Month: September 2005

Let the Labor Day Weekend Begin (edited)

The Skyscraper Museum’s survey indicates that the Chrysler Building is a popular skyscraper (just in time for the Chrysler Building’s 75th birthday). NY Times’ David W. Dunlap writes:

Happy 75th birthday, Chrysler Building. New Yorkers in the know think you’re the best.

One hundred architects, brokers, builders, critics, developers, engineers, historians, lawyers, officials, owners, planners and scholars were asked this summer by the Skyscraper Museum in Lower Manhattan to choose their 10 favorites among 25 existing towers, from the Park Row Building (1899) to the Time Warner Center (2004).

Ninety of them named William Van Alen’s Chrysler Building of 1930, which may come as close as any – despite or because of its ebullient eccentricity – to expressing New York’s cloud-piercing ambitions. [….]

“These are irreconcilable choices if you try to evaluate them by one single system,” said Carol Willis, the director of the Skyscraper Museum. Rather, she said, the voting showed that people judge some skyscrapers emotionally, others rationally.

Ms. Willis’s own favorite, the Empire State Building, tied with Lever House, behind the Flatiron and Woolworth Buildings. The most recently built of the Top 10 was Eero Saarinen’s CBS Building of 1964. [….]

Donald J. Trump checked off none of the buildings proposed by the museum but instead nominated Trump Tower, Trump World Tower, Trump International Hotel and Tower and 40 Wall Street. Yes, that would be the Trump Building.

There were some exceptions to self involvement. I. M. Pei did not chose 88 Pine Street, which his firm designed and where it has its office. [….]

The World Trade Center was not on the list and did not appear as a write-in on anyone’s ballot. Leslie E. Robertson, a chief engineer of the twin towers, chose the Woolworth Building as his personal favorite. It, too, was once the tallest building in the world, 40 years before the topping out of 1 World Trade Center.

Curious that the article ended with that above last paragraph. I don’t think Dunlap meant to editorialize, but there’s a hint of poignancy in that paragraph. I’ve heard that architectural critics never quite liked the World Trade Center – it was more of a technological feat (the tallest buildings in the world at the time of their completion) than masterpiece of art. I had a fondness for the WTC mainly because I spent more time visiting there than I ever visited the Empire State building. Guess the real question is how do you define “favorite” skyscraper? What makes them your favorite? It very much is tied to emotion and experience. I like the Woolworth as a pretty nifty looking thing (very ornate even on the inside), and I can see why Chrysler is popular (I always saw its top as a hubcap looking design), and I like the Flatiron for being unique. But a “favorite”? That’s hard to decide.

Slate.com’s Jack Shafer was probably among the first columnists/journalists considering the issues of race and class in this New Orleans situation, having posted his column on Wednesday. Nightline and others ended up covering the issues by Friday night. Oh, and of course, so were various politicians discussing this topic on Friday. Talk about timeliness – or maybe everyone’s finally deciding they couldn’t ignore this. Hmm.

I watched “Nightline” on Thursday night – some of Ted Koppell’s classic stuff – he ripped the FEMA director, questioning him about how the heck did FEMA not know that there were people inside New Orlean’s convention center. I think I winced with Koppell when the FEMA director responded “Well, we factually didn’t know until we got there…” or words to that effect – although, let me say that he definitely said “factually.” Factually?! Come on! You need to see with your own eyes, as if watching the major news networks, CNN, etc., wasn’t enough? Everything’s just so heartbreaking.

And, in Friday’s column, Slate’s Shafer observes this development of the Angry Reporters. He observes that when the reporters get mad, the story or the interview gets more interesting – if not making a point (rather than no point at all). Shafer links to this amazing clip of Anderson Cooper ripping out Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisana (and I will, too, [video/transcript] since it’s quite interesting). I don’t think what Cooper did was nearly as entertaining as Koppell’s ripping the FEMA guy, but Cooper was passionate and, well… clearly an Angry Anderson Cooper. Methinks that not only Cooper really empathizing with the deeply troubled New Orleanians, but being in New Orleans the last several days must have really gotten to him; he needs a break. It’s obvious from the video – the stress and heavens know what else.

But, as Shafer notes, maybe anger in a reporter isn’t a bad thing – it puts a spotlight on a story, recognizing that this situation is dire, so dire it knocks the supposedly imperturbable reporters off their pedestals and make us feel this madness no less – that there is indeed something wrong with the pictures of tragedy we’re seeing versus the words out of the mouths of politicians (not that I’m necessarily slamming the politicians, but these are not pleasant times we’re living in).

Tim Russert notes:

Second-guessing is easy, but it is also, I think, a requirement of those in a free society to challenge their government, when the primary function of the government is to protect its citizens and they haven’t been protected.

At least Friday night’s Nightline ended on a good-news story, about the town of Houma, Louisiana, helping out their fellow Louisianians.

Finished reading “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.” Well written; incredibly sad.

What am I thinking? Go out and get some cheer; we all need it.

Wednesday into Thursday

The coverage on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina continues. On Wednesday night (being the news junkie and lacking any other tv alternative), I watched both the NBC Dateline and ABC News coverage.

Brian Williams anchored the Dateline edition – he carried it off well, looking tanned (he has been in the sun all day, obviously, toiling for the stories for coverage) and professional, in the Tom Brokaw tradition of Good Middle American in the Middle of an American Story. I don’t mean to downplay it, but it just felt a little awkward for me, as if the stories were a little too well crafted.

ABC had Elizabeth Vargas in front of a damaged inn in Mississippi. She did a nice job seguing between the taped portions (where ABC got personal, putting in the perspectives of Cokie Roberts and Robin Roberts, whose roots are in the Gulf coast; ABC especially put in a portion of Robin Roberts drove down through Mississippi on Tuesday to check on conditions and to check her family – it was touching to see the human side of Robin Roberts, as she broke down when Charles Gibson asked if she got through to her family) and the live portions (Vargas checking in on Chris Bury, sweating among the masses at New Orleans Superdome to get on buses for Houston’s Astrodome, the refugee location – why didn’t NBC get this scene in?). Ted Koppell on Nightline also did a nice job getting some insights on New Orleans from his panel (Cokie Roberts, Winton Marsalis, among others).

I don’t know – I’ve always been a bit partial to the ABC News presentations. They seem to capture the whole big picture better, as well as the human stories. Maybe it’s a continuation of the Peter Jennings professionalism?

I haven’t caught enough of CBS News’ coverage to comment, beyond what I saw on Sunday night and Monday morning – John Roberts taking over for Dan Rather? (wasn’t Dan the one who got almost swept away by Hurricane Andrew?).

Well, there’s just a lot of reporters converging on the human tragedy – it feels almost exploitive, but then is it just because this is the age we live in – we’re just going to have to live with the media madness? Or, without this coverage, would we know how to help our fellow humans, or at least better understand human nature (or Mother Nature for that matter)?

Some other stuff for observation:

Wednesday’s Village Voice did an article on hot dogs. I liked the PBS documentary on hot dogs, and this article reminded me of it, even with its NYC outlook.

And, Village Voice also did an article on the empowered NYC Asian and Middle Eastern voters. Jarrett Murphy reports, among other things:

The black-white-Hispanic-obsessed lingo aside, mayoral candidates in 2005 are hunting votes in neighborhoods where the signs might be in Arabic, Urdu, and Cantonese. “I think all the candidates are paying more attention to the Asian American vote—the existing Asian American vote as well as the fast-growing numbers of Asian American voters,” says City Councilman John Liu of Queens, where 50 percent of the city’s Asians live, composing 18 percent of the borough’s people.

Umm, wait, Mr. Murphy – there’s no such thing as signs in Cantonese. Cantonese’s written language is Chinese… Anyway, he further writes on the increasing recognition of the Asian voter:

Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s campaign, meanwhile, boasts the backing of the Chinese-language Sing Tao newspaper, which the mayor’s campaign calls “the first-ever such endorsement in the paper’s 40-year history.” Bloomberg 2005 also has set up Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders for Bloomberg, a group headlined by a Korean from Long Island, an Indian American businessman from Queens, and a Pakistani dentist from Staten Island.

Ethnic labels are crude by definition: You’re black whether you just flew in from Senegal or are descended from slaves shipped to U.S. shores centuries ago. Latinos include light-skinned Cubans and Indian-blooded families from Ecuador. But the categories make some sense if common concerns affect the people they cover. And while Asian and Middle Eastern New Yorkers care about failing schools, high rent, rats, and all the usual urban woes, they also worry about things that other groups needn’t fear.

“There are lots of issues that Asian Americans share,” said Liu, “one being the immigrant experience, being relatively recent immigrant arrivals. And Asians also suffer from a perpetual- foreigner syndrome, meaning that you could be a fourth- or fifth-generation Asian American but still somehow it’s difficult to believe that you’re an American. I get that: First they compliment me on my ability to speak English, and often I get asked, ‘Well, where are you from?’ and for some reason people refuse to take Flushing for an answer.” [….]

Yeah, I love it when complete strangers walk up to me and complement me on my English, and ask me where I’m from (“no, really, where?”) or even the lovely “Are you Chinese?” (well, yes, but does it matter to you, pal?, especially when you too appear to be Chinese and seem a bit annoying for asking the question)… No, I mean, really, isn’t my Brooklyn accent a little on the obvious side as to where I’m from?

Ok, all kidding aside, I liked that this article got the important points from Councilman Liu and Assemblyman Jimmy Meng that the Asian voter population of NYC is itself diverse – ranging from difference in opinions on what important issues and class and even immigration status (more recent immigrants would have different priorities than more established ones; Asians in Flushing might have different concerns than those in Manhattan Chinatown or even in Brooklyn), such that a NYC politician of 2005 really needs to be savvy. Hmm. Food for thought.