The death last month of David Childs, an extraordinary Skidmore Owings and Merrill architect, who declined to join the ranks of vanity driven “starchitects,” despite his work on the post-9/11 World Trade Center, requires the telling of a story about the lesson he taught us about the importance of good design in solving community disputes over New York City big building proposals.
While many recall his rescue of the controversial Daniel Libeskind-proposed Freedom Tower replacement of the WTC after 9/11, his extraordinary talent for responding to public concern and uplifting public aspirations was well developed as early as 1987 when he rescued the day in the public fight over the redevelopment of the NYC Convention Center at Columbus Circle.
The rescue of the redevelopment of the tawdry Coliseum site, the city’s third-rate convention center at Columbus Circle, is a stunning example of his skill at design and communication. The ever-elegant Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis famously led an anti-development public demonstration in Central Park with dozens of leading citizens holding black umbrellas to illustrate her claim that if two 600-foot tall towers replaced the old 15-story Coliseum Convention Center they would diminish sunlight in Central Park.
Her pack of 800 protesters included dozens of luminaries from author Tom Wolfe to TV pioneer Norman Lear to newscaster Bill Moyers, to retired Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. The demonstration merited the cover of New York magazine with the ominous headline: “The Shadow.”
The plan Onassis hated was conceived by the esteemed and modest Israeli architect Moshe Safdie best known for his relatively low-rise Habit 67, Lego style, housing complex built for Expo in Montreal. Safdie had designed two pink granite 60-story massive towers, almost bear-hugging each other. The highly influential New York Times architecture critic Paul Goldberger described the Safdie design as “ghastly, vulgar and pathetic,” fully supporting Onassis.
Her opinions on good taste mattered. She had earlier led the successful charge to enact the city’s first Landmark Preservation Law. In 1982, as the City Councilmember at-large for Manhattan, I had worked with Onassis on the landmark designation of Lever House, the first modernist landmarked building. Her opinions mattered.
In 1986, Phillip Howard, chair of the Municipal Art Society, an urban design thought-leader, approached me to convey a message to my boss Mort Zuckerman (chair of Boston Properties, the developer of Columbus Center) that MAS want to find a settlement to green light this important plan to transform the crossroads of Broadway and Central Park’s southwest corner into shops, restaurants, movies, offices, and residences.
Zuckerman overcame his initial skepticism and met with the former first lady. Surprisingly, the solution was not in a dramatically lower, less dense building, but in choosing a different architect: David Childs.
As Childs described the process of redesigning (I doubt he would use the fluffy term “re-imagining“) the Coliseum site he walked the length of Central Park West taking inspiration from the two towers on a base precedent at The Century, The Beresford, etc., that gave the Central Park-facing avenue its distinctive character.
He then focused on the obvious but unique geometry of the circle which formed the centerpiece of four very distinctive streets: Broadway the grand two way spine of Manhattan, Eighth Ave. a wide gritty northbound commercial avenue and the two Central Park borders South and West.
The circle was a rare form in New York City — unlike London, Paris or Rome. He wanted it to be enhanced by creating a curved continuous frontage at the base of his building. He listened carefully to the opponents and instead of two rectangular towers, he created two trapezoids that “slenderized” their appearance on the skyline. He left an ample street width opening between the towers to let light through to Central Park.
Most important, Childs spoke as an architectural educator bringing skeptics into his fold by explaining the beauty as well as the functionality and the compatibility of his design with the New York skyline and the formerly underappreciated crossroads. He taught the broad public, as well as the educated elite, about the importance of beautiful functional design as well as about how to overcome the natural anxiety new big buildings instill in a wary public.
Although the many buildings he designed will serve as testament to his monumental architectural contributions, his skill as an advocate for good design and enduring beauty should be remembered equally.
Wallace is a real estate development lawyer at Greenberg Traurig, a global law firm. He was the last City Councilmember at-large from Manhattan.