The Importance of Place
Tuesday, October 25th, 2005
There are those who believe that Ms. Strawberry harbors nothing but antipathy toward Los Angeles, while hoisting only unmitigated praise upon her New Orleans; that she is as unbalanced as many a daytime disc jockey. That is a pity. But there are others, for instance, Dr. M, a sensitive academician, who genuinely wants to know why Los Angeles produces such visceral responses. Today’s column is for both Dr. M and for my detractor—beloved though he may be.
Unfortunately, I have not yet returned to New Orleans in any mode but my mind’s mischievous eye. However, I did have the excellent fortune to be in New York City this past week and, for the first time in nearly two months since the hurricane, I didn’t feel the bone crushing yearning for my ravaged home…for at least five days. New York was a salve, an easy—yes, easy!—break from the Sunshine Malaise, from the harsh lines and contradictory “open constraint” of its geography.
Before I left for New York I dined with Dr. M and her native New Yorker friend—happily ensconced in a Los Feliz highrise for a year, never to return to Gotham, he remarked. The conversation naturally began with the New York-Los Angeles question—which really isn’t so much a question as it is a series of heartfelt and intellectualized assessments of the sharp differences, pros and cons of each coastal city. That was when Dr. M, who is a native New Orleanian, asked me “What is it that irks you so much about L.A.? Is it the architecture you miss from New Orleans?”
(Lesson One: Always dine with a humanities professor. No matter what People magazine says, they are the real Beautiful People).
Yes, to a large extent it certainly is the architecture. And I don’t just mean the elegant lines of Neo-Classicism or elaborate Beaux-Arts; not only the simple grace of Creole cottages and the cozy confines of shotguns. Not those things alone because architecture is not merely a building in and of itself. It is not a piece that one can remove from a wall, turn off from the stereo, or walk out on during intermission. Rather, it is the foundation on and in which all other art flourishes (or not), the series of which forms the human-built environment. Not to be discounted or even taken lightly, architecture has been the thesis of books pointedly exploring the reasons why attachments and feelings are formed in and about particular places (iconic like Coney Island; universal like the Ponte Vecchio) and that when those places are changed or altered (or corrupted), the effect can be powerful or it can yield annoyances like a lingering cold—a kind of overall malaise upon mind, body, and spirit.
I thought I might be crazy until I read Tony Hiss’ 1991 exploration of that theme called The Experience of Place. Few reasonable people deny that place is important. It follows that, if architecture is part and parcel of place, then it should be important, too. Why does it seem so silly to miss it then?—as if it were one separate, unbound entity. Why does the good professor’s question make me sound like yet another neophyte in that tiresome East Coast versus West Coast auditorium (thinking that they are the first person to have experienced such a revelation), when in fact I am only responding in mind, body and spirit to the sensibilities that formed the very foundation on which classical architecture was debated and constructed.
Today, and for many decades past, the United States has valued money but not education, possessed power without grace. We have allowed such atrocities as 1965’s Urban Renewal, a federal program that systematically razed some of the most important structures and neighborhoods in the country. And slowly, but more often rapidly, we eroded the foundation of solid place, destroying community—often invisible to the outside inspector but inimitable to its patrons—and, in large part, literally paved the route for greater suburbanization and sprawl. In short, these programs green lighted the Car as King, the Body as Sedentary, and the Home as not only castle but the whole damn kingdom, too.
In New York I traveled good distances by foot or greater distances (Brooklyn) by subway train; I ducked into St. Patrick’s on Sunday not so much for the sermon but for the solace of gothic arches and candlelight. I wended my way from soaring midtown Art Deco wonders to the old Village, the East Village, back up to the east River and over to Central Park. All the while chestnuts and coconut bits, almonds and peanuts roasted and wafted, following me. The senses—glorious!—alighted, nerved, sang, woke up.
A suburbanized setting is unnatural, against the grain of community and anything but soccer culture. There are reasons that 10 million people visit New Orleans every year. Consciously or not, they know that the scale is human, the green is soothing, and the culture is by and large good for the soul.
Yes, indeed—in New York I found sweet respite. Once again in the Sunshine Place, where its gold must be unearthed, I long for New Orleans.
Thankfully, it’s raining.