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Model: The Lower Manhattan Model
This extraordinary model of Lower Manhattan was commissioned by the Downtown-Lower Manhattan Association, a group of business leaders led by David Rockefeller, to promote, in cooperation with the City Planning Commission, various plans for the revitalization of Lower Manhattan. The model accurately represents existing buildings in gray and beige and distinguishes proposals, generally in white. Some schemes represented were ultimately realized, such as the World Trade Center and Battery Park City (over time, and with a different configuration of housing and office buildings), while others remained dreams. Traffic congestion was a major frustration and fixation of the planners. The model includes a range of ambitious and expensive plans, such as the 1966 West Side Depressed Expressway, a proposal that predated "Westway," and the Lower Manhattan Expressway, envisioned by Robert Moses, that was to slice across the island on Broome Street. Also of note is the creation of a park and pedestrian precinct around the government buildings of the civic center that was to have been made possible by tunneling the traffic under the site. The model was created by Theodore Conrad (1910-1994), a master craftsman who initiated a revival of models as important design tools. It was acquired by The New-York Historical Society in 1998 after it was displayed in the first exhibition of The Skyscraper Museum, "Downtown New York." Model Credits: |