‘Times Square, 1984’ CreditThe Skyscraper Museum

The hardworking Skyscraper Museum, in the belly of a condo complex on Battery Place, doesn’t have much space or much of a budget, but with admirable frequency its director, Carol Willis, stages smart shows that uncover telling moments of New York skyscraper lore and architecture history. The museum has just opened “Times Square, 1984: The Postmodern Moment,” about the battle 30 years ago for the soul of Times Square and the profession.

A 4.2 million-square-foot project of the time, intended to clean up 42nd Street, enlisted high-style architecture and brand-name architects to perform social engineering on the “sewer of crime” and “swamp of sin” that, project leaders felt, the area had become. Pinstriped architecture, the proponents argued, would whip the street into civility. The Municipal Art Society of New York, with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, wanted alternative visions. It organized the Times Tower Site Competition, requesting design ideas for the 1904 Times Tower, itself slated for demolition in the new tabula rasa scheme....Continue Reading

> via NYT