Good Morning, Oppo

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn) 09/19/2019 at 08:42 • Filed to: None

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pip bip - choose Corrour > ttyymmnn 09/19/2019 at 08:45

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good morning

facw > ttyymmnn 09/19/2019 at 08:54

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Hmm, can’t consult street view of this one, but here’s Google Earth:

A little different today, but you can still see many of the pre-war towers. Take special note of the the building to left of the Battery, and note how much fill they built out to make Battery Park City (the fact that was all a late addition also means it is poorly served by the subway network). Apparently forcing the river to a narrower path also sped the current, which is causing the ground above some of the Hudson River tunnels to be eroded.

In the Connie picture you can see the Singer Building, which was briefly the tallest building in the world, and the tallest building ever peacefully demolished (it will soon lose this title, as the 707ft tall Union Carbide Building is scheduled for demolition ).

E90M3 > ttyymmnn 09/19/2019 at 09:00

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They had one of those at the Pima Air and Space museum; my dad took me their for my 12th birthday. I believe there is a picture with me next to the constellation . Younger me was very much into aviation. 

ttyymmnn > facw 09/19/2019 at 09:02

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“Peacefully demolished”

On the forum where I found this photo, there were many photos of the WTC taken back in the 1970s.

I was also intrigued by all the piers that used to be downtown that are gone today. 

ttyymmnn > pip bip - choose Corrour 09/19/2019 at 09:02

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Good night!

pip bip - choose Corrour > ttyymmnn 09/19/2019 at 09:04

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:)

facw > ttyymmnn 09/19/2019 at 09:07

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Yep, the piers are mostly gone. There are a few that have been converted for other purposes, but aside from cruise ships, there aren’t really big ships coming in to port in Manhattan these days. It’s a big change from how things were. Here’s a 1924 aerial for example:

Every inch of the waterfront was crowded with docks and warehouses while today it’s mostly parks, offices and apartments.

ttyymmnn > facw 09/19/2019 at 09:10

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Definitely different times. Also, the soundtrack to this film is fantastic. This might be the only Brando film that I really liked him in. 

Ash78, voting early and often > ttyymmnn 09/19/2019 at 09:15

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Piers are always interesting to me because they’re such a throwback to shipping, and WHY cities like NY and SF got so big in their early days. I call it a “head start” on growth due to centuries of reliance on shipping and a lack of rail and road infrastructure.

I sometimes wonder if today we were just now settling new cities — would they mostly be coastal like they are now, or would it matter a lot less? In a similar vein, I’m always fascinated by larger cities that are mostly landlocked, especially those without major navigable rivers. Dallas, Denver, Phoenix, SLC, etc. Mostly overland shipping, cattle, and rail locations, or outposts along trails. Growth in those places is a lot more interesting to me because it had to be done despite a lack of heavy shipping .

ttyymmnn > Ash78, voting early and often 09/19/2019 at 09:44

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I grew up in Norfolk, VA, at a time just as the downtown waterfront was beginning to be revitalized. They took a cue from Baltimore and built a “festival marketplace” downtown called Waterside, and began to remove all the old piers and warehouses and replace them with condos. But before that happened, my friends and I used to ride our bikes down to the old warehouse area and go exploring. Good times, to be sure. 

facw > Ash78, voting early and often 09/19/2019 at 09:45

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I think it’s still pretty important. Rivers are still helpful for fresh water and sanitation (ideally not at the same time). Rivers and coasts also provide aesthetically pleasing surroundings. And you do still make use of it for shipping, Manhattan offloads much of its trash by barge, and receives some of it’s fuel that way as well. And even though Manhattan’s docks are mostly empty the NYC area is still supported by a major port in New Jersey, as well smaller ones in Brooklyn.

I also think the constraints placed by these natural boundaries are good, encouraging increased density (which magnifies a lot of the advantages of living in a city, though also drives up real estate prices), as opposed to the endless sprawl of many southwestern  cities.

Ash78, voting early and often > ttyymmnn 09/19/2019 at 09:48

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My family lived in Baltimore after I went to college, from the late 90s until a couple years ago (brother is still there). Watching the development over the years was quite a spectacle. At the same time, it was also depressing because you’re seeing all these massive blue-collar employers disappear to make way for 1%- er condos. I’m not saying from a sense of classism, more like economic dread that we’re headed towards an economy built on nothing but services and real estate speculation...ie, not very diversified.

Ash78, voting early and often > facw 09/19/2019 at 09:53

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You nailed it on the congestion thing - for better or worse, places like SF were never meant to get so big on a little peninsula , but they’ve tried to make it work. They still have sprawl, but only after they added some density. OTOH...LA, Houston or Atlanta. Holy cow, the sprawl. Atlanta may be the worst because of the lack of physical boundaries (ie, oceans)

ttyymmnn > Ash78, voting early and often 09/19/2019 at 09:54

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I’m not saying from a sense of classism, more like economic dread that we’re headed towards an economy built on nothing but services and real estate speculation...ie, not very diversified.

Agreed.

facw > Ash78, voting early and often 09/19/2019 at 10:27

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The thing is that while it may happen in some places, in Baltimore those blue collar employers were leaving anyway, not being forced out by the 1%. The gentrification allows the city to keep it’s tax base up, which it desperately needs. There’s really nothing practical to do to save a lot of low skill jobs. If you curtail trade to keep jobs from going over seas, everyone gets higher prices, and most of those jobs get replaced by automation anyway. If you legislate away automation, then maybe you keep those jobs, but again prices on everything go up, and you get swamped by cheap foreign imports. If you do both, then blue collar workers maybe make more, but people will still have a lower standard of living due to higher prices, and the nation will become increasingly uncompetitive.

You can push education but that’s a long-term solution (and of course you have the problem that better educated people might just move letting someone else reap the benefits). And of course there’s no guarantee  that even a 4-year college education will be enough at some point, technology allows for greater consolidation of wealth, which is why at some point, I think we will need universal basic income.

Ash78, voting early and often > facw 09/19/2019 at 10:38

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You’re right about the human departures — gentrification in Baltimore is mostly just making use of abandoned buildings/lots at this point. As far as wages and jobs go, I see it as almost entirely in the hands of consumers. We decided we wanted to spend less money on mostly junk merchandise that falls apart quickly, all so we could “have more stuff.” Businesses are mostly just trying to fill that need.

It’s coming back to bite us now, but you can’t just turn the ship around instantly (say, though Chinese tariffs). This is like fighting the drug war in Colombia all over again... the problem is demand, supply will always find a way.