SITE VISIT

During our site visit, we noticed that the outside space serves some purpose for public use. People were occupying public areas wherever they found an opportunity. This included sitting on the edge of the fountain, sitting on ledges surrounding the buildings, playing on railings, and sitting in a small seating area.

The outside of the buildings felt bleak and grey. This is mainly due to its cold stone and concrete materiality and brutalist style architecture. In vast contrast, the inside of the theater space often had vibrant colors and softer textures and angles. The inside felt warm and welcoming in contrast to the outside. Though we could enter the theater spaces as civilians, we were watched very closely, which felt weird. Security did not say anything to us specifically, but they did not have to. It was apparent civilians were not necessarily welcome to just awe at the internal space. This feeling continues with the feeling of surrounding buildings as well seeing they are businesses and residential buildings. To enter, you must pay.

The space had small areas for other species, and plant boxes, though they felt like an afterthought and a way to spruce up the space. Pigeons had found the one measly section of softer ground to hang out. Most of the space is covered in thick layers of concrete discouraging species other than humans, arguably discouraging humans as well from enjoying the public space.

PAST AND PRESENT: OUR CRITIQUE

Before there was a theater, Lincoln Center was once San Juan Hill–a vibrant community home to the Afro-Caribbean and Puerto-Rican immigrants of New York – where Jazz Clubs, the Charleston, Blues music and Mambo played all through the night. However, in the 1940’s, the Slum Clearance Act (headed by Robert Moses), approved its destruction in favor of urban renewal projects like the ballet, symphony, and opera theater. Disadvantaged communities of color were forced out to let in patrons of the arts. A thriving community was destroyed to make way for a ‘community center’ that doesn’t cater to the community.

Who Lincoln Center wants to keep in vs. who they’d like to keep out is perpetuated by its design, which halfheartedly attempts to create harmony between public (outside) and private (inside) space. While inside spaces (theaters) are lavishly and intentionally designed for users (the audience–who pays), outside spaces feel like an afterthought. This discontinuity creates an in-group out-group dynamic: those who can afford to sit inside and experience “high art” versus those who can only exist in the ‘public’ space. Despite its labeling as a plaza (public square) and park, lack of ample purposeful seating, unprotected seating from rain, constant security monitoring, and unused empty space makes one feel out of place and question the park/plaza’s legitimacy.

As we see it, Lincoln Center fails to establish public space that is purposefully designed for the community, maintaining systems and cultures of power, class, displacement, and the inaccessibility of the arts. Thankfully, some New Yorkers themselves have resourcefully reclaimed Lincoln Center's outdoor space and made the designs successful for them. People sit and read on the fountains and kids play on the railings – the community is taking back what was once stolen.

--add paragraph abt nature beign displaced, design for who?!--

(Although donor plaques looming over you along the walls will always remind you who the space is really for...)

FUTURE SITE

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