Emotion probably ruled over logic for the closing of NW 7th between Hudson & Harvey... Isn't it time to repatriate this segment of roadway?
Emotion probably ruled over logic for the closing of NW 7th between Hudson & Harvey... Isn't it time to repatriate this segment of roadway?
It should have never been designed to be permanently closed in the first place. The building is the same distance from the other three roads as it is 7th. Sadly, the federal government is involved so it isn't going to happen. The street was probably vacated by the City anyhow. At the time I supported keeping federal employees downtown (eventhough most of them wanted to move to the burbs). If I knew then what I know about urban development now and knew this is what they had in mind I would have supported their move to Memorial Road. Their plan and design would have been a much better fit out there.
...what interest does the Federal Government have in keeping this segment of road closed?
The worst part is that they demolished buildings in that block to create surface parking and a never-used "park."
The word "park" in Okc is a verb and not a noun. lol
It was designed as a distance buffer so that nobody could pull up to the front of the new building with a bomb. The secondary and tertiary facades that are at near-zero setback are heavily fortified, but the front of the building was designed to be more open and welcoming to visitors to the building, which necessitated standing vehicles much further out for security purposes.
It was a sign of the times; and actually pretty understandable considering the circumstances that required a new federal building. It was even more understandable when you consider that many of the people who moved into that building had been in the Murrah Building during the bombing, and that it is a stone's-throw away from the site of that tragedy.
Nevertheless it pains me that they razed a couple of nice buildings (at least one of them residential) to make it work.
I explained it in my post. The front has a lot of glass and is more open, ergo more susceptible to an attack. The other three sides are mostly very thick, heavily-reinforced concrete with slits of laminated and otherwise strengthened glass. The ground level around those three sides is designed to carry shock waves up and away from the building, and there are massive bollards in the sidewalk to keep a vehicle from approaching closely.
Since the front is more open and inviting to people walking up to the building, it's vulnerable. So they wanted to take away the opportunity for a vehicle to get close and basically cleared out everything for a block in that direction.
All of that was covered at length in the media during the design and construction process. The people who work in the building were understandably nervous about going back to effectively the same place and having a zero-setback, welcoming building. Some refused to return at all, and the GSA made accommodations for them.
Considering the circumstances, this one was more excusable than most examples of anti-urbanism in the core.
Ubranized is exactly right. I actually studied a bit of blast resistant structures in college (I'm a Civil Engineer, we build targets) and there's a lot more than simple distance from the pavement.
Also, they did the same thing to all federal courthouses all around the country. I was at the one in Brooklyn a few months ago and it's way worse than the situation here. It's still surrounded by barrier walls and on at least 3 sides that I saw. Cuts off access to a nice park as well.
What would stop someone from driving a truck and parking it there right now? The road is blocked by a little strip of wood with ample room to drive around it. If you look on Google Earth streetview there are even 2 vans parked right in front of the building at the little barrier.
It's not wood, it's metal, if I'm not mistaken. Also secured at both ends. It would probably require a pretty good collision to go through it. But your point is well-taken; it doesn't look so secure that a determined individual couldn't ram through it or around it.
But I think the idea was to prohibit someone from rolling up in front of the building undetected with a truck bomb and walking away. With the Murrah Building you could literally park at a meter out front and leave your vehicle unattended, and nobody would notice.
You have to remember how that attack was pulled off and that we often react only to the types of threats we have seen rather than imagining other ways it might be done. That bombing was not a suicide bombing. Dude parked undetected and then skulked away like a coward. He wouldn't have been able to do that with this configuration. It would cause quite a commotion, give people a little more time to react, and probably require a personal death wish.
Anyway, I'd just as soon stop talking about this particular subject. Makes me sad, and probably just inadvertently landed us on some terrorism watch list.
I don't think anyone is advocating on-street parking right in front and I wouldn't even mind if the road made an arc keeping a set distance between the street and the building. They could even put a hight bar across to keep anything over 8 feet tall from using the street - but the street should be re-opened to normal traffic.
I'm certainly not opposed to it. But I'll bet the GSA is.
Lol
The automated gates are flimsy traffic control devices that couldn't stop a bicycle. Even with the glass facade, the north elevation is probably 10-times more blast-resistant than normal buildings... the building structure was designed to prevent a catastrophic domino failure like Murrah. Any rational person can see that the flimsy traffic gates could not deter a vehicle... so they must have been put there to satisfy irrational people. That's why I suggested it was a design based on emotion rather than logic and reason.
There seems to be no rational reason for this segment of roadway to be closed... (I'm not suggesting that the Government is rational, so that indeed might be the end of the discussion!)
The site is engulfed in 24-hour security: video + boots on the ground... If the road were opened, and a threat were to appear, they would be able to respond just as effectively.
Why aren't the streets surrounding the Federal Courthouse closed? Why don't we have anti-aircraft guns placed on the rooftops? Because that would be irrational.
I find it hard to believe the callousness exhibited here when considering "urbanization" over people's safety. Some people have either short memories or hardened hearts?
There was supposed to be another building on the north anyway. Fed budgets didn't allow and the FBI already moved out to Memorial, deeming it unnecessary.
I worked on this project, the road in front was originally supposed to be open to traffic. In fact there was supposed to be varying textures in the road to create different sounds as you passed over them. The glazing in the courtyard is supposed to be laminated, blast resistant glazing with reinforced curtainwall framing. I know that because that whole curtainwall system is probably what I detailed the most in the project.
This building is probably the prime example of a government building designed to the USAF Force Protection Guidelines which was the standard in effect at the time of design. There are a lot of things designed into the building to mitigate any kind of "event" occurring, either inside or outside of the building.
I've waited until now to post here, but I've watched this thread with high interest. I have a lot of respect for the posters in this thread, and to me, this is what OKC Talk is all about.. Rover knows his stuff, Dennis Wells has an idea, Chad Huntington disagrees, bluedog happened to work on the project in mention, and Kerry and boulder certainly know their stuff, too.
That said, I think that reopening 7th is a no-brainer. But I doubt it will ever happen. This reminds me of the exact same argument that I got from security guards when I tried taking photos of the site once...I must be a terrorist for taking urban photos, because of what happened here. I couldn't help but think it ironic that those security guards are most likely NOT from OKC, whereas I am (and remember that day well). But they were going to call me the terrorist for trying to take photos of an urban jewel (that happens to be blast-proof) in my city.
Certain powers that be are always going to use tragedies like this to anchor their senseless, emotionally-based policies that do more harm than good. That's the M.O. of the TSA. That's the M.O. of 7th Street, also.
I think that IF this is a security issue we should err on the side of caution. Unfortunately I have been several places in the world on the day of or next day after bombings.....London twice, Madrid, and Tel Aviv as well as OKC, and the results are devastating. We take some things for granted, but let's not be naive.
If this isn't security related then by all means, open it to be more urban. But if there is ANY doubt, protect the people first.
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