirability. They resemble "jellies," the great plastic, candy-colored sandals of yore, and certain styles change color between shade and daylight. Enchanting! I chose a perforated ballet-slipper style with an open toe. Significant or not, I completed a series of paintings showing my feet in shoes — character shoes and ballroom open toes -- just before Art Basel opened,  The paintings, in gouache, were done over drawings I made in 1993 after photographs taken of me by the clothing designer and blues singer Judy Tampa in 1992. You can see them at: http://tinyurl.com/cy7f463

BLESSED BE THE BOUNTY

AND ALL WE DO TO SUPPORT IT

RADICAL WRITING and 

LAURA'S RECOMMENDATIONS 

for DECEMBER

ENJOY!

THE MOMENT

A WALK DOWN THE MILE

A FEAST, in REFLECTION

Even while the era of Tiffany windows is long gone, the hungry eye can still find tasty morsels on Miracle Mile where the poetry of the fabulous lives on.