Musical Time in a Fast World

In this chapter Wilson addresses the relation between musical temporality and dominant conceptions of time under recent or ‘liquid’ modernity. He argues that the sonic arts (music, sound art, etc.) variously withdraw from and/or embrace normative time-making—thereby critically calling into question our assumptions about lived temporality. Wilson engages two examples, both intimately connected with the city of New York and the year 1983: Morton Feldman’s minimal yet durational String Quartet No. 2, and Bill Fontana’s Oscillating Steel Grids along the Brooklyn Bridge, the latter of which involved sounds from this bridge (traffic, the metal strut work, etc.) relayed live and broadcast in downtown Manhattan. Both works criss-crossed different temporalities and lived rhythms that contrasted with the speed implicit in 1980s hypercapitalism, forming dialogues between musical time and the cultures of its production.

Kafka on the Pier

This chapter refers to the Brooklyn Bridge (BB) Park as the second site where the author sought to land the floating pool but was under the auspices of a subsidiary of a state-run entity, the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC). It discusses the author and her team's participation at the BB Park Corporation meeting, including Malcolm McLaren, a waterfront engineer. It also recounts how McLaren could explain technical terms regarding barge placement and anchoring to the author and her team in plain English. The chapter details the intention of the BB Park Corporation meeting to talk about an agreement for the floating pool to dock temporarily at one of the former Port Authority piers. It mentions Jamie Springer, a young go-getter and project manager who considered the floating pool to be an excellent temporary use for the BB park.

Urban Infrastructure: Design and Preservation - Brooklyn Bridge Rehabilitation Program

<p>The Brooklyn Bridge is a National Historic Landmark and a New York City Landmark that has been in use for over 137 years. This is one of the most pictured bridge structures in the world, while being used as a critical and vital part of the infrastructure carrying over 105,000 vehicles per day. This paper addresses the engineering challenges/solutions related to the most current rehabilitation work being performed.</p><p>Contract 6 (2009 to 2017) represents a $650 million investment into the bridge to maintain it in a State of Good Repair. Work included deck replacement using accelerated bridge construction techniques and complete painting and steel repairs of the main span. A high-level traffic study and traffic simulations were developed to evaluate differing closure scenarios and their impacts on user costs and the traveling public.</p><p>Contract 6A (2017 to 2019) represents a $25 million investment in maintaining the historic and aesthetic integrity of the Brooklyn Bridge structures. Approximately, 30,000 SF of granite stone cladding will be replaced under this contract.</p><p>Contract 7 represents a $300 million investment that will address the rehabilitation of the historic arches on both sides of the main span and strengthening of the Towers. Construction is expected to begin in 2019.</p><p>Contract 8 represents a $250 million investment. It is in the planning phase and will address a new promenade enhancement (widening) over the Brooklyn Bridge.</p><p>This paper discusses how these engineering challenges were faced and resolved.</p>

Aesthetic Realism and the Beauty of the Brooklyn Bridge

This article is about one of the world’s most celebrated structures — the Brooklyn Bridge: what makes it beautiful, and why it has been loved by millions of people. It is based on this landmark principle, stated by Eli Siegel — poet, critic, and founder of the philosophy Aesthetic Realism: “All beauty is a making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves.” Beginning with the effect of this bridge on such artists and poets as Joseph Stella and Hart Crane, it then describes each step of the design and construction of this magnifi cent structure, showing how the making one of opposites — Power and Grace, Heaviness and Lightness, Firmness and Flexibility, Simplicity and Complexity — is what makes it a great work of both engineering and art. For example, in Bridges and Their Builders, Steinman and Watson write: “The pierced granite towers, the graceful arc of the main cables, the gossamer network of lighter cables, and the arched line of the roadway combine to produce a matchless composition, expressing the harmonious union of power and grace”. Doesn’t every person want to be at once strong and graceful? The authors describe how, as people are affected by the beautiful sensible relation of opposing forces working together for one purpose in the Brooklyn Bridge, they feel more hopeful that these same opposites can make sense in their own lives.