Memory (1913-1914) by Augustus Lukeman, for the Ida and Isidor Straus Memorial, Straus Park, Manhattan, New York City

4. Landmarks: The Node's the Thing (Even if it Never Was)

By Gene Stavrou
June 2022

The NODE construct describes an entity or a discrete object. The LANDMARK-labeled node, in particular, describes a physical entity: one that can be linked to a physical presence. Following the evolution of a public sculpture (e.g., its creation, relocation, alteration), means connecting that landmark to a place and to the entities that may have preceded and succeeded it, providing context. We generally use a node's EDGES to describe context, but the node itself has descriptors in the form of PROPERTIES.

A landmark's properties can include its physical location coordinates, identifier (name), alternate name, and start and end dates. Along with start and end are two properties that define those two dates: origin and fate. For a PERSON node, origin and fate would be the person's date of birth and death; a living person's fate would be blank. For landmarks, start and end must be placed in context. Because a landmark's instance may be moved, altered, destroyed, or rebuilt, its fate does not necessarily describe its destruction or even its end as a landmark.

What if the landmark never was?

To date, we've only considered landmarks that physically exist or have existed, allowing us to answer questions of the "what-became-of," "where-was," and "what-were-the-contemporaries-of" variety. But unexecuted plans can be historically significant as well. Noting landmarks that never existed can can sometimes answer the "what-might-have-been" questions that can place executed landmarks and land use in context. Robert Moses's proposal for a Brooklyn-Battery Bridge and its ultimate defeat helped define lower Manhattan's physical landscape and edit the city's political power structure. It also helps place Battery Park and the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel in context. Origin for the Brooklyn-Battery Bridge's Landmark node would read "Proposed" and its fate would read "Not Built."