Former Roosevelt Island Resident Tom McGeveran Describes The End Of Adolesence For A Bizarre East River Utopia - See What Roosevelt Island Life Was Like In 1980's
... is an online news publication about how things work in New York, founded in 2010. We report on important local people and institutions, with the aim of sustaining a conversation with a knowing audience about things they don't already know....Tom McGeveran is the co-founder of Capital New York and grew up on Roosevelt Island. Mr. McGeveran wrote a wonderful article yesterday describing the Roosevelt Island he knew as a child and reflected on:
The end of adolescence for a bizarre East River Utopiaas well as the changes soon to happen with the arrival of Cornell NYC Tech and FDR Memorial.
Here's an excerpt from Capital New York:
... I lived on a Roosevelt Island that was supposed to have been a failed experiment in real-estate development. Only one phase of apartment buildings had been completed when we moved in, and it seemed like no more would ever arrive. That was fine with us. The island had jungles and ruins, and more basketball courts, baseball fields and soccer fields than the 5,000 residents could possibly use. A road winding around the island provided an unbroken 4-mile bike ride with no traffic and beautiful views. Unused land was turned into community gardens: the image of my parents toiling away at their onions and tomatoes and cut flowers in their 400-square-foot plot, in the shadow of the brutal, tall apartment building we lived in is emblazoned in my brain like some socialist-realist idyll, made only funnier by the fact that my parents are Republicans....and concluded:
... This incomplete version of Roosevelt Island is often forgotten when stories are written about how the island is "finally" being finished. But if progress is counted in high-rent high-rises of questionable architectural provenance, then the building I lived in, designed by Josep Luis Sert according to the latest principles of efficient design and as part of a utopian architectural vision of the future, is a sort of regression I can get behind.Click here for the entire Capital New York article on Roosevelt Island.
I was, like many Islanders present and past, perpetually grumpy about every new building that went up. The reason today is a good day for those of us who love Roosevelt Island is because a different kind of change is taking place there now, one more in tune with the spirit of the place. It's something interesting, futuristic, and idealistic. And that's really what that strange island has always been all about.
I've shown this video before, but here's what Roosevelt Island was like in 1980.
You Tube Video Of Roosevelt Island - An Island Place
1 comments :
God do I love that video. I also grew up here in the 80s and miss many things about that time. I completely agree with the narrator's comment about the inclusive feel of the community @ that time - seniors, younger families and the disabled living amongst one another. I really miss that. Every time I walk by what was the Senior Bldg - 546 and there isn't a huge "gang" of seniors and disabled people gathered chatting away, it hits me somewhere deep.
Post a Comment