The George Washington Bus Station Project

02/06/2010

The George Washington Bus Station Project

Today I went for a run on the snow-free streets of upper Manhattan. As I returned home on Fort Washington Avenue, I approached the George Washington Bridge Bus Station, which was designed by famous Italian modernist Pier Luigi Nervi in 1963, and is only one of a few of his buildings outside of Italy.

I've long had mixed feelings about Nervi's structure, which represents a radical departure from many of the (to my mind, beautiful pre-war) apartment buildings that can be found in the neighborhood (such as this one at 179th Street, right across from the bus station). I can remember going to a cocktail party not long after I moved to Washington Heights and meeting a few architects who told me that they had made a special field trip to Washington Heights just to see Nervi's work, which was 'the best thing' about the neighborhood.

At the time I wanted to 'punch them in the face' but over the years I have come to appreciate the structure more than I once did.

If the cement and blue paneling were cleaned, I think it could be a very beautiful entrance into the city from the bridge.

It's probably fair to say that Nervi thoughtfully incorporated some of the best motifs of the bridge itself into his design. (Sadly, this was built during an era when bicycles were not exactly important, and to this day there is an oppressive quality to the station, which is dominated by the sound of cars and buses, and leaves you choking with the exhaust whenever you have to run through, as I did today.)

I think one of the great challenges of the next ___ decades will be to reconcile the destructive qualities of the automobile (in both environmental and aesthetic terms) with the understandable need to own one, for the freedom and opportunity it offers. (I should probably confess that I own a car, a 1990 Toyota Corolla with 114,000 miles, which I think represents a pretty low level of driving on average, but it's not like my hands are completely clean, either.)

Whatever you want to say about Nervi, he can't be blamed (or at least I don't think he can) for the horrendously ugly apartment buildings that stand behind the bus station above the Cross-Bronx Expressway, completely out of scale with anything else in the neighborhood.

Like so many things, the bridge is often best viewed from a distance, where it can be appreciated for its beauty and not its function.

Posted at 06:53 PM in Expression, Science Projects | Permalink

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Listen or download songs and records from my indie-rock past with Saturnine here and Death Culture at Sea here.

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Video: The Chaos Detective

The Chaos Detective is a series about a man searching for 'identity' as he completes assignments from a mysterious organization. Watch the first episode (five parts) on YouTube.

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Expression//Reaction//ScienceProjects

02/06/2010