20070118
In any case, until fairly recently, the Bowery always possessed the greatest number of groggeries, flophouses, clip joints, brothels, fire sales, rigged auctions, pawnbrokers, dime museums, shooting galleries, dime-a-dance establishments, fortune-telling salons, lottery agencies, thieves' markets, and tattoo parlors, as well as theaters of the second, third, fifth, and tenth rank. It is also a fact that the Bowery is the only major thoroughfare in New York never to have had a single church built on it. (p.12)
Chinese men sold candy and cigars. Men in general sold tobacco, socks, suspenders, hose, yarn, and gloves. Women sold most of the food, although, after the era of the hot-corn girl, roasted ears were almost always sold by black men. Boys sold ties, pocketbooks, pocket book straps, and photographs. Little girls sold matches, toothpicks, songs, and flowers. After the Civil War, lame soldiers held the monopoly on shoestrings, and they also sold ties and a lesser rank of books and magazines. Italians dispensed ice cream; Germans dealt in sausages. (Luc Sante: Low Life, p. 63)
1. Site
Building the site. In a first exercise the site is re-generated. The Given Site, located in the Bowery, provides source material for an actual Project Site, which acts as a project specific design catalyst. The primary site study synthesizes a top-down planning approach with an emergent bottom-up investigation into reading the urban ecology. In the process the Project Site is built. By re-generating the site, the projects become contextualized within a value system that is formulated by the author(s). Exercise One is conducted in teams of two.
1.1 Site Terms
Our first approach to the site is through an array of terms, the Site List. Record activities within two blocks of the Given Site by writing a list of terms. Refer to the lists of people, actions and items written up by Luc Sante in Low Life. As Walt Whitman did before him, Sante draws up clouds of activities, describing an urban milieu specific to the 19th century Bowery. You may assemble several lists of terms or phrases describing activities, items, scenarios etc.. Each list is consistent in itself in terms of its category and modus.
1.2 Site Notations, Bottom-Up
From your site lists identify three urban programs or activities (Example: Garages, Billboard Guerrilla ads, Surveillance Cameras, Psychics, Bars, Vendors, Deli/Bodegas) and generate a map that records their location around the area of the Given Site. From the locations map develop a line drawing that traces the interaction between program or activity points (dynamic site map). Lay out as a sequence of six simple line drawings, one point cloud and one vector map per activity.
1.3 Site Notations, Top-Down
In a sequence of three simple line drawings conduct a concise analysis of the Island of Manhattan, how the City works and how the Bowery and the Given Site relate to the City. As a group cover three topics: Land Use, Density, Transportation, Structure, The Grid, Fabric, Volumes, Building height, Building type, Light, Topography, Library locations, Entertainment locations. Identify a set of "Manhattan Rules" based on your analysis. Such rules may be articulated in conditional 'If-Then' statements. Example: If an Avenue meets Broadway - Then there is an open plaza.
1.4 Pin-Up
Layout and print on one sheet your word lists, rules and nine notations for the pin-up on Monday 01/22.
.: Jonas 7:00 PM
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