From Today's NY Times

Two bits of interest from today's NY Times. First, a nice exploration about Sir Norman Foster's interest in desiging a relatively small building no the Bowery in NYC. Admittedly, the main body of the article presented an interesting way of using an elevator as an active space. But the thing that stood out was this great quote at the end:

“To be an architect, you have to be an optimist,” he said. “You have to be a realist, but you have to be an optimist.”

That's why he is Norman Foster. Laurie Olin is visiting tonight and I would be surprised if he felt very different at all. his work feels very optimistic while remaining quite practical and reasonable.

The second thing in the Times was a description of the ever familiar transportation corridors of North Jersey:

NORTH BERGEN, N.J. — In deepest urban New Jersey, just off the hellish Routes 1 and 9, past the Lincoln Tunnel Motel and the Hoboken cemetery, sits an unlikely place that might be thought of as opera heaven.

That relatively small acreage of land around the tunnels and bridges has become so integral to the image of New Jersey that you could almost leave out the adjectives and readers would still have flashbacks to the helix or Snake Hill. Who needs the Pine Barrens or the Highlands when we have the Pulaski Skyway?