On Not Having the LMDC to Kick Around Anymore

Buried deep in today's New York Times' article on the future, or lack thereof, of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, is the most biting critique of the agency that has been seen fit to print. Robin Pogrebin got her hands on a memo by noted arts consultant Adrian Ellis who wrote:

L.M.D.C. was one of the most unimpressive organizations with which I have worked in 16 years of consulting: the expression 'sloping shoulders' could have been invented for it -- everyone sitting across the table seemed furtive, cowed, insinuating, hand-wringing and evasive, from the first meeting to the last.

Today--in response?--the L.M.D.C. issued a press release confirming that it is disbanding "in the fall" and announcing that President Stefan Pryor had taken a job as deputy mayor in Newark Mayor Cory Booker's administration. The city will take over the remaining arts grants and Fulton Street's redesign, and no one has stepped up to defend Frank Gehry's performing arts center.

-Matthew Schuerman