Paul Bass Photo
Church Street South has many lives. In the early 1960s, it was a site that frustrated the legendary Mies van der Rohe into ultimately walking away from his first building in Modernist Mecca New Haven. In 1969, it was a topic of discussion again when Yale Dean Charles Moore created a new vision of site planning that made gateways, focal points and plazas — old sites writ new — a point of design.
Enter the very beginning of a housing crisis that has grown to epic proportions this month, and seems to continue spiraling out of control.
The budget was tiny. Trusting materials instead of common sense, architects opted for Supergraphics — large geometric painted abstract shapes painted onto the necessarily blank facades — to add interest, provide zest and hipness to a cheaply built set of concrete block, flat roofed boxes. Design matters — not just for the things architects celebrate, like the long gone Supergraphics — design matters in creating places that sustain versus drain cash and hope from those who need both the most.
The chickens have come home to roost — and parts of a place built for safe harbor now becomes condemned by the very government that had them built for endangering the lives of its residents.
Click on the above audio file to hear Duo Dickinson’s full WNHH radio “Design Czar” commentary. To get the episode later, find it in iTunes or on any podcast app under “WNHH Community Radio.”
Didn't Mayor Richard C Lee grow up in a triple decker on Shelton Avenue in Newhallville - not the Oak Street neighborhood? In Doug Rae's book "City: Urbanism and Its End" Lee describes his experience in that apartment positively, including descriptions of the community's spirit, convenience to local pastry shops, and accommodations made by his mother.
When Lee was running for mayor in the early 1950s, he visited tenements in the Oak Street area.
I'd like to see a proposal to substantially renovate the existing complex by:
1) the green spaces privatized for the residents with tasteful fencing and gates,
2) pitched roofs added to the existing buildings like what was done with McConaughey Terrace about 5 years ago (see here: http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/122892180.jpg)
3) surgical demolition to remove hidden corners that are difficult to police and make room for a new street through the center of the complex where the existing central pathway is,
4) new construction of market rate residential and commercial space along Union Avenue and on the north end of the site where there is currently a surface parking lot,
5) possible conversion of some existing units in the complex to market rate units,
and 6) re-open Columbus Avenue to through traffic
This envisions that most or all current residents can remain, but also welcome new residents from different socio-economic backgrounds as well as additional commercial space. Many of the leaking issues on the site could be addressed with upgraded roof construction. Much of the crime issues could be addressed by creating new streets and privatizing the courtyards.
On the other hand, starting again from scratch provides an opportunity to create something truly great for the city in the form of a new neighborhood and grand entrance to the city from the train station. I worry, however, that instead of getting great architecture and spaces, we would merely get parking garages and cheap construction.