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125  “Shopping Is the Chief Cultural Activity in the United States” How the Seaport Sold Its Soul Bonham’s and Buford’s tenures had been unmitigated disasters. Shepley blamed the crisis on the Seaport’s original design and convinced the board to turn the gritty area into a slick shopping mall, euphemistically calling it a festival marketplace. When Phase I opened in 1983 with what Newsweek called “all the fanfare of a NASA space shot,” the developer, James Rouse Company of Columbia, Maryland, featured the New Fulton Market, along with the restored lower floors of Schermerhorn Row and the Museum Block. Phase II’s shopping pavilion on Pier 17 followed in 1985. Phase III was projected to rehabilitate the remaining urban renewal district, which had some two hundred buildings. It would be, said the Seaport’s president , “one of the largest restoration and development projects ever undertaken .” Many New Yorkers, such as Huxtable, were bewildered. Some saw deceit. In 1985, a Gotham preservationist told his peers that Rouse had “foisted” on the museum “perhaps the grossest atrocity to be passed off as a bonafide preservation project.” A later Seaport president faulted City Hall. Yet Seaport trustees had instigated the idea. Setting a trend for other museums, the Seaport gave key assets to a smart-talking developer. In so doing, Shepley expected to fill the museum coffers, institute a business regimen, and undo the 1960s experiment.1 The Seaport was founded on a wing and a prayer. With few dollars, Stanford admitted in 1967, “I am profoundly tired and my hunch is we’ll have to give the Seaport development away” to focus on “the ships, the soul of our enterprise.” But, funded by Isbrandtsen, pushed by the Friends, and adopted by City Hall, the museum committed itself in 1969 to Blocks 74E and 96 E-W. Thanks to Brooke Astor’s intercession, Laurance Rockefeller, a venture capitalist who aided conservation and culture, took interest. The younger brother of Nelson and David, he joined Stanford, Cantalupo, and architect Bronson Binger in January 1973 for a walk through the district. 126 “Shopping Is the Chief Cultural Activity in the United States” After lunch “in the unheated upper floor of Sloppy Louie’s Restaurant,” where Astor kept “her mink coat over her knees to keep warm,” Rockefeller offered a $200,000 planning grant to make the Seaport “economically viable” and spur public feedback. That led to the Seaport Plan of 1973, which would be implemented by restoration director Binger, a former chairman of the MAS Landmarks Committee and its Historic Districts Council. Paralleling the Manhattan Landing Plan, the Seaport Plan proposed expanding the restoration to Blocks 97 E-W and creating a floating restaurant to keep its piers clear for pedestrians. With a “capacity exceeding any shore” rival, Captain Lacey’s Robert Fulton became a hot spot. There Mayor Lindsay held a retirement party, Rockefeller a luncheon, and Governor Hugh Carey a wedding dinner.2 Using Rockefeller’s grant, the Seaport briefly hired architect Jonathan Barnett as its master planner. His recommendations appeared in his textbook Urban Design as Public Policy (1974), for which his former boss Mayor Lindsay wrote the foreword, and in the museum’s Reporter. He proposed a $32 million expenditure for a mix of shops, museum facilities, and low-rent studios for artists. Of the total space, he suggested only 15 percent for the museum. With drawings by Edward L. Barnes, the neat streets, awninged shops, and a canopied esplanade set off a debate. Opposing the change, many critics deplored any new or trendy commerce: they wanted to exclude peddlers who sold everything from jewelry to hash pipes, while some even disdained crafts shops, fearing a possible strip mall. They liked the seaport authentic. A volunteer waxed affectionately about “the dreadful fish-glue stench” near Sweet’s Restaurant, suggesting “preservation can —and should—be eclectic, for the sake of keeping vitality.” The Reporter stoked the critical feedback. Facing complaints about the “‘mod boutique’ look,” Binger, who was in charge of implementing Barnett’s recommendations , wanted to keep “any slickness, even accidental,” out, while showing the district’s “traditional grunginess.” Stressing that the redesigned seaport had to be financially self-supporting, Binger said that the work would be “historically appropriate, viable in the 20th century, and compatible with Museum and community needs.” As such, he was walking a tightrope as precarious as Philippe Petit would do in 1974 between the twin towers . The Seaport Plan of 1973 unraveled, however, as...

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