I went to work for Jim Polshek around the time that he moved his office to 19 Union Square West. It was 1980 and I was fresh out Columbia Architectural Graduate School.
The firm had moved from its midtown location in search of more space and better rent. Still, the old office in the penthouse of a slender tower was a great space and is surely missed. Having already worked at the old office on a part time basis, I looked forward to returning there full time. It was bright and airy, perched high amidst the skyscrapers of midtown. When the wind blew strongly, the tower would sway and the pendant lights in the studio would swing back and forth. Occasionally, some of the employees developed nausea. We all assumed it was from the wind. Visitors who were there during those blustery days would nervously ask if this was all normal. Invariably, someone would try and calm their fears, boasting their knowledge of building aspect ratios and the tensile strength of steel. I never thought this approach was so successful in assuaging their concerns: for the alarmed visitors always concluded their business rather quickly once the lights started to sway.
The office on Union Square was, like the last space, the top floor of the building. Architects do have a thing for being on top. Though, the actual top was occupied by Grace Jones and Jean Paul Goude who lived in a bulkhead penthouse above our floor. For those who don’t remember, Grace Jones is an original Diva from the avant-garde art scene with French Club and American Pop hits. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qo5CTHvnvfI).
There was always a bit of excitement riding the elevator with her. She was larger than life with an eclectic entourage that usually included her young children along with peculiar paraphernalia and assorted luggage. The elevator teemed with high energy and loud chatter. Her living in this loft building that was also home to our design studio exemplified a type of urban living that, while pioneering at the time, was soon to be a thing of the past. This type of living became so commonplace that it ceased to be unique and was transformed into a stereotype.
Our office occupied the entire 12th floor. The views were panoramic both to the city skyline as well as to Union Square. From such a height there is what I call an intimate aerial view. Seen in its entirety, one came to comprehend the open space as an object. With this perspective, the square was a heroic moment in the city fabric with clear extensions beyond itself, not just to the greater part of the grid and the path of Broadway, but an extension in time: backwards past things that have already transpired and forward towards events that have yet to happen.
Remnants of past lives are clearly evident in the forms around the Square. Older delineations of property, changes in scale and use are commonplace to the lives of our fathers. Buildings from the past often express to the present viewer a form of naiveté in their manner. They can be bold and seemingly uninhibited in a way that today seems innocent. The buildings speak of the aspirations of their times and owners. One can also see emerging growth and change, though it is not immediately understandable within the established order of things. Its arrival is already behind us once the changes begin to be perceived. These are signs that new life and activities are in a constant process of transformation. The intimate aerial view draws one closer to the organism that is the city. There are older forms that consistently shape the present and then there are older forms that set the opportunity for new ideas and activities to recreate them. It is a remarkable part of life that renewal and transformation can take on different paths.
At the time we moved to Union Square, it was a desolate and rundown Park. The S. Klein Stores, which occupied the site where Zeckendorf Towers are now, were boarded up. They were an amalgam of numerous buildings tied together over decades into what was one of the first cut-rate department stores of New York. Other businesses and retail around the Park were at the time marginal in character and catered to a changing crowd of transients that could come and go from the intermodal network of subways running beneath the square. It wasn’t uncommon to look down from the office windows with a sublime feeling of a greater collective only to have your eyes settle on red police tape surrounding the scene of a serious shooting or stabbing. It was unsettling to realize this proximity to violence.
The green market which has become synonymous with the Square hadn’t been fully organized and all the fun-filled, frilly activities that have since come to the Square were waiting for things to turn around before they ventured out. As Nick, the bartender, says to Clarence, the supplicant angel, in Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life, “Hey, look, mister, we serve hard drinks in here for men who want to get drunk fast. And we don’t need any characters around to give the joint atmosphere.” In many ways Union Square of that time found itself in Pottersville and was looking for a way out. (As we have seen in many other examples along Broadway, there is a life cycle that patterns the generations that come to inhabit, prosper, and pass on.) While this process is part of our common humanity, it is an American character that can be traced to the origins of the Republic most notably in Thomas Jefferson’s proclamation that each generation is obliged to redefine themselves.
Union Square has since transformed itself forward from the late seventies into a thriving neighborhood and regional district. There is a local Green Market on the north end that provides fresh fruit and vegetables twice a week and serves as a market square and gathering place for the neighborhood. The park has seen a consistent upgrade and rethinking of the spaces within and around itself and provided concessions and new spaces for public activities and expressions. Property around the Square has flourished and renewed itself. Twenty years ago, to think that a hotel would find its way south of 42nd Street was absurd.
From any brief history of Union Square one learns that it was once a potter’s field. While often a common origin to such open urban spaces, I have always been fascinated by the realization that people at one time lay beneath the park. While Broadway surely contributed to the character of open space that is Union Square, and while its name derived from the convergence of many streets, I can’t avoid the thought that all those unnamed souls who lie beneath the ground are in their unassuming way adding real meaning to the word sacred space.