Bernard Rudofsky

Sky Roller - A means of reclaiming public space.

The development of New York is a parable of progress, American style, a continuous expansion and urban saturation of land, with streets leading nowhere, with no recognizable center or centers. A tracery of traffic arteries, too impractical to be considered highways, too dismal to be called streets, sums up the essential shabbiness of the cities. Although each generation of planners is planning itself off as saviors, the towns appear more unappetizing with every year. In his book 'My Hope for America,' Lyndon B. Johnson expressed the cities' destiny in a single ringing phrase: "In the next forty years," he wrote, "we must rebuild the entire urban United States."

There is no reason for thinking that the next forty years will be different in spirit from the past forty years or, for that matter, from the eight times forty years that preceded them. Johnson's truism has long gained acceptance among developers and wreckers, the men who virtually make an unmake our cities. In fact, it ought to be written into the Constitution.

- Bernard Rudofsky


"Thank you veterans, try our pumpkin spice" - This modern American City Center consists of two perpendicular highways; one of four lanes, the other two, there are two gas stations, two grocery stores, and three parking lots one of which is visible from the moon as a grey smudge on what was once an entirely dark green area.