Zellner and Watson: Central Park and 610 North Buchanan Boulevard
Because we ran out of time in doing our presentations yesterday, we were unable to hear from Jon Zellner, who is doing his research paper on Central Park, and many in the class were unable to hear Andrew Watson's presentation on 610 North Buchanan Boulevard, the house where members of Duke lacrosse team lived or congregated, and the physical epicenter of controversy in the Duke lacrosse case last year.
Central Park was established in the 19th century and was planned in part by Frederick Law Olmsted. Zellner's paper looks at how the park has related to, and contrasted with, the surrounding, intensively urbanized landscape of Manhattan. In particular, Zellner considers the degree to which the park has been faithful to Olmsted’s original intentions for it, which were: (1) accessibility (equal access); (2) safety and hospitality; (3) interaction with nature; and (4) stress relief and the promotion of physical wellbeing. The degree to which the park has remained faithful to its original intentions and the degree to which the park has evolved touches on the tension between preservation and founding in the practice of place.
Watson looks at how the identity of a particular place has been created through contestation. 610 North Buchanan Boulevard has in many cases embodied tensions between town and gown and within the campus community, tensions that exist both for Duke University and for college campuses in general. Watson says, “Relations between Duke and the Durham community stretch back over a hundred years, a relationship strained by issues of race and class. On campus, in recent times, the Duke administration and fraternities have conflicted on Duke’s desire to make fraternities less exclusive in the social fabric of the university and to curb alcohol consumption. Duke’s students, faculty, and administration had antagonistic images of 610 Buchanan. And liberal elements of the Duke faculty used 610 Buchanan as a symbol of social conflicts to promote their own social agenda and fields of study related to race, gender, class, and privilege.” The result is an interesting study not only about a very tragic case but about how even the character of a single house can be the product of contestation by competing social forces.
There are no comments for this entry.
[Add Comment]