Stop the bomber, but don’t kill street life

New York City is experimenting with two techniques designed to ward off terrorist attacks without draining the streets of their vitality.
Last fall the first “TigerTrap” — a section of pavement that collapses if a vehicle is driven on it — was installed at Vesey Street and North End Avenue in Battery Park City in Lower Manhattan. Developed by Rock Twelve Security Architecture with Rogers Marvel Architects, the patented pavement system is strong enough to support anyone who walks across it. However, if a vehicle drives on it, the pavement will sink, and the vehicle will crash into a low, impermeable security barrier at the pavement’s edge.
Graeme Waitzkin, president of Rock Twelve, says the weight-sensitive pavement system allows potential targets, such as financial headquarters or government buildings, to avoid having heavy bollards or other conspicuous protective devices on their perimeters. A recent exhibition at the Municipal Art Society showed how the TigerTrap can be combined with a low obstacle, such as a sturdy bench that Rogers Marvel made of glass. The glass can be illuminated and can support metal seating, making the security device a public amenity.
For the Financial District in New York, Rogers Marvel designed a custom sculptural barrier called a “NOGO.” It consists of sculpture-like objects about 30 inches high, which function as bollards but are intended to be “visually interesting, inviting to touch, and easy to sit on,” according to the firm. Anchored in place, they are helping to protect buildings such as the New York Stock Exchange. Rogers Marvel is now developing a NOGO system that will be marketed nationally.
For institutions that need free-standing security booths, Weisz + Yoes Architects of New York has designed a contemporary-style structure that can occupy a sidewalk location without seeming intrusive. The approximately five-by-seven-foot booth is, in plan, a parallelogram. Thanks to its angular footprint, “it looks smaller than it is,” says Claire Weisz, a principal in the firm.
The booth’s ribbed, glassy exterior has a high-tech look, which is meant to look handsome but which is also intended to avoid giving the impression that it’s a tourist information booth. “We don’t want to attract people to come up to the window,” Weisz notes; the security person inside the booth needs to be able to concentrate on observing, without being interrupted by people on the street. The booths will be installed in a number of locations, including a 911 command center in Brooklyn.

cost more than jersey barriers
Security devices that look good — or inconspicuous — cost more than crude stock items like concrete Jersey barriers. The collapsible paving and subgrade work at Battery Park City cost about $125 per square foot, Waitzkin says. Glass benches and superior finishes can add to the cost. He estimates that the TigerTrap is “in the range of twice as much as, say, a bollard solution.” Since anti-terrorist devices are expected to last for many years and since they often occupy important public spaces, the cost is justifiable, he believes.
So far, devices like these have been ordered by organizations such as the Battery Park City Authority — enlightened clients that want protection combined with visual appeal. New York and Washington, DC, have in effect become the nation’s laboratories for advanced security designs, Weisz observes.
Many cities and building organizations have been slow to put security in an aesthetic perspective. In New Haven, Connecticut, when a Federal Building on Orange Street in downtown was refurbished, a long row of 26 fat concrete planters was gracelessly plunked down on the pavement, eliminating several on-street parking spaces and reducing the street’s attractiveness. The elimination of on-street parking spaces hurts businesses nearby, architect Robert Orr argued in a New Haven Register commentary criticizing the installation.
Retail consultant Robert Gibbs told New Urban News that each metered parking space in a prime US downtown location may generate $200,000 to $300,000 a year in retail and restaurant revenue. “Remove 10 stalls and you remove over $2 million in retail sales,” Gibbs estimates. In the New Haven case, the parking was eliminated without guaranteeing that the Federal Building would actually be safe from attack. Orr points out that a truck filled with explosives could park on the other side of the narrow street and blast the building, irrespective of the planters. Consequently, the New Haven installation probably has no protective value at all.
In New York, the struggle between security and urban life is by no means settled. There have been proposals to exclude cars and street-level retail from much of the World Trade Center site when it’s rebuilt, Weisz observes. But New York does have some institutions that are trying to achieve an intelligent balance between security and openness. Weiss lauds the city’s Planning Department for advocating “regular streets and regular stores” at the WTC site and for opposing the establishment of a zone that would be off limits to vehicular traffic. The outcome remains to be decided. (For more on security and urbanism, see the Sept. 2004 New Urban News.)