I grew up in a suburb outside Albany and sadly agree with this assessment. While there are decent elements in and around the plaza, it is usually lifeless and separate from the city, and I prefer the neighborhoods near it.
A vast, bleak plaza where peasants can be made to assemble to applaud speeches by the dictator of the moment. It looks more appropriate for North Korea than for the real US.
Context first: I've been an urban planner for well over three decades and, like a lot of my ilk, I sprinkle elements of other things that influence my take on the broader practice: economics and design, in my case.
I appreciate this article and its Jacobian insights into what makes a place work or not, and have read a lot of other works and listened to hours of lectures on the topic. Much of what makes this edifice not work comes down to specifics: no living thing (e.g., trees) in sight, no seating, and really nothing to do except to scoot across it as fast as possible, presumably to get to work. Ayn Rand's Roarke would have been so proud of such a practical design, except for the flying saucer in the middle. This plaza is to public spaces what a freeway is to transportation: designed for one thing (even that assessment might be optimistic, unless you count generating stormwater runoff as a thing) and nothing else. Whatever else this space is, it is not for people. It certainly doesn't make me want to visit Albany.
Albany replaced historic, stable neighborhoods with miles of barren concrete to clean it up. Think how wonderful it would have been if the same amount of money had been spent helping people buy and restore all their homes and neighborhood pubs thereby creating a middle class community for the people who work in the state office buildings down the hill instead of an empty concrete wasteland.
Love this series, but I do take issue with how you describe the folks who work in those buildings in the plaza. In my experience, state and city government workers are overwhelmingly from working class and immigrant backgrounds, majority non-white, and decidedly not “front row” types. And the reality of government bureaucracy is deeply messy and human and the opposite of the cold technocracy you describe. Honestly most people probably would prefer it was more efficient and rational! I think what you’re describing is more like what think tanks wish local government was like.
Chris, Great article and pictures. Not only have the buildings divided our communities, but the educational options in NY state have destroyed the ability for many to find meaningful jobs. When the education department decided everyone needed a Regents Diploma to graduate, instead of more training for skilled labor, many capable folks did not graduate. Bigger government buildings, take away the character of the neighborhoods. Glad I found your articles, thanks to Chris Churchill's newsletter.
I liked following your capital region walks and photos on Twitter but I don’t agree with this story almost at all.
Yes the Plaza can look soulless when it’s completely empty. Come back when it’s filled with food trucks and a small farmers market. Or during one of the concerts or movies shown there. Or for one of the small festivals held there. Or for the free ice skating in the winter. Or when West Capitol Park is filled with state workers literally every workday when it’s above 60 degrees.
If you absolutely hate the brutalist(? modernist?) architecture, then look instead at the world-class modern art collection outside and inside the plaza. Go to a show inside the Egg and realize that it’s actually a great, comfortable venue.
I feel the plaza was a big influence on the kind of art and architecture I enjoy as an adult. Yes, it’s terrible that it displaced a huge amount of downtown residents and businesses, but that already happened. It’s done- all you can do is try to prevent it from happening again. If your disgust with Rockefeller et al is so great that you can’t see the plaza is now one of Albany’s greatest assets, you’re being willfully blind.
A lot of people have had a lot of amazing times and fun down at the plaza, calling it soulless is low effort. I guess you're never there when people were dancing having the time of their life at the free concerts, or seen the excitement in a child's eye when they finally get to see the fireworks lose up.
Local - As someone who has lived in ALB since 1979,, I agree that there have been great times on the Plaza. 4th of July, concerts, et al. But the effects of the demolition changed the nature of the city for the worse. http://www.98acresinalbany.com/
I hadn't come across your walking-writing pursuits till Paul Graham recommended you on twitter.
I was pleasantly surprised by your long essays and your longer walks. A gentleman's account of observations about life and all the disparity it has to offer. I've been a firm believer that the quality of your observation and experiences in life are inversely proportional to the speed with which you live it. All the experiences you narrate are a poignant reminder of it. It is impossible to experience the disjoint between the part of the city that takes and the part of the city that gives while on a drive. May be because most of your faculties are centred around driving and not absorbing the environs that surround you. A walk frees up your mental bandwidth to feel whatever is going on around you and try to make sense of it.
I look forward to continuing with you on this journey and exploration Chris. Thanks for writing this for us.
One thing I didn't want to address in this piece, but I was hoping someone would shout out. Watervliet, which I talk favorably about, also has a massive public works project that dominates it -- the Arsenal. A massive gated military base that while it provides jobs, also kinda split the town into two.
There is no way around public spaces; just think Empire State Plaza (and the network of highways in Albany) are particularly harsh examples and how not to do it.
Which brings the larger question (not sure I want to make this blog about urban planning, which is outside my knowledge set), but every town is the product of a group playing Sim City, but in my experience, I have felt that the towns that "work" the best for all the various classes, is more self organized rather than planned. Brazilia vs Jakarta comes to my mind as extreme examples
There’s not much I miss about Albany, except for Washington Park. I lived at the far end, on South Lake Ave. I walked through or around the park daily (worked at Rockefeller Institute and for the Assembly). I was very aware of how much different my piece of Albany was compared to others. I found out the first week I lived there as I decided to just walk around (and go to the record shop). I knew which street it was on and could have taken a fairly direct route there, but it was a nice summer day so I meandered a bit. I remember being surprised at how quickly a street changed from well kept brownstones to rundown buildings. (The cities I’d lived in prior were Boston and St Louis.)
One of the highest rated skateparks around is Bluebanks on the south end of Washington Park, an easy one mile walk from Empire Plaza. But that would not further the narrative.
I remember passing through Albany in the early '70s, seeing what Rockefeller had wrought and wanting to vomit. For the last nine years I've been walking both sides of every street in San Francisco (2400 miles, almost done) and learned that I most like the Bayview, Visitacion Valley, the Excelsior, and my own Mission neighborhoods the most. There's life here. http://596-precincts.blogspot.com/
Lord, I loved Albany when I interned there in '88. I was 21 and it was a town jammed with bars and hangout spots. But man, all the things you callout were there then and so much of the city oozed of neglect and abandonment.
I grew up in a suburb outside Albany and sadly agree with this assessment. While there are decent elements in and around the plaza, it is usually lifeless and separate from the city, and I prefer the neighborhoods near it.
A vast, bleak plaza where peasants can be made to assemble to applaud speeches by the dictator of the moment. It looks more appropriate for North Korea than for the real US.
Context first: I've been an urban planner for well over three decades and, like a lot of my ilk, I sprinkle elements of other things that influence my take on the broader practice: economics and design, in my case.
I appreciate this article and its Jacobian insights into what makes a place work or not, and have read a lot of other works and listened to hours of lectures on the topic. Much of what makes this edifice not work comes down to specifics: no living thing (e.g., trees) in sight, no seating, and really nothing to do except to scoot across it as fast as possible, presumably to get to work. Ayn Rand's Roarke would have been so proud of such a practical design, except for the flying saucer in the middle. This plaza is to public spaces what a freeway is to transportation: designed for one thing (even that assessment might be optimistic, unless you count generating stormwater runoff as a thing) and nothing else. Whatever else this space is, it is not for people. It certainly doesn't make me want to visit Albany.
Albany replaced historic, stable neighborhoods with miles of barren concrete to clean it up. Think how wonderful it would have been if the same amount of money had been spent helping people buy and restore all their homes and neighborhood pubs thereby creating a middle class community for the people who work in the state office buildings down the hill instead of an empty concrete wasteland.
Love this series, but I do take issue with how you describe the folks who work in those buildings in the plaza. In my experience, state and city government workers are overwhelmingly from working class and immigrant backgrounds, majority non-white, and decidedly not “front row” types. And the reality of government bureaucracy is deeply messy and human and the opposite of the cold technocracy you describe. Honestly most people probably would prefer it was more efficient and rational! I think what you’re describing is more like what think tanks wish local government was like.
Chris, Great article and pictures. Not only have the buildings divided our communities, but the educational options in NY state have destroyed the ability for many to find meaningful jobs. When the education department decided everyone needed a Regents Diploma to graduate, instead of more training for skilled labor, many capable folks did not graduate. Bigger government buildings, take away the character of the neighborhoods. Glad I found your articles, thanks to Chris Churchill's newsletter.
I liked following your capital region walks and photos on Twitter but I don’t agree with this story almost at all.
Yes the Plaza can look soulless when it’s completely empty. Come back when it’s filled with food trucks and a small farmers market. Or during one of the concerts or movies shown there. Or for one of the small festivals held there. Or for the free ice skating in the winter. Or when West Capitol Park is filled with state workers literally every workday when it’s above 60 degrees.
If you absolutely hate the brutalist(? modernist?) architecture, then look instead at the world-class modern art collection outside and inside the plaza. Go to a show inside the Egg and realize that it’s actually a great, comfortable venue.
I feel the plaza was a big influence on the kind of art and architecture I enjoy as an adult. Yes, it’s terrible that it displaced a huge amount of downtown residents and businesses, but that already happened. It’s done- all you can do is try to prevent it from happening again. If your disgust with Rockefeller et al is so great that you can’t see the plaza is now one of Albany’s greatest assets, you’re being willfully blind.
A lot of people have had a lot of amazing times and fun down at the plaza, calling it soulless is low effort. I guess you're never there when people were dancing having the time of their life at the free concerts, or seen the excitement in a child's eye when they finally get to see the fireworks lose up.
Local - As someone who has lived in ALB since 1979,, I agree that there have been great times on the Plaza. 4th of July, concerts, et al. But the effects of the demolition changed the nature of the city for the worse. http://www.98acresinalbany.com/
I hadn't come across your walking-writing pursuits till Paul Graham recommended you on twitter.
I was pleasantly surprised by your long essays and your longer walks. A gentleman's account of observations about life and all the disparity it has to offer. I've been a firm believer that the quality of your observation and experiences in life are inversely proportional to the speed with which you live it. All the experiences you narrate are a poignant reminder of it. It is impossible to experience the disjoint between the part of the city that takes and the part of the city that gives while on a drive. May be because most of your faculties are centred around driving and not absorbing the environs that surround you. A walk frees up your mental bandwidth to feel whatever is going on around you and try to make sense of it.
I look forward to continuing with you on this journey and exploration Chris. Thanks for writing this for us.
One thing I didn't want to address in this piece, but I was hoping someone would shout out. Watervliet, which I talk favorably about, also has a massive public works project that dominates it -- the Arsenal. A massive gated military base that while it provides jobs, also kinda split the town into two.
There is no way around public spaces; just think Empire State Plaza (and the network of highways in Albany) are particularly harsh examples and how not to do it.
Which brings the larger question (not sure I want to make this blog about urban planning, which is outside my knowledge set), but every town is the product of a group playing Sim City, but in my experience, I have felt that the towns that "work" the best for all the various classes, is more self organized rather than planned. Brazilia vs Jakarta comes to my mind as extreme examples
There is much akin to Dorothea Lange in your work—thank you.
There’s not much I miss about Albany, except for Washington Park. I lived at the far end, on South Lake Ave. I walked through or around the park daily (worked at Rockefeller Institute and for the Assembly). I was very aware of how much different my piece of Albany was compared to others. I found out the first week I lived there as I decided to just walk around (and go to the record shop). I knew which street it was on and could have taken a fairly direct route there, but it was a nice summer day so I meandered a bit. I remember being surprised at how quickly a street changed from well kept brownstones to rundown buildings. (The cities I’d lived in prior were Boston and St Louis.)
Oh Washington Park is lovely, and yes how quickly neighborhoods change in Albany is jarring.
The difference between Lark on either side of Central is pretty stunning
I never cared much for skateboarders. I need to reassess that position. Good for them!!!
One of the highest rated skateparks around is Bluebanks on the south end of Washington Park, an easy one mile walk from Empire Plaza. But that would not further the narrative.
"The idea that government, empowered by the best and brightest, wielding “Science!,” can mold humans, cities, and societies into their better selves."
The dictionary definition of communism, in its pure, unwoke, unpossible form.
I remember passing through Albany in the early '70s, seeing what Rockefeller had wrought and wanting to vomit. For the last nine years I've been walking both sides of every street in San Francisco (2400 miles, almost done) and learned that I most like the Bayview, Visitacion Valley, the Excelsior, and my own Mission neighborhoods the most. There's life here. http://596-precincts.blogspot.com/
Lord, I loved Albany when I interned there in '88. I was 21 and it was a town jammed with bars and hangout spots. But man, all the things you callout were there then and so much of the city oozed of neglect and abandonment.