Finding the Hidden and Making It Visible
I sometimes pick up Origin, the conscious culture magazine. It’s got alternative viewpoints on a wide variety of topics. New ways of thinking about old things. Interviews with folks whose ideas lives closer to the fringes.
The article “Subterranean Cathedral” stopped me in my skimming tracks. James Ramsey and Daniel Barasch heard about the vast, abandoned underground spaces that lie dormant under New York City and approached the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to turn it into an underground park illuminated with their invention of redirected sunlight. Fascinated with how they will do that. The forgotten world reminded me of the 1987ish show Beauty and the Beast. In that show, The Beast and a bunch of other folks lived under New York City.
So, these two go-for-it risk-takers settle on the historic former Williamsburg Trolley Terminal unused since 1948 and create a Kickstarter campaign asking for $100,000 to develop a proposal. They got it and a whole lot more. I’m going to investigate Kickstarter for my cool creativity non-center center. I had forgotten about this tool.
If you visit their site “The LowLine“ you can see the before and the proposed after. Gorgeous renderings of NYC’s first underground park.
Creative hats off to these two imagineers with the courage to to take on something this novel and big. We need more people like James and Daniel to come up with these fantastical ideas. Too many people won’t even try to do something. They talk themselves out of it, thinking (even hoping on some level) it isn’t possible.
I’m convinced everything is possible.
What impossible thing would you like to pull off? Please tell us if you like …
Thanks, G.
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Very cool website for their proposal, hope they are successful.
I’ll have to think some more about the impossible…
Hi Lou,
I look forward to visiting NYC’s first underground park! Thanks, G.
Sounds like quite an intriguing project — it’s actually the kind of thing I fantasized about building when I was a kid, except the underground city would be a place where my stuffed animals would live. 🙂
Hi Chris,
It really is a fantasy world. Such a great example of doing the impossible.
Thanks! G.
Hi Giulietta,
What a fantastic project, but if not for your post, I doubt I’d have learnt about it. Exactly what a good blog is meant to do: inform, enlighten, and raise questions.
I’ll be interested to see if these enterprising young men actually get this project off the ground, and how/if redirected sunlight works there. Also, for the uninitiated, this shows the merits of using Kickstarter. (A friend funded her trip and performance to the Edinburgh Festival through Kickstarter.)
Hi Penelope!
Wonderful to hear your voice here on the blog. Kickstarter brings much needed democracy for the arts/open space/creativity. The stuff that doesn’t exactly broaden our horizons gets funded easily by developers. We need a new breed of developer, people who want to develop culture and community! Thanks, G.
Wow, I loved learning about this G. It’s such a wild and cool idea. Thanks for the link – I visited the site and was blown away. Seems like urban planners would be drooling over this idea. Imagine if all the cities with underground spaces got rehabbed. There are actually old underground spaces like this in Sacramento, because parts of the city were originally built much lower, then later the streets were raised. Probably because of flood danger, but I’m not sure. I know there are underground spaces in Seattle too.
When you ask about an impossible dream I can’t help but think of “Dream the impossible dream” from Man of La Mancha. The cast repeats the song at the end of the show after Don Quixote is dead. And one of the final lyrics is “To live with your heart striving upward.” I love that. And I suspect that is how impossible dreams become possible.
Hi Patty,
Great lyrics from Man of La Mancha. I also love “live with your heart striving upward.” Inspiring words to live by. I think schools should offer a class called “Doing the impossible.” (Maybe, I will put it together as a grant?)
Most everything we see today must have been thought impossible at some time. Hey, they thought the Earth was flat, etc.
Underground Sacramento sounds neat. My sister-in-law told me about Underground Seattle. Here is a link to that.
http://www.undergroundtour.com/
Now, I want to go see all these underground spaces.
Thanks! G.