tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6389181255786430083.post1229010431043243968..comments2023-10-11T05:46:26.432-05:00Comments on Where: The City is Meant to be Experienced, Not MournedBrendan Crainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00528698033763911972noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6389181255786430083.post-64240398447308456992011-05-19T11:41:59.711-05:002011-05-19T11:41:59.711-05:00I think often people invest a place with more mean...I think often people invest a place with more meaning than it actually contains. A place evokes an emotional connection that we have to the community it represents. It is the community that really holds the meaning. The place gives expression to that community and in that way holds the meaning of the group. But the community is not the building. In my mind it is like a church. The building gathers the community and helps it to give expression to its beliefs, but it is not the church. And if what happens in the building doesn't lead people to act differently out in the world, where is the church? Church is supposed to be about moving people to a more loving way of being. It is not spaces that do that. Spaces can move people’s awareness of the grandeur of what they believe in. They can help to evoke a desire to be more. But it is the people who fill the space that make a church what it is or isn't.<br /><br />I think what you are trying to say is, while the container has importance it is neither the source of the meaning in the community nor is it the end of the community's meaning, it is the expression of the communities meaning. In that it has value, but great art is lost all the time, and art of this type is very difficult to preserve over the long term. It should be not be surprising that it is going away, but, as you suggested, that it has lasted this long.mikehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00516203867954479958noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6389181255786430083.post-68594994430775415032011-05-16T21:10:23.280-05:002011-05-16T21:10:23.280-05:00I agree that it doesn't make sense to sit arou...I agree that it doesn't make sense to sit around complaining that things were better in the past, and I like the idea of rallying around places to find ways of saving them.<br /><br />Buildings are containers, but they're also much more, and great places are rare, valuable, and seldom easily achieved. They're often closely tied to a community's identity and, in the case of 5Pointz, years of irreplaceable work. Destruction of such places isn't the end of the world, I just think it's worth preventing if we can; just as great new construction is worth fighting for, as well as the replacement or improvement of sites we don't consider great.<br /><br />Our communities include the physical sites we occupy at any given moment, and if we don't take care of them, we lose an important part of the community. We can find new places, but why not try our best to keep the ones that people worked so hard to get right?<br /><br />This doesn't mean that places have to be frozen in time. They inevitably evolve and eventually give way to other places. I just think they're important parts of the community, which leaves me really sad when they're destroyed, and inspired to protect them.petersigristhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01653915776728182869noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6389181255786430083.post-57446009672799864382011-05-16T14:41:00.085-05:002011-05-16T14:41:00.085-05:00Mine isn't a philosophical view so much as it ...Mine isn't a philosophical view so much as it is an optimistic one. I think we can miss something, and let its absence influence our experience of the city, but I don't know if it's worth it to fully mourn a place once it's gone. I know too many people who are so busy complaining about how New York "isn't what it used to be" that they've convinced themselves that the city as it is is without value. <br /><br />I'd never suggest that we should just let bad things happen to good places. We can rally around a site in an attempt to change a developer's mind, but the fact remains that a building's owner often has the final say. But in the end, the community that has grown up around 5Pointz will be much stronger for having had a place to congregate. That's worth a lot, especially for a marginalized group like street artists. I'd rather focus on that than the building's impending doom.<br /><br />Besides, a building is just a container. It seems more practical for groups to work together to find new homes than to try to preserve the ones they have. Communities shift; that's inevitable. I guess what I'm getting at, though, is that the communities are more important than the physical sites that they occupy at a given moment.Brendan Crainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00528698033763911972noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6389181255786430083.post-30596642520438020182011-05-16T12:43:51.317-05:002011-05-16T12:43:51.317-05:00Your descriptions of New York are a pleasure to re...Your descriptions of New York are a pleasure to read. I'm so happy that Where is back. In reference to beloved places, I think they're worth mourning and even more worth preserving. Of course, change can be even better, and innovation is essential, but maintaining great places is part of creating a pleasing urban environment. Allowing developers to replace great places with substandard ones detracts from our living conditions, and a philosophical view of urban change offers little consolation. Cities are experienced, but we have to act if we want to make the experience a good one.petersigristhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01653915776728182869noreply@blogger.com