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" "The programs will become abstract inasmuch as by now they are no longer tied to a specific place or city, but fluctuate and gravitate opportunistically around the point offering the highest number of connections." This is indeed a reformulation of the theory on dislocation of modern capital, which actually moves towards the most favorable places" - S, M, L, XL - Rem Koolhaas
IRT NYC 7-Line
Exploring Station Nodes As An Urban Phenomena
The subway line serves as an urban exploration of densities and nodes in specific areas of the city. The route itself, already allows a mapping of urban areas, in which becomes the epitomical product of the diversity of socio-economic and socio-cultural forces in its surroundings. The thesis in this work is reading the subway as a representation of social diversities in the city, in where we can have a greater understanding of the influences that have an imapct on the city's growth and urban phenomena. Therefore, in this work I am observing the IRT Subway 7-Line, providing a glimpse of it's importance in the City of New York, as well as, scoping down to the user-experience of it's primordial station in 42nd St. Times Square. The work goes through an analysis of nodes that are connected by the train route and an exploration of the use of space and what it can become architecturally, urbanistically, and theoretically through drawings or urban connections, visual material explorations, and identifying relationships of proxemics in an over-crowded and active space such as the subway.
The IRT-7 Line serves as a connector from the outer suburban area of the City of Queens to the inner Urban Megapolis of Manhattan. The drawing provides a representation of the most important stops at the IRT line, which become nodes, where they have specific measures of commercial, business, urban public area and cultural-tourist influence. In this analysis, we find a reading of the socio-diversities, including economy and culture, which create the environments of these areas. For example, there is a great difference between the Times Square Station and the Flushing-Main St. Station. One is largely more business, spectacle and commercial driven, while the other has a more communal-cultural and commercial environment. So we can ask what happens in between, where there aren't "station nodes"?
Jackson Heights
Main St. Flushing
Herald Square
Times Square
Long Island City
Times Square was chosen as the station to explore architectural space for its grand overcrowded diversity in populations and surrounding programs. This drawing is providing a diagram of an allusion to the French theory of the Derive-Situationist Space. The station partakes in a commercial and business netwrok with some of the biggest companies in New York City influencing the area. You can find the New York Times Building, One Times Square, 1500 Broadway, Paramount Building, and the Westin Hotel, all primary structures that host some of the largest economic influences of the city. Hence, the urban activity becomes exactly that of business driven wealth. Which leaves in question the analysis maps above of economies and population in Jackson Heights or Long Island City.
