Future of New York

Starting the journey from Penn Station reminds me of the thoughts of Kevin Lynch the way he perceives the image of a city. According to him a city consists of paths, edges, districts, nodes and landmarks. Coming out at 7^th Ave. and looking on the right is one of the main landmark of the city “Empire State Building”. Walking towards uptown on the 7^th Ave. one can’t help but notice “Times Square” which is one of the most important nodes of the city and a global landmark on which millions of eyes focus as they watch the ball drop on the New Year’s Eve.  At the same time its middle of the theater district where renowned Broadway shows such as The Phantom of the Opera, Mama Mia and Wicked attract people from all corners of the globe.

Lewis Mumford may define a city as “a theater of social process”. Everything that is happening in the city is serves the social drama. People living in the city are the actors in this theater.

New York City, “the city that never sleeps” or “the city of lights”, for me, is a theater, a city with a glorious past, an exhilarating present and ever more exciting future. This city is defined by its unique edges. Each path here has its own significance. It is a city that has neighborhoods within the district. In future New York is going to be a combination of various short stories. This city may not expand horizontally in future as there is no provision for future expansion on big scale but the drama (activities) within this city will continually change with time. The first major change that I see in the future of New York in next 50 years is somewhere in Staten Island and that change will bring some major changes with it. This change will consist of the demolition of existing residential area that will be replaced with the construction of a new village for Olympics maybe in 2024 or 2028. This would be a major breakthrough for Staten Island. One may ask why Staten Island? Why not Queens, Bronx or Manhattan? Answer is ahead!

Staten Island is that borough of city that is isolated from the rest of the city and because of the addition of the Olympic village it would be linked to other boroughs. The weak link of Statue of Liberty at present is not strong enough to hold the Staten Island and Manhattan together. Due to the construction of Olympic village there will be massive constructing in Staten Island. The development of the infra structure and the growth will be enormous. Large stadiums would be constructed, wide roads and state of the art new subway system would be developed, Leed accredited buildings would be constructed along the waterfront of Stapleton for the participants and visitors. The city would go green. The Tappen Park would be maintained as the people of Staten Island love it for historical reasons while a new promising skyline for Staten Island will be erected. Standing on a sleek new bridge which blends in perfectly the environment; an architectural marvel, which will connect Manhattan and Staten Island, ones face will lighten-up with the glitter and the glamour of the skylines of New Jersey, Manhattan and Staten Island. This would provide a picture perfect 360 degree view of skyline. This will be the time when finally the people of Staten Island will be active participants in the live theater in New York City. Like any drama, there will be long rehearsal/preparation period, i.e. construction phase; followed by the grand opening, i.e. the Olympics opening ceremony that will lead into the events that will make or break the dreams of so many hopefuls. Like any memorable show that has a climactic ending makes the viewer wanting for more, the Olympics closing ceremony will usher in a new era for Staten Island where the Staten Islanders can define a bright glorious future for their borough or let it slide back to its original ghost town status: a zombie land.

Where you won’t see people on streets at night, there will be no livelihood. People will live all by themselves. It’s gone back to where it is now. Why was Staten Island chosen for Olympics? This was a game! Let me explain. The construction of Olympic Village makes the Staten Island important and that makes the people of Staten Island happy. They get a faster connection of Manhattan that’s like a dream come true for them. So the government makes the people happy for a while and leaves them to what they are good at i.e. restoring the historic districts like Old Town Richmond, Tappen Park etc. The government; i.e. the director of the show will leave up to the Staten Islanders to create an even more exciting sequel to the Olympics, i.e. to give them the opportunity to redefine, overhaul and reshape Staten Island for a ever more promising future.

Now coming to the new connection i.e. is the bridge that’s going to connect Staten Island and Manhattan. It’s like a connection that connects the two isolated boroughs of New York. In the beginning this connection will bring a lot of pleasure but as the time will pass the real situation will come forward and this is that the downtown of Manhattan is already so congested with this new connection things might get a little bit crazy. This craziness will last for a while. Coming to this side of New York, 150 years from now would be very techno. My vision is very typical for this side. Since there is no horizontal space this city to expand hence will expand vertically which already it is to some extent. There will be high speed elevators which will take 30 seconds to reach 121th floor. Buildings would rise up to 300+ floors. Right now New York is a city on two levels. One is the underground level and the other is over the ground. When the buildings would rise up to 300+ floors there would be several horizontal levels connecting these buildings. There will be streets up in the air. Instead of ramps the change in level of streets would be connected through elevators. Concept of garden terrace will increase and also the inside buildings gardens will come common. Landscape and green is the part of life. Not only the percentage of built up will increase but also green spaces will also increase. They may not be called “open green spaces” anymore but they will exist within the buildings. They might be just called green spaces acting as the lungs of the building.

The buildings would be connected through streets which will act as paths.  Maybe, at that time a neighborhood may be defined by this horizontal level like all the vertically big buildings would have a horizontal connection, a floor that would be common for all. This could a communal/public space. This vertical system could also define the class. Let’s say the people living on the lower levels could be the lower class people. These are low income people who drive cars. This would be the people traveling in slow vehicles (cars). As higher the storey of buildings goes the richer the people get. On the topmost level would be the richest people of all. These people don’t drive cars. They have flying vehicles. At the top of these buildings would be air traffic management towers managing the air traffic. Who knows these might be controlled by artificial intelligence. There would be fast traffic lanes up high in air with traffic signals floating in the air. Neon billboards would be floating up in the air.

Coming back to the horizontal level, here would be a new system of subway, High speed trains that would connect the different neighborhoods and districts. In the middle would be the people using these maybe they are middle class. These big buildings would be made of glass, aluminum and new shinny and reflective materials. The sunset would no longer be seen in sky. Instead it would be seen on the buildings as a reflection and because of that it would be hard to figure out the direction of sun. The population will increase massively. The city will grow vertically and there will be no limit to it.

With this massive vertical expansion and dividing the city in horizontal levels how aesthetic this whole scene would be? If we think of it now this all sounds a very chaotic ugly scene but who knows in next 150 years the ugly is the new beautiful. With the passage of time things change. Graffiti was once an art and now just random spray painting by a bunch of junkies destroying the walls. I still think graffiti is an art. These new big buildings how aesthetic are they? The bigness of these buildings may sound a bit ugly but according to Rem Koolhaas bigness is everything. It has its own character. Bigness ends one thing and starts a new thing from the end having its own new identity. So 150 years from now to have big buildings is fine. They can be beautiful. Who knows these buildings have high speed lanes cut out in them for the flying vehicles.

Coming back to where we started from paths, edges, districts, nodes and landmarks. 150 years from now. Will 7^th Ave. or Broadway still be an important path or will the Empire state Building still be an important landmark or would Times Square or Columbus Circle still be a node? NO! They all will loose their identity. The bigness will end them and a new Era of Bigness will start. There will be new paths, edges, districts, nodes and landmarks. These paths may not be so well defined as they might be up in the air, the edges might just be defined by lights, the node could be a just an empty space in air and the landmark could be something just floating in the air. It could be a miniature of the Empire State Building floating in the air. The only one I think will survive amongst all these would be the Statue of Liberty unless French give another statue to Americans as a gift which is again BIG.

Defining New York in Mumford’s way New York future would be a city having small short dramas going on simultaneously. Each drama would link to the next drama coming up creating a continuous chain for better or for worst. Maybe the social system and they way people live their live may become again very conservative and people go back to leading a private life.  New York is a city where anything can happen. This city has its own definition like Jay-Z and  Alicia Keys defines it as “ Concrete Jungle where dreams are made of, there is nothing you can’t do, Now you’re in New York, these streets will make you feel brand new, the light will inspire you…” This is a city where anything is possible in future. It’s a city that has opportunities and where dreams are made.

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