“My name is Michael Greco, and I am a direct descendent of the Greco Romans.” Mr. Greco stood before an overflow crowd in a fluorescent-lit conference room on the fifth floor of 253 Broadway on Monday afternoon, for an otherwise routine meeting of the Public Design Commission. “They built roads, bridges, aqueducts, great structures. My ancestors would be rolling in their grave if they saw this.”
To the 50 or so people packed into the conference room with Mr. Greco, the Rigelmann Boardwalk on Coney Island is their modern day Apian Way, and the New York City Parks Department is a band of marauding Visigoths. Instead of pickaxes and torches, the city is attacking with slabs of concrete and faux wood beams made from recycled plastic.
Read More