Two parts of the building are of particular concern. First, there is the Post Office's Eighth Avenue façade, with its iconic columns and grand staircase. Second, there is the western wall of Moynihan Station's West Train Hall. The wall abuts Madison Square Garden, and word on the street is that MSG wants the white brick wall replaced with glass, allowing Garden patrons a view into the Train Hall, and train passengers a view into the Garden's lobby. One issue with this design is that a 1910 McKim wall would be demolished, although granted, the wall itself was never meant to be seen by the public. An arguably more critical issue is: How much MSG presence in the train hall is too much? When does the Train Hall begin feeling like the antechamber to the Garden?

Effective but discreet signage may not be able to address all these issues, but it would help with some of them, particularly how much signage intrudes into the building's appearance and function. Are there any models elsewhere in the world to be looked to?

There is no analogue elsewhere in the world for a project like this: a sports arena and an intermodal train station sharing space within an historic Beaux-Arts colonnade building. But there are aspects of the plan that resemble other efforts.

As with the current Madison Square Garden and Penn Station, Boston's TD Banknorth Garden, the relatively new home for the Boston Celtics, sits on top of the below-grade North Station. But the analogy only goes so far: Moynihan Station will be the busiest train station in the nation, and it will have a substantial street-level presence; North Station isn't even the largest in Boston, and it occupies the bowels of the sports arena. Furthermore, Boston's Garden was completed in 1995 and looks like a parking lot, while the century-old Farley Building is a registered landmark. Perhaps the lack of preservation issues in Boston is why the building's signage has been relatively unrestrained, dominating the area visually.

In general, Beaux-Arts buildings have tended to stay conservative with their contemporary signage so as not to distract attention from the historic architecture. For example the New York Historical Society on Central Park West, constructed four years before Farley, for signage relies primarily on six vertical banners placed between the middle six of its eight columns. Pedestrians on Central Park West can see the five banners, as well as a giant one on the north façade, with no private advertising anywhere on the building. Viewed from directly across the street, however, the wafer-thin banners nearly disappear, and the columns are uncompromised.

Kansas City's vintage Union Station, which shares its space with a science recreation center, Science City, keeps its permanent signage off the façade. The sign bearing the name "Union Station" in gold letters is detached, appearing on an island garden in the middle of the station's circular driveway. When signs do hang from the building, they are temporary, removable banners usually fitted into the façade's existing rectangular slots.

During its restoration process, Union Station in Denver, an architectural cousin of the Kansas City station, opted to place a sign not in front but on top of the building. The iconic orange sign reads "UNION STATION" and "TRAVEL BY TRAIN", using new signage to recall an earlier age of rail travel. The sign was so well received that Denver's Major League ballpark, Coors Field, copied its block letters and adjacent analog clock.

Moving away from historic building to more contemporary architecture, one finds a range of solutions to how to tell people where to go or what's inside a building without the visual equivalent of yelling.

The recently built Hauptbahnhof in Berlin, a gargantuan glass box that is similar to Moynihan in traffic and global significance, generally keeps its facades and sprawling interiors as uncluttered as possible. The two multi-story glass towers straddling the arched entrance at the front of the station almost never feature signage, with one exception being a pair of giant banners congratulating the Italian soccer team following its 2006 victory in the World Cup.

While banners may have their uses, they are unlikely to be helpful at the Farley Building except in special circumstances because events at Madison Square Garden change on a daily basis. Unlike a museum advertising a single exhibit on display for an entire summer, the Garden may host a basketball game one night, a hockey game the next afternoon and a concert 24 hours later. For decades the Garden has relied on electronic marquees on Seventh and Eighth Avenues to display its schedule. It will surely be strident in opposing efforts to sacrifice useful technology for the sake of architectural preservation. One appealing idea is small electronic ground level sidewalk signs at eye level that can change daily or even more frequently to advertise different events or to show directions.

There are other creative ways to herald the Garden that are unobtrusive to Farley. TD Banknorth Garden, for all its aesthetic shortcomings, at least avoids making matters worse by paying for a Boston Celtics logo on a shoddy warehouse across the street. Given the state of much of Eighth Avenue below and above Farley, this might make good use of some of the building's run-down neighbors.

American Airlines Arena, home of the Miami Heat, designates itself "Heat Country" with a series of lamppost banners featuring Shaquille O'Neal and his teammates, leaving the beautiful Art Deco arena untouched. Perhaps a similar idea at Farley might include the transformation of the sidestreets - 31st and 33rd - into a Christo and Jean-Claude-like gateway to the Knicks or Rangers.

The Museum of Emerging Sciences and Innovation in Tokyo takes a different, more radical route, placing signage on the ground. Almost all of its wayfinding is at foot-level, backlit beneath finished glass that does not get slick in the rain. It uses big arrows and icons - a coffee cup for the café, a bus for public transportation - to direct patrons.

A final idea to explore is what might be called "sculptural signage," where a piece of art takes on an iconic function that identifies a particular building or area of town. You can see this in front of the Seattle Art Museum, where Jonathon Borofsky's giant "Hammering Man," a multi-story cartoon-like steel figure swinging an anvil, has become key visual identification for museum. Another example is the way the Michael Jordan sculpture outside the Chicago's basketball arena shouts "Bulls." Perhaps there are opportunities for large public pieces of art around or even on the historic Farley Building.

Whatever the answer, what this brief survey of signage makes clear is that with a little patience and attention, a building can learn to speak both effectively and softly. With buildings as with people, shouting is often not the best way to get one's message across.

-- Alex Goldberger, RPA Intern, Summer 2007

 

This article was first published in the Oct 18th, 2007 edition of Regional Plan Association's Spotlight on the Region.