CLUI Northeast Office in Troy NY
Programs and Projects about NJ and NY underway
Julia Christensen presenting lecture at the
Center's Northeast Regional Office.
- CLUI photo
The northeast regional office for the Center,
which opened less than a year ago, is already becoming a critical
base of operations for the development of programs and projects
in the region. The office’s service area is the Northeastern
United States Interpretive District, which includes the states
of New England, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania.
While the interior of the building is not open to the public
during regularly scheduled hours, the CLUI Northeast Regional
Office has a storefront window that is visible from the street.
This wall of glass enables the public to view programming that
has been prepared for the space, during the day or night, including
static displays and automatic multimedia presentations. Occasional
lectures and meetings are held in the space as well. The office
is located at 53 Third Street, in downtown Troy.
One evening in April, Julia Christensen, a graduate student at
Rennselaer Polytechnic University, gave a talk at the CLUI Northeast
Office called Default Architecture: America’s Reuse of the
Big Box. She discussed the ways in which communities deal with
the empty “superstore” buildings that often get left
behind when retailers like Super Kmart or Wal-Mart vacate them,
as is happening with greater frequency throughout the country.
These monolithic, nearly windowless structures are too large for
most other single tenant uses, so the reuse of them often requires
some serious “outside the box” thinking.
Christensen has been travelling the country, visiting communities
where the local empty big box has found interesting new uses.
She has found them converted into churches, indoor flea markets,
town offices, and recreation centers. Curious notions about business
and the changing face of small towns in America are emerging from
her study. For example, one of the most logical uses of an empty
big box is another superstore retailer, but it seems that companies
like Wal-Mart, which usually shuts its stores to move into another
even bigger one nearby, keep control of their old buildings so
that a competing retailer doesn’t move in. As a result,
when they are not torn down, old Wal-Marts often end up with nonprofits
like churches and municipal offices and services moving in. We
look forward to seeing her completed study at the end of the next
academic year.
The search continues for an interpretive park site in the Hudson
River area, and discussions with various owners and agencies are
ongoing. Meanwhile, a project focusing on the New Jersey Meadowlands
is gaining ground.
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