But We Can Talk Details Later

January 17, 2022 9:21 PM

Here We Have A Perfectly Nice Slice Of 32nd Street, Between 2nd And 3rd Ave. According To Present Day Google Maps, This Block Has A Dunkin, A Starbucks, And A Comic Book Store, As Well As Manhattan PS 116.

Now, With The Block-For-Block Program, This Charming Parcel Could Be Exchanged With A Lot Of Equivalent Size In Eastern Utah, Specifically The Area Of Arches National Park. Of Course, There’s A Bit Of Infrastructure Work To Do In Order To Account For A Substantial Difference In Topography, But We Can Talk Details Later.
posted by wesleyac (25 comments total)

Literally Do Not Worry About It. Did You Even Look At The Renderings? They Show A City And A Countryside That Are Thriving—Are You Against Thriving?

Using this conceit in my next design document at work no question.

I loved this! I subscribed! Thank you for sharing.
posted by potrzebie at 10:09 PM on January 17, 2022 [9 favorites]

I love "To Do It Again And Achieve Sufficient Lift Is Just A Numbers Game."
posted by AsYouKnow Bob at 10:13 PM on January 17, 2022 [7 favorites]

It just gets better and better as you go on. It’s so good.
posted by mochapickle at 10:37 PM on January 17, 2022 [4 favorites]

This is great - thanks for posting it
posted by motdiem2 at 12:15 AM on January 18, 2022 [1 favorite]

The Emphatically Capitalised Text Is Making My Eyes Bleed.
posted by acb at 1:24 AM on January 18, 2022 [25 favorites]

The article is funny - but I’m actually pretty into the idea of poldering Manhattan
posted by thedaniel at 2:51 AM on January 18, 2022 [1 favorite]

The comic book store in question is Jim Hanley's Universe, which I visit every time I'm NYC. Please don't move it to Utah.
posted by Paul Slade at 2:53 AM on January 18, 2022 [7 favorites]

This was MARVELOUS. Thank you for sharing it.
posted by brainwane at 3:20 AM on January 18, 2022 [1 favorite]

There might be some interesting or delightfully wacky ideas here, but ... the author lost me at Capitalizing Every Friggin' Word In The Article.
posted by Termite at 3:37 AM on January 18, 2022 [3 favorites]

Superb. Some of the images made me think of the Irish Hunger Memorial in Rockefeller Park.
posted by knapah at 3:58 AM on January 18, 2022 [1 favorite]

This also reminds me of an audacious proposal Andy Rooney made to move around the months of the year. Not the names, the actual months.
posted by brainwane at 4:01 AM on January 18, 2022 [3 favorites]

Reminded me of glitches in Minecraft, where a 16x16 meter of terrain is generated differently.
posted by Harald74 at 5:12 AM on January 18, 2022 [1 favorite]

I'm curious why he is stopping at the borders, this seems like an opportunity for better cultural exchange. And what if we exchanged a block with another planet?
posted by papergirl at 5:30 AM on January 18, 2022 [1 favorite]

The Capitalization Is Part Of It.
posted by mochapickle at 5:31 AM on January 18, 2022 [7 favorites]

I'm curious why he is stopping at the borders,

Well, you've got to be practical, haven't you?
posted by Paul Slade at 5:55 AM on January 18, 2022 [6 favorites]

This author has obviously never visited the Perfectly Pleasant Midwest Suburb of Lima, Ohio or perhaps the notion of plopping the UN down alongside the tank plant - excuse me, The Joint Systems Manufacturing Center - which earns Lima its unenviable distinction as one of our nation's primary, first-strike nuclear missile targets, is in fact a sly and intentional act of global deterrence.

Either way, it would be certain to improve the dining scene.
posted by thecincinnatikid at 6:20 AM on January 18, 2022 [3 favorites]

Love the story its great but as a cranky Gen Xer made me sad that pretty much every block of Manhattan is now apparently required to have a Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts and every other chain just continuing the boring sanitization of our once interesting city.
posted by RajahKing at 7:35 AM on January 18, 2022 [3 favorites]

There are a million great things about this article, starting with the fact that the author's nom de plume is Vitruvius Grind.
posted by gwint at 8:01 AM on January 18, 2022 [2 favorites]

The arches in Manhattan rendering reminds me of the melted thing a billionaire stuck in the middle of Seattle.

Before I read the essay, I was expecting a site that looked for identical suburban blocks in Google street view, swapped for each other. I imagine there is more than one block in America with the same closed restaurant, aikido studio, nail salon and now-shuttered vape store.
posted by bigbigdog at 8:27 AM on January 18, 2022 [2 favorites]

I imagine there is more than one block in America with the same closed restaurant, aikido studio, nail salon and now-shuttered vape store.

I expect there will at some point be a book/tv series/graphic novel with a modern hidden magic setting where the Law of Sympathy allows easy teleportation between distant locales based on what is there. If there is an intersection in San Jose with a gas station, a Starbucks, a Burger King, and a 7-11, it would be relatively easy to move magically from there to an intense in Winnipeg with the same four things.

Thus the spread of urban homogeneity is part of a secret magic conspiracy to bring the world under the thumb of the arcanists.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:59 AM on January 18, 2022 [7 favorites]

"Scientists And Engineers Will Need To Do The Hard Calculations"

wooooog, I routinely work with people who say this kind of thing on the regular, and I am the engineer (well, I manage the team of engineers) who is Supposed To Do The Hard Calculations.

Although, blimps could have been helpful in a couple of cases.
posted by hearthpig at 9:34 AM on January 18, 2022 [3 favorites]

The satire is great but the sincere conclusion is actually pretty inspiring:

This Isn’t To Say We Shouldn’t Or Can’t Do Big Things. I Hope We Do. I Would Like For Us To Draw Grand, Mesmerizing, Fantastical Schemes—Cities Organized By Forces Other Than Profit; Natural Resources Looked At Through A Lens Of Restoration Rather Than Extraction; Places For Grandparents Walk About, Listening To The Birds And Watching The Children Play; Real, Functional Public Transit; Bathrooms You Can Use Without Buying Anything; A Genuine Civic Life Not Mediated By A Smartphone Or A Startup.

We Could Do Worse Than New Mannahatta. But We Deserve So Much Better.
posted by Think_Long at 9:57 AM on January 18, 2022 [5 favorites]

as a cranky Gen Xer made me sad that pretty much every block of Manhattan is now apparently required to have a Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts and every other chain just continuing the boring sanitization of our once interesting city.

I don't know why (and I wish I did) but this is reminding me of that joke in Good Omens about how any tapes left alone in a car long enough magically turn into copies of Best of Queen.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:52 AM on January 18, 2022 [2 favorites]

The single thing I can say in defense of New Mannahatta is that it’s been done before. Boston used to be a peninsula with a neck so narrow there was only one road there that could be closed with a pike. That road was broadened and filled in to each side so long ago that there isn’t even a historical marker there. The city is more than half fill, mostly earth brought in from leveled hills.
posted by Countess Elena at 4:00 PM on January 18, 2022 [1 favorite]

The Hustle Architect (@VitruviusGrind) on Twitter, earlier today:
I Didn’t Include It In The Piece But The Official Acronym For Promoting The Block-For-Block Proposal Is LSOBY: Let’s Swap Our Back Yards.
posted by Iris Gambol at 5:33 PM on January 18, 2022 [1 favorite]