The Oculus Pavilion opened to the public on March 3 of this year, twelve years in the making and $4 billion in public money later. Predictably, it has generated a wild spectrum of comments—from praises for its appearance to condemnations for its price tag.
The Pavilion is the latest entry in a number of superblock developments popping up in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. Jane Jacobs condemned this type of development in her seminal 1958 Fortune Magazine article “Downtown is for People” because “… they work at cross-purposes to the city. They banish the street. They banish its function. They banish its variety.”
Is this type of development emblematic of how New York will look like in the future?
We hope not. As Jane Jacobs said in her article “If the downtown of tomorrow looks like most of the redevelopment projects being planned for it today, it will end up a monumental bore.”
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