The Means and Ends to Creating Great Spaces

TIME Magazine reviews _Great Fortunes_, a book on the tumultuous development of what it considers 'the handsomest great space in the U.S.'

1 minute read

October 2, 2003, 8:00 AM PDT

By Connie Chung


"...outside of Central Park, Rockefeller Center is the handsomest great space in New York City and, for that matter, in the U.S. In an era when the public realm barely gets even lip service anymore, it is proof that the profit motive and the general good can coexist, that beauty can lie down with the beast and give birth to grandeur, civility and ordinary sunlit life....More than just a supremely entertaining book, Daniel Okrent's cartwheeling account of how Rock Center came together is indispensable for anyone looking for reason to believe — and who isn't? — that we can pull off the same miracle where the World Trade Center stood. What we learn from Okrent, a former editor of LIFE magazine, is how a group of mismatched and combustible characters could make the thing happen. It didn't require much. All they had to do was undertake a project that would have stumped the pharaohs, fight like pit vipers, face down the Depression, fend off naysayers on all sides and still produce what Okrent calls an 'aesthetic, commercial, and — there's no other word for it — emotional success.'"

Thanks to Connie Chung

Monday, September 29, 2003 in Time

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I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching.

Mary G., Urban Planner

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