Tag: culture

Hymn for New York, 19 years from 911

Today is September 11th 2020, 19 years have passed since that event.　In the summer of 2001, I was about to move to NY from Boston. I was finishing to work at the site office of Boston Convention Center, transferring to Rafael Vinoly Architects in NY and busy for preparing moving such as looking for room and etc. It was probably last weekend of August when I was finished packing up my little luggage and moved to new apartment at Upper West Side in Manhattan. During looking for an apartment in NY, the real estate agent enthusiastically recommended me an old apartment in Tribeca with Rent Stabilization. The room was very cool, a kind of loft style with high ceiling space. Something exactly like you can see in some movies of success stories in NY, for example “Big” of Tom Hanks. Rent stabilization is a legal guarantee that the rent will not raise for a certain period of time. It aims to protect the residence rights of the inhabitants rooted in that neighborhood and contributes to preserve historic city, especially like in NY. To exemplify it very frankly, the purpose is to protect the everyday life of common residents in Lower Manhattan and to fight against the soulless urban development of money-making-first real estate agencies, as Jane Jacobs and other folks have tried. Tribeca is the area where many cultural figures such as artists and university professors live. For example, Ryuichi Sakamoto, a Japanese composer, has a residence in Tribeca. The room in Tribeca was a bit over budget, so I have signed to apartment in Upper West.


View from the window of room on the 10th floor of the apartment at West 100 Street, looking north, Columbia University campus behind the tall apartments. I often lied to friends, “I can see Central Park and the Hudson River from my room,” but it was half true that “if” I leaned out from the window, I could actually see Central Park on the right and the Hudson River on the left. This apartment is also quite old, but it seems that it still exists.     Photo in December 2002

 

On the morning of September 11th, I was following unfamiliar commuting steps; walk about 3 minutes from the apartment at the intersection of W100 Street and Broadway, take the red line of the subway at the nearest station of 96 Street and get off at Houston Street, then I was walking to the office on 50 Vandam Street. When went up to the ground from basement, I noticed the street was noisy. A fire broke out at the World Trade Center (WTC), about 20 blocks away, and there revealed a large hole in the tower when taking a close look. At first, everyone was wondering it was an accident or something. We couldn’t understand that someone intentionally smashed the plane until “second” passenger plane flew very low over our heads, I saw the plane, and went straight down to the WTC. For the time being, I got into the office, watching the TV screen. In the broadcast, someone explained “Such modern skyscraper will never collapse” and nobody could expect that it would happen next. However, the camera perfectly captured that WTC twin towers were falling down to the ground very easily. The video image of the TV was exactly like that of a movie. Although it endured the impact of a passenger plane crash, due to the heat-sensitive structure of steel frame skyscraper, the failure of sprinklers cause to collapse “beautifully” like traditional Japanese Toy Game, DARUMA OTOSHI (DARUMA Doll Drop). What happened after the collapse is exactly as you know of. Thanks to about 2km distance, we could avoid direct blast. However the black dust or ashes, like a huge cumulonimbus cloud, was slowly approaching, then I had to evacuate from the office.

At 50 Vandam Street, the Vinoly office was located, next to famous Soho district. This neighborhood was originally an industrial district housed many warehouses. They renovated an old warehouse into an architecture office. The building consists of three stories, the 1st floor of “the reception hall where models are displayed and the piano room of Mr. Vinoly”, the basement of “model shop”, and the top floor of “the drawing room with a high ceiling, the main workplace of about 50 to 60 staffs”. Although a good work place, they did recently move out from this place because long-standing contract expired. Located about 1.8km (1.1 miles) to the site, we could see quite well the abstract silhouette of the twin towers designed by Minoru Yamasaki.

 

Because of course the subway entirely stopped, I went home by walk up to my apartment at Upper West  about two hours. TV said “America is under attack” and so that everyone spent anxious days at home for a while and scarring that the next terrorism may come again. If I took the “cool” apartment in Tribeca close to the site, I would have spent several months very inconveniently without electricity and water. So I didn’t go to work for a while and evacuated at home watching TV for a couple of days. Then I got a  phone call from my boss who was still working in peaceful Boston. He asked with a bit of angry tone, “Hiro-san, how long have you been evacuating?” I replied “How can I get to work during the subway was stopping?” He asked “Why not bike to the office?” I answered ” Yes! I will go to the office by my bike now!” This is the story how my bicycle commuting life in NY instantly began.


Mountain bike I was riding in Boston and NY. During Boston, I was biking around the suburban mountains (off-road) with colleagues.

 

From 100th Street, going straight down to south, I have reached probably to 14 Street in 20 to 30 minutes. Then there constructed barricade all along 14 street and many police officers were standing to shut out the blocks of lower area. What I saw was exactly the real “Lockdown”. Although I thought that I could not pass through this gate, I was afraid that the boss would complain again if I returned back to home without trying anything, then I challenged to one of the policeman and asked very sensitively presenting my business card “Can I enter this gate? Our office is located at lower side.” Contrary to my expectations, the officer promptly said “You are OK to enter.” While the street of Manhattan is organized by grid system, the old area of lower Manhattan is disoriented like maze. The grid city is really convenient for “Lockdown” because until around at 14 Street there consists orthogonal street pattern so that the security line to block out lower area was formed conveniently. Our working life has re-started immediately like this. When I was back to the office, our big boss Vinoly was working and joking as usual. I remember he was making ridiculous jokes to Muslim(?) staff and laughing us at. In less than a week TV addressed “Get back to normal!” and consequently strong New Yorkers began to return to their everyday lives. In probably about a month, the subway also restarted to Houston Street, so I didn’t have to commute by bicycle for that longer period than I expected.

 

After that event, I lived in NY for about two years. During that period, I was also involved in a competition for the redevelopment of the former WTC site called Ground Zero. The Japanese are ridiculed as working bees, but I thought that the people in NY would work much harder. I would like to share more stories about NY during that time, but I don’t have enough photos left to post on my blog. I didn’t feel like taking pictures for a while after Sep.11. At the 20 years ago, we had no iPhone since Jobs did not bring the great device to the world yet. I lost many images taken by digital camera due to the crash of my computers. My Macintosh were broken many times…  About 8 years ago, I have returned to NY to visit a friend who worked at the WTC construction site office, but at that time Hurricane Sandy came and entered NY after a couples of days delayed. Unfortunately, the construction site was flooded out and I could not visit the site after all. Colleagues and friends in NY jokingly complained me that “Something bad happens when Hiro comes to NY.” Although I have lived for just about two years, but when I returned to Manhattan, I curiously felt like I was rewinding ten years backwards and went back to home.

 

Since September 11th, I am afraid that the world has changed taking something bad directions more and more. Finally Trump became president of the United States. Furthermore the pandemic of covid-19 has attacked around the world. Since the year of 2020 for me is the 20th anniversary from GSD graduation, I was planning a reunion trip to Boston and NY, but in vain.  I hope that the world will get back to “normal”  with the good news about presidential election sometime soon.

 


A shot of Manhattan Island “secretly” taken from the window of “almost empty” cabin on the way home at the last and first visit to NY since I left NY, about 10 years ago. You can see the WTC Freedom Tower under construction.     Photo in November 2012

Dhaka, a city of wild (2)

Construction site of human-wave tactics

Dhaka is in the midst of construction boom. From morning till midnight and regardless of weekdays or holidays, the construction sites are in operation. The first night I stayed in Dhaka, I was wondering what kept going on with strange sounds, I found that the construction was doing next to the hotel until midnight. It became a little quiet at last and then I was about to sleep but woke up again with the sound of a BANG. At dawn, the morning prayer broadcast begun and woke me up again. I was troubling with this every night fanfare, but weirdly and gradually getting used to it.


In Dhaka, many construction sites are on progress all around the city. Formwork by iron plate, Support work by bamboo.     Photo in Oct 2, 2019

If you walk around the city, you can find the construction site everywhere. Some construction sites seem to be abandoned because all of these constructions are running all at once. Even Dhaka, where houses millions of people, lacks workers. Not only the rickshaw but also the concrete casting work is done by hand. The workers including women beautifully and robustly carry with mortar and aggregates on their heads.


Concrete casting by hand.     Photo in October 3, 2019

Concrete formwork in Japan uses instrument panel of wooden plywood, but in Bangladesh uses reusable iron plate. And the support work uses bamboo. In this regard, the construction of Bangladesh is more ecological than Japan. Although it is a very primitive construction, the exposed concrete walls are generally done quite beautifully. According to Indian engineers, the quality of exposed concrete casting is better than in their home country. They can even make this kind of funky buildings with undulating exposed concrete walls.


Exposed concrete wall in Dhaka.     Photo in Mar 9, 2019

Basically, the structure of concrete building is composed from floor slabs, columns and beams. Most walls except retaining walls, even the partition walls inside, are constructed from bricks. Using too much bricks is not ideal for environment. Because of the huge application of bricks at all construction site at once, the factory will burn them and emit enormous carbon dioxide. Brick production is one of the major causes of air pollution in Bangladesh. Not only trying to solve this environmental issue, but considering for structural aspect or its heaviness of brick wall, we proposed lighter material, concrete block (CMU) for our building, but our idea was rejected because CMU was rarely used in Bangladesh construction. Too expensive to use CMU.


Brick and Support Bamboo are piling up on the street.     Photo in May 18, 2019

As for the automobile industry, Bangladesh is more environmental friendly than Japan because cars in Bangladesh run on liquefied natural gas. It is ironical that most cars in Bangladesh are secondhand cars run on LNG imported from Japan originally run on gasoline.

Hiroyuki Niino

Dhaka, a city of wild (3)

Dhaka, a city of wild (1)

Dhaka, a city of wild (1)

10 years have passed since the last blog! While facing tough situation of COVID-19 all around the world, some blogs of my friends inspires me to revive my blog hoping our everyday life get back to normal soon.

Last year, I have traveled on business in Dhaka, Bangladesh for about two months total. Dhaka houses “millions of people” and contains noisy but very vivid stories. Every time I come back from the hustle and bustle of Dhaka, I feel Tokyo is too quiet like dying. Although Bangladesh has serious urban and social problems such as poverty and sanitation, I think the human scenery in Dhaka has “life”. Based on the hypothesis that the current “vivid” urban phenomenon of Dhaka is the landscape of “Wild Mind” of “La Pensee Sauvage” by Claude Lévi-Strauss, I would like to share some interesting experiences in Dhaka. I am worried about the current situation of Bangladesh, but I’m sure such a robust country will overcome it.

On most of the streets in Dhaka, you can find many “rickshaws”, commonly seen around Southeast Asian countries. But the numbers are incredible. You will encounter “rickshaws” no matter where you walk in the city. In English it pronounces as “rickshaw”, but originally derived from Japanese, JINRIKISHA or man-power-vehicle. In Southeast Asia, “rickshaw” normally indicates “auto-rickshaw” or taxi using natural gas as a fuel, but in Dhaka “cycle-rickshaws” of manpowered shows much presence.


“Cycle” rickshaw flooding around the city.     Photo in Sep, 2019

Cycle-rickshaw is cheaper than auto-rickshaw and you can pick up anywhere in the city, so local people very frequently use cycle-rickshaws on their daily moves, such as for work and shopping. Though very primitive transportation method, some drivers (?) carry smartphones or mobile phones and make some money effectively using modern communication technology. Some local users directly call their favorite cycle-rickshaws on their smartphones. When I was about to check out, I couldn’t pay by my credit card because the reader at the hotel didn’t work, so I had to go to ATM to withdraw cash about 10 blocks away. The hotel man called for me was not a cab driver but a cycle-rickshaw man neatly dressed out.


Our rickshaw driver wearing cool printed dress shirt!     Photo in Jul, 2019

Cycle-rickshaws are not limited to two-seaters, but there are various types even including something not of school BUS but of school RICKSHAW. People who own cars are complaining that rickshaws cause persistent traffic congestion, but our cycle-rickshaw is more friendly, easy, and eco-friendly than automobile.


School Rickshaw.     Photo in March, 2019

Although the rickshaw in Dhaka looks enjoyable, please refrain from riding both of auto-type or cycle-type alone.

Hiroyuki Niino

Dhaka, a city of wild (2)