Master Builders

Part 2 - Chapter 8: The Need for Mixed Primary Uses

Lower Manhattan

Jane Jacobs begins by explaining how a district in order to be successful must be in constant use. she uses lower manhattan as her example. The businesses in lower manhatten are used mainly during the lunch hours, between 12-and 2pm. after that there is minimal use of these businesses. Jacobs explains that this is because lower manhattan is a financial center and is used mainly by workers. she tells us that many of the businesses are moving to midtown where they are used for longer periods of the day. she explains that the city is aware that if this continues lower manhattan will slowly dwindle and die out. as a result the city has planned to erect housing, theorizing that if people live in this district they will use its shops during a larger range of hours. The urban planners are also intending to build more manufacturing plants. Jacobs criticizes the urban planners explaining that building new manufacturing plants would increase the 9-5 nature of this part of town, and also deprive other parts of the city that really need manufacturing plants. I assume she is saying this because if other parts of the city have manufacturing plants, then the people who work at those plants will have to travel to them. Increasing the amount of travel people do should theoretically increase the liveliness/revenue of a city. it costs money to travel, whether that be parking, taking the train, or a taxi. also, people who travel to other parts of the city are more likely to leave their district and go to other districts and increase revenue in those districts.

from Atta Kim's "Long Exposure" series

In Jacobs explanation of the problem with Lower Manhattan, I couldn't help but think of Atta Kim's Long Exposure series, in which he uses long exposures to create a world that appears uninhabited but due to sometimes barely noticeable trails, has a ghost like quality. As if something may have lived there once, but is no longer. This is how I imagine Lower Manhattan to be after 5 or 6 o'clock, when all the workers have gone home.

The Lower Manhattan Waterfront

Jacobs offers an alternative plan. Her plan is one that would increase tourism to this district, drawing visitors at leisure hours and on weekends. Her plan would have a free marine museum (including an aquarium and permanent collection of marine vessels) built on the lower manhattan waterfront, which she claims is currently underutilized. Jacobs also claims that the lower manhattan waterfront could be utilized as an embarkation point for "pleasure voyages in the harbor and around the island" she explains that this in turn would produce new sea food restaurants. She explains that related attractions could be featured inland, "deliberately to carry visitors father in easy steps." Then she plans for a public library to be built, one which would specialize in all marine and financial lore. She says that as the district "livened up during evenings and weekends we could expect some new residential use to appear..."

Jacobs theorizes that if a district is calculated and specialized for one function will be unable to provide what is necessary if it is confined to that one function. This is due to the fact that the district will only be used during specific times and because of its lack of diversity, at all other times will be empty.

Jacobs describes something she calls "secondary diversity" which is "a name for the enterprises that grow in response to the presence of primary uses, to serve the people the primary uses draw." This is essentially eateries and shopping related to the primary use.

Jacobs explains that for a district to be effective it must do a few things:

First, the people using the street must use the same streets, their paths cannot be separated, or else segregation will happen.

Second, the people using the same street at different times must include, among them, people who will use some of the same facilities. Her example where this is NOT happening is an Opera house that is being put into a low income neighbourhood.

Lastly, she says that the mixture of people using the street during the day must be somewhat similar to those using it at night.

Jacobs talks about the Central Business District (CBD). She explains that traditionally city centers had all four necessary conditions for generating diversity. Yet now they are missing one component; they are unused after the hours of work. Basically suffering from the same problem Lower Manhattan is posed with.

I relate the issue Lower Manhattan is facing to The South Loop of Chicago. Although I am not sure that any action is being taken about the problem. The South Loop is also suffering from lack of mixed primary uses. Below is a graph which depicts the issues at hand.

1930s-1950s

Lewis Mumford is a historian and philosopher born in 1895 in Queens, NY. When he was 44 years old he created a film called "The City" a movie which contrasts a glorified view suburban life, while presenting an exaggeratedly miserable view of city life. The excerpt of the film that I watch begins with shots of the city, portraying an overcrowded world, in which conditions are poor and people are packed together like sardines. There is little room for people to move and cars are taken over by massive crowds, then at what I assume is 5 o'clock the disappear leaving behind a ghost town while they all pile in their cars and get on the highway; even on the highway the cars are unable to move due to traffic. The film then moves to what i am defining as a suburb although i do not think that the idea of a suburb had been created yet. Either way, the film shows a suburban type life where problems don't exist. An almost "Leave it to Beaver" type life, yet this film was made before the time of leave it to beaver. The film appears as an advertisement for 'safe, clean' suburbs where your kids can run around and experience the fresh air. I assume that the type of town depicted in this video is either that of an industry town, or a suburb. It appears as though it could be an industry town due to the fact that there was a factory in the town. The film does not show what happens when the factory shuts down, when what happened to Detroit happens to those small towns.

A narrator's voice is heard, explaining the beauty of this "new" type of life. I would like to highlight some of things he says and offer my comments on them.

"Just watch us grow, the scales wont hold us soon."
I found this to be ironic due to increasing obesity in America.




"A little gossip, or a friendly hand is good for the complexion"
I found this statement also a telling sign that the life they are offering in this video isn't really real.

"...the market is just an annex to the kitchen, another chance to chat about the children's measles or the weather..."
The narrator makes this statement in such a lighthearted way. As if to say that life in this suburb is so perfect that even when your child has the measles things are okay. This again, is an example of how the reality lifestyle has been skewed.

"One thing is sure, most of the greens brought in by truck from nearby farms each morning are fresh and crisp, and haven't lost their flavor or youth."
I found it to be interesting that this was an issue even in 1939, and is still an issue (kind of) in 2011.

"In this new scheme of things, the school becomes the center and the focus of activities."
This statement was true for the town i grew up in. Any town-wide activity was held at the school and church (which were connected to one another). In the early 2000's Catholic schools began closing. between 2000 and 20006 twenty-two schools closed, the school in my town being one of them. since then my town has fallen apart. This kind of falls into the same vein as centering a town around and industry or a factory. Once that place closes the town has no purpose and is essentially abandoned. The narrator tries to cast this centralized focus in a good light, yet it is another "leave it to beaver" type situation. It looks good on the surface but in reality it limits a town and puts it into a slippery situation where the town depends on this industry or this school and if that fails so does the town.

"You take your choice, each one is real, each one is possible"
This statement is humorous as neither of these choices were real. Both were gross exaggerations of each scenario.


This is the intro to a movie called revolutionary road. Set in 1955, 16 years after the release of Mumford's film, in the world that Mumford was championing. The movie follows a couple who in their seventh year of marriage move to a suburb. They realize they are unfulfilled with the life they bought into and their marriage falls apart as a result.

I think if Mumford had seen this movie his film might have a different tone.

The Navigators

Flâneur is a french word which Charles Baudelaire used to describe a person who walks around the city in order to experience it. a Flaneur was known to take in all parts of the world equally, spending equal time viewing the world. Flaneurs were able to spend large portions of time due to the invention of the street lamp. This invention also opened up a new world, as normally one would go to sleep after the sun set. The street lamp increased night life, creating something new for the flanuer to experience.




While thinking about the flaneur I realized that what is most interesting about the flaneur is not the city they exhibit, but the flaneur themselves. It seems that Poe too found the flaneur themselves to be interesting. Who are the flaneurs what does their life consist of. I find myself asking this question about a lot of people i see on the street. wondering, "what do they do at night?" or "what does their apartment look like?".











This video is from the movie "Following" by Christopher Nolan. The film tells the story of an unemployed, aspiring writer. The writer out of boredom begins "shadowing" other people. Edgar Allen Poe does this in his story "Man in the Crowd" Poe follows a flaneur. Perhaps "Following" is a re-telling of Poe's "Man in the Crowd" but with a twist.




In thinking about the flaneur and reading Poe's "Man in the Crowd" I also found myself imagining it visually as Sophie Calle's "Suite Venitienne/Please Follow Me". In this series Calle trails a man she met a party from Paris to Venice, photographing along the way."

Poe's "Man in the Crowd", Nolan's "Following", and Calle's "Suite Venitienne/Please Follow Me" all play into our interest in others in a similar way. Not surprisingly Calle and Nolan's work is very similar visually.

Left: An image from Calle's "Suite Venitienne" Right: A still from Nolan's "Following"

Perhaps it is our natural inclination to be voyeurs of sorts. Maybe voyeurs are nothing more than flaneurs who find interest in humanity rather than the city. Merry Alpern is a voyeur in her "Dirty Windows" series.

Aren't we all voyeurs though? many street photographers can easily fall into the category of voyeur. Garry Winogrand openly admits to going after attractive women in his photographs.

The Flaneur is nothing more than a voyeur whose interest is one of the city not of the people.