Over the weekend, after prolonging the inevitable, I got my hair cut. The woman who shaved away the months of shagginess from my head was a chatty type, and listening to an oldies radio station, she fell on the subject of music, and how it marks the time. She remarked, "You know you're old when you hear a song, and it reminds you of a place you once were. The song puts you back there, and you can remember it all like it was yesterday." I noted the poignancy of her observation, and then gave the musing further thought. Walking back home from the gym the next day, the convergence of time, space and music hit me again, when I was listening to "Machine Gun" by the Commodores, a bizarre, but exceedingly catchy tune from the '70s that you'll hear in just about any movie about that decade these days. As I headed for home, and the music started blaring from my iPod, I looked up and saw this man, best described as a "dude," with '70's-style "Chips" sunglasses and a bushy porn-star mustache. In an instant, I was there.
But what do these chance moments have to do with land use? That's what I was wondering until I figured it out. It is not only the music that helps mark the time, it is the places that make up our built up environment themselves. The moments of our lives are marked by these locales, and in turn, the locales are defined by the moments. Two of the most jarring events of the past few American generations, the Kennedy assassination and September 11, 2001, are discussed amongst us using the same question time and again: "Where were you when . . ." The "who" and "what" supply the flavor for each personal testimonial, but it is the "where" that initiates the discussion. (For the record, at the first epoch, I wasn't around. On the second, I watched the horror from my office window in New Jersey).
Places mean what they do because of the moments that occur there. For instance, the first thing most people mention about Newark, New Jersey, is the riots that happened there forty years ago. Where JFK was shot, and where the Twin Towers fell, have become iconic, almost holy pieces of ground. But just as important are the endless places where everyone else was when they learned the news of these two horrible events. Another convergence of time and place occurred a few days ago, when I sat at a Continuing Legal Education seminar in the same room where I gave my best man speech to my brother and sister-in-law on their wedding day. The place will forever be connected with the moment that took place there before.
Why don't people like to buy homes where murders have occurred? Why does Victoria Beckham gasp when learning that her potential new digs were once owned by Lionel Richie? The answer lies in the meaning places acquire. A few years ago, in the middle of our move from the East to the West coast, my wife and I got stuck on the New Jersey Turnpike, running out of gas on account of a faulty gauge on the U-Haul we were renting. Every time we pass that spot, we mark it with a shaking of the head. Another way the spot is marked is with a new roadside hotel, which was in the midst of construction when we spent that fateful, stifling day on the side of the highway. What developers often forget when they bring the next new thing to town is that the place they seek to morph into their own conception was once something else meaningful to people. Most of the time locals will ignore the pull of their memories to allow the new project to proceed. But when residents protest, oftentimes the source of their objection is buried in the moments of the past that they clutch onto in their fight to halt the inevitable march. Not everywhere is there a Dealey Plaza or Ground Zero. Nonetheless, one must be mindful of the past when looking to reshape the future.
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