Submitted by Benjamin Hemric, Feb 22, 2008 15:32

It does seem that, GENERALLY SPEAKING, skywalks are bad for cities. BUT that doesn't mean that they are wrong in each and every situation either. So, "Bravo" to Mr. McIlheran for challenging the urban planning community's unthinking acceptance of the anti-skywalk dogma. Given the local conditions in Minneapolis and St. Paul (especially, obviously, the severe winter weather), skywalks do seem to make a lot of sense there. They seem to me to be an innovative and opportune response to local conditions -- just as the canals of Venice and Amsterdam were innovative and opportune responses to the local conditions of those cities. To those who say "no" skywalks anyplace, anytime: "Why should all cities (and city districts) be the same?" That is not to say that skywalks might not also create genuine problems -- even in Minneapolis and St. Paul. I've heard that, at street-level, the areas covered by skywalks are pretty dead (and maybe even somewhat depressing). And, judging from photographs at least, a whole downtown of skywalks -- especially skywalks designed along bland, modernist lines -- is kind of ugly and alienating. But, it doesn't seem to me that these are unsolvable problems -- if they are, in fact, significant problems in the first place. Indeed, they may actually be interesting opportunities. Perhaps, somewhere along the line, the "dead" ground floors of these buildings will be (or, maybe, already have been?) more frequently enlivened with enterprises and activities that don't require high volumes of pedestrian traffic, but do require some public access -- and cheaper rents: day care centers, health clubs, pet stores, used book stores, dance studios, antique shops, nightclubs, experimental theaters, etc. And it seems to me that a city of "land bridges" could actually be a visually fantastic one if the bridges were less uniform and more creative and playful in their design -- with some being designed as traditional "Venetian" bridges, some being designed as spectacularly lit futuristic bridges, etc. New York City actually has a fair number of skybridges, in addition to the ones at Hunter College. My favorites include the unenclosed pedestrian one that connects the American Stock Exchange Building (?) to Trinity Church Graveyard (!) and the unenclosed one, Tudor City Place (a real street), that vaults over 42nd St. and connects the two parts of Tudor City to one another. However, the closest New York comes to an actual pedestrian skywalk system (leaving aside, of course, the "street-level" and "underground" systems of Grand Central and Rockefeller Center, respectively) is the extensive, useful and beautiful second-story concourse of the World Financial Center in Battery Park City. And as good as this system is now, it used to be even greater before September 11th, as it was then linked to the World Trade Center's own very extensive pedestrian system via the fantastic, wide and wonderful North Bridge -- with its art exhibits and street fairs, it was New York City's very own, 20th Century "Ponte Vecchio" and "Hall of Mirrors" combined! So despite all the heat taken by Minneapolis from orthodox urban planners for its skywalk system, I think it is really in New York City where anti-skywalk dogmatism has done its greatest damage. It seems to me that if it weren't for such dogmatism, "the powers that be" would have rebuilt the World Trade Center with some important but minor corrections to the original multi-leveled site plan (i.e., siting all buildings within the original street grid this time) and New York City would have had as a result a much more useful, beautiful and URBANE pedestrian district -- one that would have indeed responded in a creative but practical way to the unique local conditions and the new requirements of this important site.

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