An Awning for Our Memories: Vanishing Benches and Vision at Roosevelt Landings

Part 1 of 2: A REDAC Meeting Recap You Didn’t Ask For—But Shouldn’t Ignore

It’s funny the things we remember—and the things we pretend to.

I couldn’t tell you the exact year the benches disappeared from in front of 540 Main Street. It was recent, but then again, so was 2009, wasn’t it? The truth is, they didn’t go with a fight. They went the way so many things on Roosevelt Island go these days—quietly, and with a faint bureaucratic apology attached. Not worth a headline. Not even worth a meeting.

I sat on those benches more times than I can count, one moment remains sharp: David Kraut cursing at me, as he often did back then and still does today.

If you’re new to the Island, you should know—being yelled at by David is not a mark of shame. It’s practically a rite of passage. He’s cursed out board members, residents, his own legacy, and the clouds above him if they cast the wrong shadow. He’s been on the board since Mr. Blackwell was wearing neckties as a religion, he never lets us forget it.

So when I saw David’s silver head hovering on the screen at the March 17th, 2025 REDAC Committee Meeting, identifying himself in a grainy rendering of a man-shaped blob in a decades-old architectural sketch, I smiled. Not because it was true—he hasn’t walked past 540 in months, maybe years—but because it was familiar. A touchstone. Something we can still count on in this ever-blurring performance of governance. David, yelling into the void.

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Curtain Up: A Meeting About Nothing

The meeting began with the usual platitudes, piped in remotely by Howard Polivy, the Chair of the committee and a man whose remote presence mirrors his leadership: distant, mumbly, and spiritually dialed in from a different time zone.

“We have a fairly packed agenda,” Howard declared, “a facade presentation and an update on roads.” That’s it? What does packed mean to a man who hasn’t packed anything with substance in years?

Howard’s one ace is his uncanny ability to speak with conviction while saying nothing at all. He is the beige paint of public service. Yet, someone saw fit to appoint him a steward of our Island’s $40 million operating budget. Whether or not he holds any real authority is questionable. But power, like rust, accumulates in crevices you forgot to check.

Enter Lisa, the Assistant Project Manager from L&M Development Partners, who, judging by her one-page PDF, mistook this for a coffee catch-up rather than a committee briefing. She wore a smile and presented her case like a magic trick she learned that morning.

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The Disappearing Act

Lisa was there to announce the planned demolition of the glass atriums at 540 and 560 Main Street, to be replaced by—wait for it—fabric awnings.

Her voice carried the calm detachment of someone announcing weather changes, not architectural erasure. She did not explain why these distinctive, if neglected, brutalist inspired structures were being discarded. No one asked. Except Dr. Melamed—who gently inquired whether the awnings would extend into the street. A reasonable question.

Lisa, however, took the moment and sprinted. She explained that the awnings would be easier to maintain. That glass breaks. That birds drop things. That cleaning solutions exist.

A volley of unnecessary defense, given no one was attacking. This wasn’t a presentation—it was a preemptive surrender.

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Judy Berdy: Our Last Architect

Judy Berdy, Roosevelt Island’s historian-in-residence and eternal truth-teller, was having none of it.

“The pigeons will love it,” she said with visible disdain, nodding at the prospect of the black awnings, “Nothing like a black awning. It’ll look like crap.”

You may not always agree with Judy. Lord knows I’ve wanted to wrestle the mic from her hands a few dozen times—but on this, she was the only adult in the room. Her real point cut deeper: this change doesn’t respect the architectural language of Eastwood, or of Roosevelt Island’s original vision.

“This just looks like you’re sticking something up there,” she said. No frills. Just the truth.

Lisa smiled. Not with warmth, but with the pained grace of someone who’s ready to file feedback under “Noted, Ignored.” She then interrupted Judy mid-sentence, a faux pas in most circles, but a necessity in any conversation with Judy unless you want to give up your evening. Fair’s fair.

“When you think about it,” Lisa said, “fabric is easier to clean than glass.”

I paused my recording and stared at the screen. There are moments in these meetings that border on performance art. That sentence—earnest, confident, and entirely unmoored from architectural logic—was one of them.

Is it really easier? Have we run studies? Are we going to hand out Febreze and hoses to the maintenance staff now? The issue, of course, isn’t that fabric is easier to clean. It’s that we never cleaned the glass. That atrium had cracked windows and peeling paint for years. L&M didn’t maintain it. RIOC didn’t enforce anything. And now we’re told it's better to erase it.

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Saving Money, Spending Memory

Only toward the end did Lisa drop the real reason behind it all:

“This will save the island money.”

Ah. There it is. That beautiful, bureaucratic balm for every ugly decision.

But let’s not be naïve. We know what this is: L&M is weatherizing the building, not for community improvement, but to lower utility obligations—especially those owed to long-term tenants. Reducing glass means reducing costs. A logical business move. A deeply disappointing community one.

And without a meaningful RIOC board to challenge or shape the design, we’re left with glorified cost-cutting measures disguised as architectural updates.

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The Bench, Revisited

There are no more benches outside 540. They were removed after community complaints about young men smoking weed and hanging around. No meeting was held about it. They simply vanished, like so many other things.

But I can still see it.

David Kraut, decades younger, barking at me with vigor* while defending some policy I didn’t care for. Me, rolling my eyes, tucking my scarf under the glass atrium to shield myself from the pigeon droppings. We were annoying, engaged, alive.

The bench is gone. The atrium will be too. And in its place—a canvas bandage over a wound no one wants to look at.

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A Closing Note

It’s easy to dismiss this as small. Who cares about a piece of glass and a bench?

But Roosevelt Island was built on the promise of public space—on human-scale architecture, walkability, connection. These aren’t luxuries. They’re the infrastructure of community. When we lose them—slowly, bureaucratically, one awning at a time—we lose the Island we came here for.

In two weeks, I’ll return with Part Two of this dispatch, continuing my coverage of the March 17, 2025 REDAC Committee Meeting, held—symbolically and physically removed from the public—at the RIOC Operations Office, 680 Main Street. We’ll unpack the remaining agenda items, including the so-called “upcoming projects,” which, if history is any guide, are simply the next things to vanish.

Because here’s the truth: accountability no longer lives here.

It moved out the before the benches did. And it left us in the hands of men like David Kraut and Howard Polivy—who seem to care more about preserving their legacies than protecting our future.

Roosevelt Island didn’t lose its voice overnight. We gave it up, piece by piece.
Let’s see what’s left—if anything.

Until then—go sit somewhere public, while you still can.

*This is a work of narrative storytelling inspired by real events. Some characters, dialogue, and scenes are imagined to convey broader truths and do not depict actual conversations or individuals.