Urbanism relevant obituaries, 2021

Conceptual artist Lawrence Weiner died in December 2021 ("Lawrence Weiner, Artist Whose Medium Was Language, Dies at 79," New York Times). Photo: Librado Romero, New York Times.

For the past few years, I've run an entry featuring "death notices" of people important to urbanism in various ways.  It always makes me think about how the efforts of so many different people are necessary to revitalization and the maintenance of vibrant communities.

One such person was Mary Farrell, a then DC resident particularly committed to historic preservation.  She was interested in helping to preserve historic neighborhoods and houses throughout the city, but especially in the Northeast quadrant.  She was a key person in the efforts in the late 1980s preventing Eastern Market-- DC's remaining active public market building--from being converted into a food court.  

Hearing I was involved in H Street issues c. 2001, she contacted me about her idea to do a "historic preservation study" for the neighborhood, and I was primed, having just done a quick road trip from Florida to New Jersey, and visiting places like Savannah and Charleston and I realized that my neighborhood was "no less pretty" than those other places, just different.

Her seeking me out certainly accelerated  and deepened my involvement in urban revitalization.

Because of the length of the entry, the A-L portion is visible, with a jump break for M-W.

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Covid, cities and death.  There is a lot of death to think about when it comes to urbanism and cities.  

The pandemic directly in terms of sickness and death,, although now death is concentrated in rural areas, although it affects urban health systems as receiver sites for the severely ill.

And indirectly in terms of its affect of hollowing out city centers.  Empty office buildings lead to retail and restaurant closures.  And long term declines in the value of urban real estate, which is the mothers milk of city tax revenues.

"Towards Twin Peaks."  Artist Wayne Thiebaud died at the age of 101.  He was still painting at the time of his death.  Among his work, he was known for painting cityscapes inspired by San Francisco ("Wayne Thiebaud, known for his colorful depictions of everyday life, dies at age 101," NPR).

And fear of covid in congregate spaces leads to the decline of audiences and means that entertainment facilities like clubs, bars, concert facilities ("Major Music Acts Are Seeing 20% No-Show Rates at Concerts," Wall Street Journal), theaters, cinemas, museums and other culture facilities face permanent closure.

At the same time murder rates are up in most major cities ("Murder Rose by Almost 30% in 2020. It’s Rising at a Slower Rate in 2021," New York Times), as are traffic deaths ("Car crash deaths have surged during COVID-19 pandemic. Here’s why," Los Angeles Times), and drug overdoses ("Overdose Deaths Reached Record High as the Pandemic Spread," NYT)--drug overdoses are running at a rate at least twice that of murders.

I'm not ready to write off cities, but as long as a large segment of the US population actively resists vaccination ("No lie: COVID-19 is largely spread by unvaccinated people," PolitiFACT, "How American Culture Created the Pandemic of the Unvaccinated," Psychiatric Times), societal instability will only result in more needless deaths, and will impact cities for a long time to come. 

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Kenneth Baker, art critic for the San Francisco Chronicle ("Kenneth Baker, longtime Chronicle arts critic, dies at 75").  When newspapers were the anchor of local media and community information systems, the best newspapers regularly reviewed art exhibits, museums, and other cultural events.  This has been deemphasized by many of the newspapers that remain, and communities are poorer for it.

Norman Bernstein, DC multiunit housing developer and civil rights ("Norman Bernstein, D.C. real estate developer and philanthropist, dies at 100," Washington Post).  It was not until the Civil Rights and Fair Housing Acts of 1968 that housing discrimination was overtly banned in rental housing.  

1630 Park Road NW, Washington, DC is a Bernstein Management property.

In 1961, he desegregated properties in Washington, DC, in response to a State Department entreaty to house African diplomats, whose rental applications were being rejected by area apartment buildings.  From the article:

Mr. Bernstein split from his brother in 1953 to launch his own firm, Norman Bernstein Management, and build projects such as Watergate Village in Annapolis, the Cambridge Apartments in downtown Washington and Twin Oaks in Petworth. Now known as Bernstein Management Corp., the company owns and manages more than 80 properties, including 3.5 million square feet of commercial space and over 5,100 apartments. ...

Mr. Bernstein later called on his peers to end racial discrimination in housing, prompted by a 1961 meeting between Kennedy administration officials and 54 local property owners and managers. The White House and the State Department had been trying for months to find adequate housing for the families of African diplomats, who said they had been turned away from apartments because of the color of their skin. 

At a three-hour closed meeting, officials including Harris Wofford, special assistant to the president, pleaded with the business executives to offer housing for the diplomats, framing the issue as a threat to national security. Nearly a dozen property owners said they would find housing, according to news reports. Mr. Bernstein went further than the rest. 

In addition to offering apartments in three of his buildings, he proposed a resolution to open all of the city’s housing to African Americans, not just to Black diplomats. “It would be hypocritical to say that we are going to open our buildings to a few African diplomats and not open them to colored American citizens,” he said. 

Oriol Bohigas, Spanish architect, masterplanner for the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona (Guardian, New York Times).  As a mega event, the Barcelona Olympics are considered one of the rare examples of the host city reaping extranormally positive benefits, whereas most cities lose out from the event.  His firm did work in other countries as well, such as Italy.

-- "Ten points for an urban methodology," from Transforming Barcelona: The renewal of a European metropolis 

 From the article:

As leader of Barcelona’s urban planning department in the mid-1980s, Bohigas conceptualised and implemented the “Barcelona model” that formed the urban backbone to the city’s Olympics. This event and its lasting legacy put the grey, debilitated but fiercely independent city, punished by decades of Francoism, firmly on the international map. Twenty years later, the Barcelona model informed London’s approach of using the Olympic Games as an opportunity to create an integrated piece of city with housing and amenities for the capital’s more deprived neighbourhoods. 

With the death of Franco in 1975, Barcelona had grasped the opportunity to democratise and modernise. Working closely with the first socialist mayors of the post-Franco era, Narcís Serra and Pasqual Maragall, Bohigas created the intellectual and spatial armature for its transformation. He was committed to innovation through continuity rather than aggressive rupture and restructuring, and recognised that the public spaces of the city – the pavements, streets, squares, parks, beaches and waterways – should be at the heart of a democratic vision of the contemporary city.... 

A view of the Barcelona Olympic Village.  Photo: ABC 

“Monumentalise the periphery; functionalise the centre” was Bohigas’ linguistically obtuse slogan for re-energising Barcelona. This translated into a focused programme of interventions that gave dignity to deprived neighbourhoods – such as the working-class district of Poble Nou – and made the dense inner-city districts more liveable, with pocket parks, markets, play areas and local amenities. ... 

Bohigas believed that the cumulative effect of small, “punctual” projects – often referred to as urban “acupuncture” – could be more effective than large-scale, complex initiatives that took years to implement and required budgets that did not exist in Spain’s fragile early democracy. This approach can be seen as a precursor to the current vogue for “tactical urbanism”, whereby small-scale improvements – pavement widening, outdoor seating, street closures, tree-planting – are implemented quickly and on a temporary basis in close cooperation with local communities.

Eli Broad, suburban sprawl homebuilder, insurance magnate, arts philanthropist in Los Angeles ("Eli Broad rose to service when L.A. was at a low point," Los Angeles Times).  Kaufman and Broad was an early production homebuilder, focused on providing houses to people leaving cities.  

They started in Suburban Detroit, but soon expanded to other growing areas of the country, including Arizona and California.  Broad shifted his headquarters away from Michigan (although he still left money to Michigan institutions, such as Michigan State University, where the business school is named after him, bought an insurance company (Sun America), and became a civic power in Los Angeles, with involvements including the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of the Arts, and Disney Hall.  

The Broad Museum, Los Angeles.

He built his own contemporary arts museum, the Broad, which unlike many such museums created by the wealthy is decidedly public as it is in a highly central location in Downtown Los Angeles, with free admission, and an endowment, so it isn't a fly by night operation (cf "Inside the Marciano Art Foundation’s spectacular shutdown," Los Angeles Times).

KB Homes is still a major builder today.

Kay Bullitt, Seattle philanthropist ("Kay Bullitt, Seattle philanthropist and civil rights activist, dies at 96," Seattle Times). She is an example of wealthy people who focusing on doing community relevant good works (although plenty of such philanthropy is self interested).

She married into the prominent Seattle family.  Early on she was a proponent of desegregating Seattle's schools.  One of her acts was to fund the founding of the Bumbershoot annual outdoor concert extravaganza.  How many rich families end up promoting rock music?  Her housing estate is being donated to Seattle and will be converted to a park.

Anthony Downs, economist and fellow at the Brookings Institution. ("Anthony Downs, who viewed politics and traffic through the lens of economics, dies at 90," Washington Post). His work covered a lot of areas.  WRT important works on urbanism, he wrote about housing, race relations, and transportation.  

His book Stuck in Traffic made the point that traffic increases to the capacity of roads, so that road lane expansion projects touted for improving traffic flow end up being just as congested.  He called this "induced demand."  This laid the groundwork for the idea of congestion pricing, and more support for road tolling.

The owners of this house won in the 2020 small project category for the high quality restoration of an original wood storm dorm, in the Chicago Bungalow Association Driehaus Bungalow Awards program.

Richard Driehaus, investor and historic preservation advocate ("A legend as an investor and donor, Richard Driehaus dies at 78," Chicago Sun-Times).  Driehaus restored buildings as well as created the Driehaus Museum on architecture and design in the Gilded Age, the Driehaus Foundation National Preservation Awards, the Driehaus Architecture Prize for traditional and historic architecture, the Driehaus Bungalow Awards for high quality rehabilitation projects by Chicago residents, and provided funds for a variety of cultural and good government initiatives.

Barbara Erickson, Director of Trustees for Reservations, Massachusetts ("Barbara J. Erickson, ‘catalyst for the conservation movement,’ dies at 42," Boston Globe).  Trustees for Reservations was  created in the late 1800s to preserve key landmarks in Massachusetts history.  It was one of a number of similar preservation efforts in the 1800s that grew out of what is considered to be the nation's first "historic preservation initiative," that of saving Mount Vernon, because it was home to the nation's first president, George Washington (saving Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson, followed).

Ms. Erickson led efforts to revitalize the Boston Waterfront through the One Waterfront vision and equity initiatives.

Glen Ford, a key figure in progressive black journalism ("Glen Ford, Black Journalist Who Lashed the Mainstream, Dies at 71," New York Times).  He was co-founder of the syndicated television program "America's Black Forum," and later the website, Black Agenda Report.  He co-founded Black Commentator, which among many important works, published a great five-part series on urban revitalization, which was focused on black empowerment.

-- "Wanted: A Plan for Cities to Save Themselves," 2003

George Forss, urban photographer of New York City ("George Forss, 80, Photographer Discovered on the Streets of N.Y., Dies," New York Times).  His work is available from Park Slope Gallery in Brooklyn.  Urban photographers record the architectural history of cities.  As many as there are, there are never enough.

Michael Friedlander, architect of New York City public works infrastructure ("Michael Friedlander, Urban Architect of Offbeat Designs, Dies at 63," New York Times).  He was the rare proponent of an approach believing that public buildings can be innovative and attractive, not merely value engineered.

Alexander Garvin, professor, planner, economic development official, real estate developer, author of important urban planning books, ("Exalted urban planner Alexander Garvin dies at 80," Real Deal).  He taught at Yale, was on the NYC Planning Commission, and did large scale master plans including for NYC's bid for the 2012 Olympics--many of the projects came to fruition although the bid was not successful, for Lower Manhattan after the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11, and the Atlanta Beltline project ("Architect Alex Garvin reflects on Atlanta and the BeltLine," Saporta Report).

Art Gensler, founder of what is now the largest architecture practice in the world, focused on corporate space, especially the interiors of buildings, which at the time of the founding of his firm,  major architecture groups weren't particularly interested in  (obituary, Architecture Record).

Vartan Gregorian, president of the New York Public Library ("Vartan Gregorian, Savior of the New York Public Library, Dies at 87," New York Times). He took the job, moving from academia, and afterwards he became president of Brown University and then the Carnegie Corporation philanthropy. 

By revitalizing the NYPL, its main central library, and system of branches in Manhattan, Bronx, and Staten Island, he renewed attention on libraries as a key civic asset and their vital role as anchors of cities and neighborhoods.  

Keith Bedford for The New York Times. A man and a woman sharing a table at Bryant Park.

Revitalizing the central library also led to the revitalization of the adjacent Bryant Park, which in turn led to the reconsideration of the importance of parks as elements of city life ("Splendor in the Grass," NYT, 2005), although that was an effort that didn't involve Dr. Gregorian.

Fred Hiatt, Jr., editorial page editor, Washington Post ("Fred Hiatt, Washington Post editorial page editor, dies at 66" ).  I mention him because of the importance that newspapers once had in setting the civic agenda for cities and metropolitan areas.  As pointed out in the book Urban Fortunes, newspapers (at least before the digital age) are place-specific and therefore dependent on continued community success.  Newspapers are key elements of "the Growth Machine."

While I love the Post and appreciate its editorial pages and the efforts of Mr. Hiatt, at the same time  the editorial page under his direction was remiss when it came to local issues.  

Like a lot of newspapers (especially the Seattle Times) it comes down in favor of capital over community, you definitely see this in its campaign endorsements, where it most always endorses challengers to progressives. 

It's all-in approach to DC public school reform, which has mostly failed, makes it hard to for the community to get traction with substantive criticism and improvement.  Similarly, wrt DC and Prince George's County politics, the Post's disappointment in the electorate's making "bad choices" means the page often comes out in favor of less democratic alternatives.

Plus, why didn't the Post run on the editorial page, the columns by Neal Peirce on state and local issues, as his column was syndicated by the Washington Post Writers Group?

A. Linwood Holton, Governor of Virginia, 1970-1973 ("A. Linwood Holton Jr., Virginia governor who took bold stance on integration, dies at 98," Washington Post).  As a Republican, he successfully challenged the multi-decade record of the Democratic Party, which ardently favored segregation, by ending the state government's support of segregation, including how Prince Edward County shut down its public schools, rather than integrate them.

B. Wayne Hughes, created the self-storage industry as a national asset class ("Self-Storage Billionaire B. Wayne Hughes Dies at 87,").  He created Public Storage Company, which introduced a brand and system for public storage that could operate in any market across the nation.  He was attracted to the idea in part because the buildings were cheaper to build and operate and had better cash flow than apartment buildings.

It's an urbanism issue because while storage uses helps to keep otherwise vacant buildings in use, it can make it more difficult to adapt them for other uses later.  Unless the value becomes so high for another use that the owner is motivated to sell.  

Photo: Public Storage Company blog.

Although most of the buildings and sites are "new builds," especially in the suburbs.

In the 2008 recession, he also created a firm, Americans Homes 4 Rent to buy foreclosed houses and rent them out, spurring the further "Wall Street-ization" (financialization) of the single family house industry, making it more difficult for individual households to buy houses as they are now pitted against against large corporations.

Kenneth Kelly ("Kenneth C. Kelly, Champion of Desegregation in California, Dies at 94," NYT).  I knew about redlining but didn't understand the depth of federal funding of whites only communities in the suburbs until reading The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein.  

Mr. Kelly was one of many people on the frontlines, fighting this injustice.  

Kmart Astor Square.  The abrupt closing of the popular Kmart store in Manhattan isn't super noteworthy ("Farewell To A New York Icon: The Astor Place Kmart," NPR), but an indicator of the decline of traditional retail and the failure of hedge fund operation of retailers.  

It's going to be replaced by a Wegman's supermarket, so I would consider it an upgrade ("Wegmans to replace Astor Place Kmart," Real Deal), as NYC, even Manhattan, has plenty of options when it comes to the kinds of items sold by a discount department store like Kmart.  

In the early 2000s, Kmart had more than 2,000 stores.  Now it has fewer than 20 and none in Michigan where the firm was founded ("Last Kmart store in Michigan preparing to close," Detroit Free Press). 

Richard Lamm, former governor of Colorado and early opponent of public funding for Olympic Games ("Richard Lamm, three-term governor of Colorado, dies at 85," Washington Post).  Among his many acts was to successfully oppose Denver being host to the Winter Olympics, after it had already been awarded, on environmental and cost grounds.  The city ended up rejecting state money, and the Olympics went to Innsbruck, Austria.  This was decades before the more current trend of cities rejecting participation ("Fewer and fewer cities want to host the Olympics. That should tell the IOC something," Washington Post).

Robert Lang, urban studies professor at University of Nevada Las Vegas and director of Brookings Institution Mountain West Center ("Robert Lang, who helped reshape Southern Nevada’s economy, dies at 62," Las Vegas Review-Journal).  His most recent co-authored book, published by Brookings, is Blue Metros, Red States: The Shifting Urban-Rural Divide in America's Swing States (webinar).

In some places, academics can be key to community economic development issues (like Nohad Toulan in Portland, "Universities as elements of urban/downtown revitalization: the Portland State story and more"), and Robert Lang was one of those professors.  From the article:

University officials say Lang played a crucial behind-the-scenes role in numerous economic development projects, such as launching UNLV’s medical school, building Allegiant Stadium and Interstate 11, and helping UNLV attain R1 research status as a “very high research activity” institution — the first Nevada school to win the designation...

Lang helped draft a plan to diversify the state’s economy and was “a staunch advocate for improved transportation infrastructure both in Southern Nevada and between our community and Phoenix,” Whitfield said. ...

When he arrived in Las Vegas, there were five things he wanted to work on: opening a medical school, building a sports stadium, developing a light-rail system, expanding the Interstate 11 project and obtaining R1 research status for UNLV, Danielsen-Lang said. 

All but one of those projects — an expanded light-rail system — came to fruition during his time here. 

 “He also recognized that this town actually grew almost so fast that all the institutions that usually come with a city this size hadn’t caught up with it,” Danielsen-Lang said. 

Lang was one of those people who comes only once in a generation — someone who could have a vision and bring it to reality, said Maureen Schafer, CEO of the Nevada Health and Bioscience Corp., which is overseeing UNLV’s medical education building project. 

Interestingly, Lang had a prominent role in regional economic development when he was at Virginia Tech (and Brookings) before moving to Las Vegas.  Maybe he felt he could have more impact as a big fish in a smaller, but growing, pond?

Mel Lastman, businessman, first mayor of consolidated Toronto ("Mel Lastman, Toronto’s gaffe-prone mayor, was a salesman like nooooo-body! else," Toronto Globe and Mail, "Mel Lastman leaves a legacy of spectacular accomplishments and mis-steps too," North York Mirror, "‘He was one of a kind’: Mel Lastman took on Toronto elites with his brash style — and won," Toronto Star).  He created Bad Boy, a chain of furniture and appliance stores, back when such businesses were regional, not national, and became an elected official in the borough of North York, one of the communities consolidated into Metro Toronto in the late 1990s.  

As mayor of North York he helped to spearhead the development of its downtown into a major office district including the creation of the Sheppard Avenue subway ("14 years ago the subway line to nowhere opened," Toronto Star).  He won the first election for mayor of the newly amalgamated Toronto city in 1998.  

Elizabeth Martinez.  She was born in Chevy Chase, Maryland, Montgomery County, which is immediately north of DC.  Her obituary ("Elizabeth Martínez, writer and activist for Chicano and feminist causes, dies at 95," Boston Globe) mentions that as a darker skinned Mexican-American, she was told to sit in the back of buses.  

In DC proper, transit wasn't segregated for riders (although the company practiced segregation in other ways, by not hiring African-Americans).  This must have occurred in Montgomery County.  

With a couple of exceptions (the 20 Line to Glen Echo, the 80s lines up Rhode Island Avenue), transit in Montgomery and Prince George's County's was separate from the DC transit system.  Even the 70s streetcar line up Georgia Avenue ended at the county line--today the bus line continues to the Silver Spring Metrorail Station.  And Glen Echo Park, like most amusement parks at the time, was segregated ("Glen Echo: The Segregated Park," Washington Post). 

Charles Morris, public administrator, economist, author ("Charles R. Morris, iconoclastic author on economics, dies at 82," Boston Globe).  From the article:

Mr. Morris wrote his signature first book, The Cost of Good Intentions: New York City and the Liberal Experiment (1980), after serving as director of welfare programs under Mayor John V. Lindsay and as secretary of social and health services in Washington state. 

The book was a trenchant Emperor’s New Clothes analysis of how the Lindsay administration’s unfettered investment in social welfare programs to ward off civil unrest had delivered the city to the brink of bankruptcy, and it pigeonholed Mr. Morris as a neoconservative.

I'm embarrassed I didn't know about this book, which I have to read.  It's especially relevant these days given the decline of order in Seattle and San Francisco in response to changes in laws concerning crime and public camping.

Theresa Parks, Boston housing activist ("Theresa Parks, Mission Hill housing advocate who stood up to Harvard, dies at 84," Boston Globe).  Her neighborhood was to be demolished by Harvard for Massachusetts General Hospital.  

The neighborhood was in fact demolished, but the final agreement included "mitigation." 

Previously, for the most part, new construction resulting in the demolition of residential areas was taken for granted, with no requirements for mitigation.  From the article:

“we won a major battle and were allowed to plan and develop affordable housing on 13½ acres of Harvard-owned land on Huntington Avenue and the Riverway.” That became the home of the mixed-income Mission Park housing community.

Cy Paumier, urban designer, author of the book Creating a Vibrant City Center, I met him when he was a consultant for the Downtown DC BID, helping them sort through issues with the National Park Service over park management and facilities in the NPS parks within the BID's service district.  

I thought of him in late September, when the newly renovated Franklin Park reopened ("D.C. Mayor Bowser cuts ribbon on newly renovated Franklin Square," Washington Post; Franklin Park Vision and Transformation Plan, NPS) and how that resulted from a 20+ year process of back and forth between the BID, DC Government, and the National Park Service, and how long it can take to bring about substantive change ("Creating the park of the future," 2013; "House passes bill to allow District to invest in Franklin Park," 2018, Post).

He made a presentation on his efforts at the National Building Museum in October 2010, "Creating Great Places: A Vision for Washington, D.C.'s Center City Public Realm," which I mentioned in, "Public squares and DC."  (I haven't been successful in tracking the presentation down as of yet.)

I was trying to send him a congratulatory email and I found out he died (obituary).  

He had worked for the Rouse Company as a chief designer of the planned community of Columbia, Maryland, spent time in Karlsruhe, Germany and did a lot of other projects in his career.

He helped me think about public space, parks and gathering places in new ways. 

Mr. Prigoff captured Keith Haring in action painting a mural on Houston Street in Lower Manhattan in 1986.

James Prigoff, urban photographer of graffiti ("James Prigoff, Who Documented Street Art, Dies at 93," NYT).  Graffiti is part of the urban environment too and deserves documentation.  Urban photographers record history, as buildings are replaced and earlier iterations forgotten.  

Jerome Rappaport, Boston real estate developer and philanthropist ("Jerome Rappaport, philanthropist and civic leader who shaped Boston and its institutions, dies at 94," Boston Globe).  I found this obit interesting because originally he worked for the city government, then left.  From the article:

Though he quickly moved into powerful government posts, Mr. Rappaport soon realized his true path lay elsewhere — as a developer reshaping the city’s neighborhoods and skyline. “Early on, I decided there’s a limitation in changing politics that I couldn’t do,” he said in an interview three weeks ago. “It was easier to rebuild the city than to change its politics.”

I know in DC, there is a lot of back and forth between city government, real estate firms, and "public organizations" like business improvement districts, transit agencies, etc.  It reminds me of that, but also the difficulty of trying to improve things "from inside."

At the same time, Rappaport led urban renewal initiatives in Boston which eradicated neighborhoods like the West End, building new upscale housing in place of middle income housing ("Jerry Rappaport was a great philanthropist — and a developer who helped destroy a neighborhood," Globe).  From the article:

When he died earlier this month, at 94, Jerry Rappaport was hailed as a great philanthropist who also played a key role in developing a gleaming new Boston. A more complete picture of his legacy can be found at the West End Museum at 150 Staniford St. 

 The museum occupies a small space — just about 3,500 square feet. But it’s big enough to tell the story of a neighborhood demolished in the late 1950s in the name of urban renewal. This home to working-class Bostonians was ultimately replaced by Charles River Park, the luxury housing complex developed by Rappaport. A young Rappaport won the bid to redevelop the neighborhood after a stint in the administration of Mayor John Hynes. Afterward, as Jim Vrabel, a former senior research associate at the Boston Redevelopment Authority (now the Boston Planning and Development Agency) wrote recently in CommonWealth magazine, the city allowed the Rappaport team to change the project terms. A set-aside for affordable housing was eliminated; instead, all units were designated for luxury apartments. To build them, about 53 acres of land were taken by eminent domain, and some 7,500 West Enders were displaced, in what is now considered a textbook case of urban planning gone bad.

Kristen Richards, ArchNewsNow ("Kristen Richards, 69, Dies; Reshaped Architecture Journalism Online," NYT).  ANN, a daily e-letter along with a companion website, was an important resource for finding out about projects in other places.  A great resource for learning about best practice.

Pompidou Centre.  Photograph: Viennaslide/Alamy.

Richard Rogers, British architect and advocate for cities ("Lord Rogers of Riverside," and "Bamboo airports and psychedelic oil refineries: Richard Rogers' thrilling legacy," Guardian, and "A blast of joy, energy and invention’ – in praise of Richard Rogers," Observer).  

While Rogers is well-known for starchitecture, he was a leading innovator in "turning buildings inside out" by showing their structure, such as with the Pompidou cultural center in Paris ("Richard Rogers and engineers’ key role in the Pompidou Centre," Guardian) and in the design of public buildings throughout Europe.

He was also a key participant in Labour Government initiatives around urban regeneration, first heading the Urban Task Force for the national Labour Government in the late 1990s, and then heading London's Architecture and Urban Design Unit at the behest of then Mayor Ken Livingstone.  

His speech, "Delivering the Urban Renaissance," still reads well almost 20 years later (also see "Rogers laments failing vision"), although in terms of his own work, developments catering to "high wealth individuals" were at times an affront to his statements on urban design (closed off rather than conneccted).

From the first Guardian article:

With the establishment of the Greater London Authority in 2000, and the election of Ken Livingstone as the first mayor of London, Rogers was appointed to head up the new Architecture and Urbanism Unit, charged with improving design quality in the capital. “Ken wanted us to influence more than policy,” Rogers wrote. “He wanted us to make things happen.” 

The A+UU published design guides on streetscape, housing, density and green space, mapped high streets and town centres to identify opportunities for infill development, and launched a plan for 100 new public spaces across London. Only a few of these flagship projects were ever completed, but the A+UU played an influential role in putting design at the top of London’s political agenda – something that was swiftly removed by the next mayor, Boris Johnson, much to Rogers’s fury.

Ronald Rubin, Philadelphia real estate developer and co-founder of the Center City Business Improvement District ("Developer and ex-mall CEO Ronald Rubin, a father of modern Center City, dies at 89," Philadelphia Inquirer).  Rubin was key to the development of many projects, both new buildings, as well as adaptive reuse of existing buildings, including the once vacant PSFS building, which had been the headquarters of the city's largest savings and loan.

The Center City BID is arguably the most successful BID in the US.  Certainly because, compared to BIDs in cities like New York and Washington, they have much fewer resources to work with.

Edward Sadowsky, New York City Councilmember ("Edward L. Sadowsky, a Lion of the New York City Council, Dies at 92"). For a long time, the real power in the City of New York rested in the "Board of Estimate," which included the mayor and five borough chairs as members, with total control of  approval on city contracts.  Sadowsky and others convinced the City Charter Commission to instead vest this power into the City Council.  (Note that the Maryland State Government still has this form of contract approval, with three people, the Governor, the State Treasurer, and the State Comptroller.)

The Sears in Boyle Heights closed in April 2021 after nearly 94 years in business. The store and mail-order distribution plant opened in 1927, with the latter closing in 1992.(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times).

Sears Department Store, Boyle Heights, Los Angeles ("After almost a century, landmark Sears store in Boyle Heights will soon close," Los Angeles Times).  Not news exactly, but a sad illustration of continued decline of Sears, and department stores more generally.  

The store site was once also the location of a western distribution center for Sears' once massive catalog operations, and at its peak had more than 2,000 workers.  

Had Sears been able to hang on and reposition for the e-commerce age--extremely unlikely as nothing prevented the company from doing so--maybe the story would be different.  (But probably not, because it had lost its ability to innovate.)

The store's architecture hails from the art deco area, and is much more distinctive than the square box stores today.  

The store also became an important retail anchor for the Hispanic community in Los Angeles, and was the first in the chain to offer sales contracts in Spanish.

Similar abandoned store-catalog sites have been adapted into popular mixed use centers in Minneapolis and Nashville, among others (and a Montgomery Ward store-catalog site in Baltimore).

-- "End of an era: Westland Sears, the company's last Michigan department store, closing," Detroit Free Press

Kevin Sloan, Dallas landscape architect ("Remembering Kevin Sloan, Urban Dreamer and Originator of Wild Dallas," D Magazine). Sloan conceptualized major projects, such as a deck park over the Freeway, which in part became Klyde Warren Park, and a rewilding of the Trinity River.  

An exterior view of Singing Hills Recreation Center, where a large area between the center and the Camp Wisdom DART station can be used for outdoor events.  Photo: Tom Fox, Dallas Morning News.

Given my interest in co-location of civic facilities into more prominent civic centers, Sloan was the landscape architect for the Singing Hills Recreation Center, which connects to the Camp Wisdom DART light rail station through an amphitheater-plaza ("Take a look at the $20 million rec center Oak Cliff residents always deserved but had to fight a decade to get," Dallas Morning News). A Dallas police station is on the campus, along with a connection to the Runyon Creek Trail.

From the article:

... in addition to the expected — fitness equipment, exercise rooms, pingpong, pool, foosball and video games — Singing Hills boasts a wing, with its own entrance, exclusively for senior citizens. Also on site is a high-quality recording studio, a computer and technology room, a commercial kitchen and tons of meeting spaces and gathering spots. Just as important is the free and strong Wi-Fi signal, a lifesaver for many area residents whose home internet is, at best, barely stable.

Concert in the parking lot of Cleveland Municipal Stadium.  Cleveland Plain Dealer photo.

Michael Stanley, Cleveland-based rock musician super popular regionally ("Local music used to define communities: today with radio chains and national music distribution systems, not so much").  His enduring popularity was a poke in the eye to the (inter)nationalization of the market for music and the control of concert tours by major firms like Live Nation. 

Lucille Times, spurred the initiation of the Montgomery Bus Boycott (obituary, NYT), illustrating the importance of transit within the civil rights movement.  From the article:

Mrs. Times was driving to the dry cleaners on June 15, 1955, when she got into an altercation with James Blake, the bus driver, who tried to push her car off the road three times. She continued on her errand, but he followed her. Parking his bus across the street, he ran over to her and yelled, “You Black son of a bitch!” she recalled in a 2017 interview. 

She immediately replied, “You white son of a bitch!” and the two started fighting. At one point she bit him on the arm. Suddenly she felt a blow to her neck. She looked down and saw the high boots of a motorcycle police officer, who had hit her with his flashlight. ...  The officer let her off with a warning, telling her that if she had been a man, he would have “beat my head to jelly,” she said. 

... they called E.D. Nixon, the head of the local N.A.A.C.P. chapter, and asked what they could do. He came over that night. 

As a child, she had taken part in a boycott of a butcher shop in Detroit, where she was visiting relatives, and she suggested to Mr. Nixon that the city’s Black community could do the same. He agreed, but said the time wasn’t right — they would need money, cars and other supplies to make it happen. He asked her to have patience. 

African Americans walk to work instead of riding the bus 

during the third month of an eventual 381-day bus boycott, 

Montgomery, Alabama, February 1956. 

(Photo by Don Cravens / Getty Images) 

She called the city bus company to complain, but no one responded. She sent letters to The Montgomery Advertiser and The Atlanta Journal, but they refused to print them. She decided not to wait. Over the next six months, she operated her own boycott, driving to bus stops and offering free rides to Black passengers waiting to board. 

Charlie, with whom she ran a cafe across from their house, collected money for gas, and they used the cafe as a planning hub — people could call Charlie to arrange a ride, and he would assemble a schedule for his wife. “Lucille was loaded for bear, and she wouldn’t back down from nothing,” Mr. Nichols said. “She was full steam ahead.” 

On Dec. 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a seamstress and activist in the Montgomery N.A.A.C.P., boarded Mr. Blake’s bus and sat in the front section, which was reserved for white riders. When he ordered her to move to the back, she refused, and was arrested.

Rosalie Trombley, programmer for CKLW-AM, Windsor, Ontario ("CKLW's Rosalie Trombley, hit-record power broker and music industry giant, dies at 82," Detroit Free Press).  CKLW was a radio station on the US-Canadian border, in Windsor, across from Detroit, and before FM radio became dominant, they figured out that their strong signal reaching a couple dozen states in the U.S., that they could make more money programming for the US market ("Radio Revolution: The Rise And Fall Of The Big 8," AV Club).  

Back when local stations did their own programming, Ms. Trombley was an important person in the industry, choosing what songs to play, and influencing other radio stations across the US.  

They were the number one station in Detroit (and many other US cities), and played a heavy rotation of Motown, among other local artists (eg Bob Seger, who grew up in the Detroit area). In turn, they introduced US listeners to Canadian music like The Guess Who and Gordon Lightfoot. 

In the early 1980s, new laws requiring Canadian content, meant they had to change their business model and shift away from a focus on the US, and the influence of the station tumbled.

These days, few "local" stations do their own programming, as the industry is dominated by a handful of radio station chains ("Revisiting community radio," 2020 and "Local music used to define communities: today with radio chains and national music distribution systems, not so much," 2021).

(Although there is a local station out here, KLO-FM, playing "classic" alternative.  I was shocked last week, hearing a Sex Pistols song played in the evening hours. I don't think I've ever heard a Sex Pistols song on the radio.)

Elise Vider, Philadelphia historic preservationist ("Elise Vider, advocate for Philly’s historic buildings and urban values, dies at 69," Philadelphia Inquirer). She was a founding member of the Design Advocacy Group, which early on produced a guide for evaluating development proposals which I found quite useful, and worked for the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia for many years.  A long standing member of the City's Civic Design Review Committee, she's an example of how individuals can make such an important difference to community urban design, preservation, and placemaking.   

The Car and the City: The Automobile, the Built Environment, and Daily Urban Life was published in 1991.

Martin Wachs, urban and transportation planning professor at UCLA ("In memoriam," UCLA)  A prolific and well-respected scholar, among other areas of study, he was key in pointing out that the gasoline excise tax doesn't raise enough revenue to pay for roads.

Eugene Webb, real estate broker in Harlem (obituary, NYT).  He created the largest black-owned real estate management company in the US, helped found two black-owned financial institutions, managed apartments at a large scale, and undertook development projects in Harlem.

George Wein, leader of the Newport Jazz Festival in Rhode Island, popularizer of music festivals, which enlivened cities ("George Wein, Newport Jazz Festival Trailblazer, Is Dead at 95," NYT), although eventually festivals became so big they were hard to contain in urban places.   

Galen Weston, Canadian retail magnate. ("W. Galen Weston, Who Transformed a Family Food Empire, Dies at 80," New York Times).  

Many Canadian cities still have major department stores with localized branding and history based in the city, as opposed to how Macy's in the US has created a national chain.  The Weston firm owns Holt Renfrew, an upscale department store chain with seven stores.   

The firm started off in the food trade, later expanding to include supermarkets, owning Loblaw's and adding to it Shoppers Drug Mart, a particularly innovative drug store chain.  

Under Weston, Loblaw's led the resurgence of private label foods marketing, by creating the President's Choice brand as a choice equal to or better than national brands, which at the time were seen as superior to supermarket brands ("Quality: High. Price: Low. Big Ad Budget? Never.," NYT)..

Selfridges, Oxford Street, London.

The firm extended their retail interests to the UK, Ireland, and elsewhere in Europe, buying Selfridges, the famous London department store and other stores.  The unit has just been sold ("Selfridges’ New Owners Bank On a Retail Renaissance in City Centers," Womens Wear Daily).

Beth Williams, Boston area manufacturing CEO  ("‘One of our brightest lights in the Black community,’ dies at 57." Boston Globe).  While traditional industrial firms were closing or abandoning cities, inspired by some of the black DIY investment efforts by Leon Sullivan, Williams' father, Archie, created various black retail and manufacturing businesses in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston ("CEO of Freedom," Brown Alumni Magazine, "A New Power In Roxbury; The Ghetto Means Money," Harvard Crimson, 1969).  After his death, she took on and expanded those efforts.