Upper East Exodus: An Elusive Enchantment

Park Avenue. (The real Park Avenue.)

The Upper East Side is dying, at least according to New York magazine, in the latest issue of which Jay McInerney tries to convince us that the bastion of the New York elite is heading towards extinction. If such a proclamation is meant to be anything but hubris, however, it ought at least to come with a few caveats.

The first is that the existence of New York itself is partially driven by the very blonde-wigged, fur-wearing gossip mavens of whom McInerney flags the imminent decline; the article’s appearance is akin to those on the covers of political-science tomes asking if the United States’ power will soon be eclipsed. In other words, it has the effect of precipitating panic, demanding defences, and, above all, marketing magazines which contain within the secret signs of this dangerous denouement.

That said, it is hardly surprising that this purported “death” is really the product a soporifically-composed pseudo-sociology. Its greatest fault is this: its author inhabits a small world, one which is a stronghold of the superficial. In its characteristic enchantment with surface baudles and clubby clans it deludes itself–and McInerney–into envsioning an elusively myopic, narrowminded portrait of the city’s social strata. Wherever the diaspora (or whatever the death rate) of its bold-named mainstays, not only the social characteristics of the Upper East Side but, especially, the idea of the neighborhood are stronger than ever- whether or not either are synonymous with the neighborhood’s physical constraints.

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Montreal Will Devour You Like the Man-Eating Beast That She Is

Each November, Montreal’s grey skies and endless drizzle lull her victims into a state of sensual paralysis. Her gaping maw then devours them whole, not releasing them until five months later when, delirious and partly digested, they are ejected into a perplexing landscape of budding trees and yawning tulips.

This year, however, “November” has lasted since early October. I’m sure that, at some point over the past two months, most Montrealers have contemplated hurling themselves in front of a blue metro train or into the charcoal depths of the St. Lawrence.

Twenty-nine days of rain, four o’clock dusk and a liberal smear of gooey, partly dissolved leaves: these are the ingredients of Montreal’s late-autumn poison, or at least a robust case of Seasonal Affective Disorder.

Three Years Later, Moving Along

Toronto Mayor David Miller. Photo by Rannie Turingan.

Those seeking thrill from Toronto’s municipal politics were, unfortunately, left disappointed by last Monday’s election. In a city that at times seems to be in love with the status quo, the re-election of incumbent mayor David Miller was hardly surprising, and the campaign seemed at times bereft of passion and new ideas.

That is a stark change from only a few years ago. There was something almost messianic about Miller’s 2003 mayoral bid in a city still reeling from SARS, post-amalgamation fiscal hell, and bad governance. What he brought was a palpable sense of beginning anew and making big plans. Within a year both the Royal Ontario Museum and the Art Gallery of Ontario unveiled their starchitectural expansion plans, and urban issues became something they couldn’t have possibly been: hip—with the launching and subsequent success of Spacing magazine being perhaps the most telling sign of changing times.

To be sure, some of the campaign promises were promptly carried through: his first act as a mayor was cancelling the highly contentious bridge link to the Island Airport. Relationship with the city’s creative community also remained cordial, with Miller being a major proponent for a “creative city” and a regular attendee of “cool” parties.

But those enamored with Miller-the-visionary had good reasons to feel a little disenchanted.

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For Sale: Myeong-dong

Seoul’s Myeong-dong district is the ninth most exclusive shopping district in the world, according to an annual study of shopping streets published by the real estate analysis company Cushman & Wakefield. Retail space in the bustling shopping area in central Seoul costs about US $376 per square foot, or €3,169 per square metre. The study finds that Myeong-dong is the fourth most expensive shopping district in Asia, after Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay, Ginza in Tokyo, and Sydney’s Pitt Street Mall.

Rents in Myeong-dong have risen 3.4% between June 2005 and June 2006, which is a continuation of a trend that has seen rents in the area rise steadily for some years. “Demand for prime retail space (in Seoul) is currently exceeding supply”, according to Richard Hwang of Cushman & Wakefield Korea. Mr. Hwang goes on to say that there is significant demand for a Myeong-dong address amongst local food and beverage businesses, international fashion brands looking to set up their flagship Korean stores, and large department store chains wanting to increase their presence in the Korean capital.

Not everyone has been able to manage the rise in real estate costs in Myeong-dong. ‘Unacceptable rent hikes’ forced coffee giant Starbucks to retreat from the neighbourhood in May of 2005 when the company closed what was Asia’s largest coffee shop and relocated to a less expensive part of the downtown core. The four story Starbucks has since been replaced by an outlet of the Italy based Caffe Pascucci.

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Coupe du Monde

World Cup Final, France vs. Italy, July 9th, 2006.

Champs-Élysées, Paris.

Turn on the Lights

In Seoul, a 1970s-era department store with blank concrete walls (below) was enlivened by the addition of LED lights that turned its exterior into a dynamic light show. Photo courtesy of the Architect’s Newspaper.

On the television screen in a dark viewing room at the National Film Board in Montreal, it’s a hot summer night in 1947. Crowds throng the sidewalks of Ste. Catherine Street, bathed in bright neon, theatre marquees and billboards. “All over the city, the night air is alive with the laughter and gaiety of a carnival mood,” exclaims the narrator in the jaunty, dapper tone typical of the era. Cut to more lights; happy faces fill the frame.

It’s no coincidence that some of the most iconic and beloved images of the city date from the middle of the twentieth century, when light was warmly embraced by the world’s metropoles. Every city with dreams of making it big boasted a Great White Way, the best and brightest part of town to which crowds flocked, looking for excitement. Ever since electricity was invented in the late nineteenth century, light has been used to define urban space and create a sense of place. Stern white light projected against the facade of a church or city hall instills a sense of power and gravitas; the blinking neon and all-consuming illumination of a busy main street, by contrast, shouts, “You are here!” with giddy enthusiasm.

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Free Rain

The human body is largely composed of water and its intimate connection to the blue planet doesn’t stop with the flush of a toilet.

It comes from above and is often a source of grief: too much or not enough. Today it is pouring and 4C, the temperature where water is at its highest molecular density. Water is a big item for cities. Not only do we have to find a source, clean it up for potable use and then distribute it, but we also have to dispose of it afterwards. Black or grey, waste water treatment is a costly and difficult issue. Just think of cities like Halifax and Victoria that dump their untreated wastewater directly into the ocean. Although Montréal has a large and sophisticated sewage treatment plant at the east end of the island, the City still averages about 22 discharges of untreated sewage directly into the Saint Lawrence River each year. When it rains too much the system cannot process all of the water and thus the problem is passed on to the fishes, whales, and other cities downstream. Yes, that is the water from our homes, hospitals, factories, rooftops, and polluted streets.

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The London Eye

It stares mordaciously back at you.

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The War on Cyclists

Cyclist on Clark Street, Montreal

In this week’s New Yorker, Ben McGrath writes about New York’s cyclists, a diverse, much-maligned group of people who are increasingly determined to make their voices heard. They are, if anything, up for a challange: “New York is by no means a bicycle haven, like Copenhagen or Amsterdam, or even San Francisco or Madison, Wisconsin, where cycling, despite hilly terrain, is three times as common as it is here,” writes McGrath. It is easy to see why. Cyclist fatalities are more common in New York than elsewhere. The monthly Critical Mass bike-in regularly ends with mass arrests; in other cities, it occurs peacefully and without conflict. Recently, cyclists have suffered from police intimidation and media attacks:

On cycling blogs, riders were trading stories of being stopped by plainclothes officers while crossing the Brooklyn and Williamsburg Bridges, and charged with improbable offenses (in one case, for riding thirty-three m.p.h.—a pace faster than Lance Armstrong’s). Steve Dunleavy, the longtime Post columnist, had just weighed in, siding with the cops and referring to cyclists as a cult of “pedal punks” and “kamikaze bike bullies.” (In return, the blog commenters referred to Post readers as “large-vehicle driving meatheads,” and asked people to consider “the auto-centric character of their Pocono real-estate section.”)

This raises a question: why does New York hate bikes?

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Accoutrements, Philadelphia

Can’t Get Enough of Berlin

Warschauer Strasse, Friedrichshain

Kastanienallee, Prenzlauer Berg

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Why You Should Jaywalk

Pedestrians crossing against the light

When Montreal’s police department announced last winter that it had hired 133 officers to whip the city’s unruly pedestrians, drivers and cyclists into shape, Montrealers responded with a collective roll of the eyes. We’ve seen this before—les flics hand out a few tickets here and there, wag their finger at people crossing against the light and then go home. It’s all a distant memory within a week.

This time, though, the police seem serious—or at least as serious as Montreal police can be about these sorts of things. They have a mountain of a challenge ahead of them: Montreal’s drivers are notoriously aggressive and so are its pedestrians. When it comes to jaywalking, Montreal strides in solidarity with the best of the world’s jaywalking capitals. This much is obvious at the busy corner of Saint Catherine and Stanley, where I found myself on a frigid Saturday afternoon not too long ago. Stopping to observe the Montreal jaywalker in his or her natural habitat, I conducted an informal head count—one, two, three, four… a dozen. In less than five minutes, I witnessed close to a hundred people crossing the street illegally.

It’s no wonder that a high-publicity crackdown on jaywalking does little to change Montrealers’ walking habits. It’s hard to fault police officers for simply upholding the law, but should jaywalking even be illegal in the first place? Maybe it’s time to rethink the entire notion of jaywalking. Maybe, just maybe, jaywalking is actually good for cities.

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My Neighborhood: Near The Canal

With shorter days and chilly weather surrounding us, here’s some golden-hour shots of my neighborhood from 2005 to remind us that the sun will return again.

Corner of Notre-Dame and Des Seigneurs in the heart of the Quartier des Antiquaires. Along this strip are residential apartments, lofts and condos; these buildings on the corner house many architecture and design firms, small art galleries, and of course antique stores. More

What About JoJo Savard?

Okay, this is the last Park Avenue post for at least a month. I promise. Really! But I have something to announce: Helen Fotopulos has baked some humble pie — and JoJo Savard is invited to dinner.

Waiting for the 80 bus at Park and St. Viateur

Sitting outside at Navarino on Park Avenue

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