ok so yeah. I live in troy. that’s been established. and troy sucks. it’s a terrible place to try and make into a home, for many reasons. but this is what I will concede: it’s also a fascinating place. I kind of love it, but in a strictly intellectual fashion. this intellectual, mathematical love that I have for troy sorta kinda mitigates the fact that when I walk its streets, I want to power-vomit and/or run for the hills. but it is love, nonetheless.
in point of fact, this place makes for a fascinating urbanism laboratory. seriously now. often, when people ask me to describe troy, I tell them “it’s like if you took the west village, shrunk it down a bit, dragged it up the hudson, and deserted it.” it’s got gorgeous brownstones and a functional grid system and arcane, incomprehensible parking laws. if you took a TriBeCa yuppie, wielded an anti-crackhead visor over his or her eyes, and dropped them in downtown troy, they’d feel just ducky.
and this, really, is at least the physical layer of what jacobs was going on about in “death and life”. now I know what you’re thinking. you’re like fish, shut up about jacobs. you read and very much enjoyed the fucking book. fo’real, we GET it. but no no yeah bear with me. we have people eyeballing the streets here and providing that de-facto surveillance layer. we have almost none of that modern-postmodern remixed ville radieuse fake project bullshit going on. the dudes at the bodega know me well, and while yes I will concede I would not necessarily hand them the keys to my apartment, I take what they say at face value, and would trust them to help someone out if they were lost or some such thing.
the truth, really (and this is the sort of criticism of jacobs I have casually noted) is that many of her happy-neighborhood west-village template scenarios were exaggerated and beyond idealistic. so I’m willing to bet that here in troy, new york, we have at least the unexaggerated components that could make up a happy jacobsian scenario.
the obvious reason we don’t really truly have that shit is evident in the book itself: nowhere does she claim her words to be law. she frequently qualifies (and sometimes overqualifies) her prosaic synopses with the fact that the illustrative examples in question are serious oversimplifications, and that far greater forces are at work behind the scenes… she is very quick to provide this context of complexity when discussing racially charged themes (which edward t. “motherfucking racist asshole” hall could take a serious lesson in).
but yeah. so that does little to answer the question: what is up with troy? it’s a fucked up place, and it’s easy to hate, but no one will deny that its fundamental structure whispers all sorts of potential, if you’re willing to listen. I have had several of my friends express the desire to take the place over and restore it to its former majesty… a task that seems tantalizingly possible. is this strange allure unique to troy? probably not. but does one feel such possibility from a strip of commerical highway, with its acres of parking lots and nihilistically unworkable zoning laws? not generally. nay, one of the few things about this place that keeps me from totally losing it is the thought that “hey, they would KILL for this apartment/view/ivy-shrouded building/carriage house/private garden in new york”.
maybe I’m a stuck-up new-york-city-loving asshole, perhaps yes, but the manner in which a good percentage of jane jacobs’ postulations dovetail with this particular city do pique my interest. since jacobs’ ideas were brewed up in new york, it follows that I would draw such paralells. erm. but so yeah in accordance with the fact that a picture is generally thought to be worth 1,000 words, I’ll snap some (hopefully) illustrative shots and post ‘em soon. I impulse-bought a shitty digital camera last monday, so I have the technology. word to that.
yes. erm. so I’ll think/write more on this crap. excuse the jotty nature of this post, I’m sort of “reading it as I write it” like that, so sorry, but c’est la guerre, no? more to come, more to come, yes yes yes.
