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Master Rebuilder
Yale faculty member heads lower Manhattan redevelopment
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Business New Haven
3/4/2002
By: BNH
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The rebuilding of New York in the wake of the September 11 attacks has assumed a New Haven flavor with the naming of Yale School of Architecture alumnus and faculty member Alexander Garvin to oversee the redevelopment of lower Manhattan.
“Alex Garvin has had a profound effect on New York City,” said Robert A. M. Stern, dean of the Yale School of Architecture. “I can think of no one who knows more about New York and how it works.”
Garvin is the third Yale School of Architecture professor to become associated with the World Trade Center (WTC) site. Visiting professors Frank Gehry and Zaha Hadid, who are teaching master studios at the school this term, selected the site for student projects.
Gehry has challenged his students to design a one-room monument for the WTC site. Hadid, a London-based designer and theorist, has asked her class to consider a new kind of office complex to replace the Twin Towers.
A native New Yorker, Garvin has served on the City Planning Commission for a number of years. In New Haven he teaches urban planning and development at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
His course “Study of the City,” which uses such techniques as role-playing and field visits to Manhattan, is a popular mainstay of the Yale College curriculum.
From 1970 to 1980, he served in New York city government as deputy commissioner of housing and director of comprehensive planning. He is a fellow of the Urban Land Institute and a member of the National Advisory Council to the Trust for Public Land.
In the private sector, Garvin runs his own consulting practice for urban planning and real-estate development, and he writes and lectures widely. He is the author or co-author of several books, including The American City: What Works, What Doesn't, which earned the 1996 American Institute of Architects book award in urbanism; Urban Parks & Open Space; and the recently released Parks, Recreation & Open Space: A 21st Century Agenda.
Despite his expertise in urban planning, Garvin acknowledges that his new position as vice president for planning, design and development of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. (LMDC) presents daunting challenges. “I have been planning most of my adult life,” he says. “But this is a unique project, unlike anything I have ever done before.”
Although the site of the Twin Towers is the most important part of the project, Garvin says, he will oversee the redevelopment and revitalization of all of lower Manhattan - from rewiring buildings to street system changes and subway lines. Garvin will work with agencies, organizations, commissions and developers, along with residents, property-owners and area retailers.
“I'll take everybody's interests into consideration,” Garvin says. Of the spiritual dimension of his project, especially for those who suffered losses, Garvin acknowledges, “There's no way we can grasp the meaning for those affected.”
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