Dreams

“Never Built New York” at the New York Public Library (November 14): In March 1946, Life magazine reported on a new plan by real estate developer William Zeckendorf to build a “dream airport” in Manhattan. And where would Zeckendorf find the space for his little project? Why, 200 feet in the air of course. The west side was selected as the sacrificial neighborhood: the tarmac “roughly as big as Central Park” would expand from Twenty-fourth street to Seventy-first street, between Ninth Avenue and the Hudson River, planted over a network of ten-storey buildings below. “The sprawling terminal, in effect, would bring air service right into the heart of New York City and eliminate the necessity of limousine travel to and from existing airports which are ten miles outside the business districts,” the article read. Indeed, think how many precious hours could be added to one’s life if that dreadful airport commute was eliminated. Yet considering there don’t appear to be any walls around the edges of the runway in Zeckendorf’s designs, it’s probably best that this “dream airport” remained a dream. Or more accurately: a nightmare. This is just one of the 200 abandoned architectural plans for the city from the past 200 years described in Never Built New York by Greg Goldin and Sam Lubell. A discussion between Daniel Libeskind (who wrote the forward to the book), Steven Holl, and Elizabeth Diller on the failed dreams discussed in Never Built New York will be held at the NYPL on November 14.