Dennis Hollingsworth

SPURA My Way

Apropos of this and this...
* The orange blocks = 6 storied buildings in the existing pattern of historical LES urbanism.
* The green = a raised platform of parkland, another elevated highline, fatter this time and not a remnant repurposed. Perforate as needed for light and air below.
* Darker green: a subterranean park made from old Delancy Station, interwoven with the elevated Seward Park above.
* Towers get their air rights from the buildings in the orange zone in exchange for a park and compensation for the costs of building in a more expensive era. When you build, you have to borrow money which has to be paid back, naturally. As time passes, money is worth less, the standards of habitation and the cost of living naturally increase, the more expensive costs of construction seek more rental/lease income in order to pay it back, leading to ever increasing density, and alienating scale.

Transfer the pressure of density aloft to the towers and preserve the scale of the street. I wonder how tall and thick the towers have to be in order to compensate for the costs of the park and the subsidy for the LES blocks below?

The lion layeth with the lamb? Corbusier's Paris plan and the old Paris too? Having your cake and eating away? Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs in collusion, on a date? Is this an ideal that one can only point to and never relish the realization? Maybe.

Maybe not.