LoMEX Revisited
Never has a map sent chills down my spine (okay that’s a lie). The Lower Manhattan Expressway probably seems like a bad idea in retrospect–but Robert Moses almost built it. We know what happened to cities throughout the country as freeways sliced them apart: usually the affected neighborhoods were destroyed or at least separated from one another. This is what would have happened to SoHo and the LES, had Jane Jacobs not intervenied in the 1960s.
How would Manhattan have been different if the LoMEX came to pass?
One wonders if SoHo would have become the place it is today. Certainly the beautiful cast-iron facade buildings of Broome Street would be gone. My upcoming book Wrestling with Moses: How Jane Jacobs Took On New York’s Master Builder and Transformed the American City http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9781400066742 includes a chapter detailing this battle.
Anthony Flint
March 23, 2009 at 6:17 pm
Thanks for the link, Mr. Flint. I will check out your chapter (and book); interested to read what you found out about the battle. . .
Yeah, those cast-iron facades are certainly one of the best features of SoHo, if not Manhattan. Also interesting to think of all that was lost throughout the country, due to urban planning projects.
Jamie Lux
March 23, 2009 at 9:05 pm