Eminent Toxicity looks like brick buildings torn down and replaced by shiny white metal and glass buildings, the likes of which according to the architect are designed to both “appear as if they are floating” and to be transparent so as to be inviting to the community. Toxicity is a built environment intended to be upgraded to a newness that clashes with its surroundings, both aesthetically and structurally. It is built to be environmentally friendly and sustainable. It is designed to be a building that stands for more than itself: transcendent, connected to the global knowledge economy, different from the fortress-like, sturdy aura of the older parts of campus. Toxicity also looks like taking over waterfronts, “revitalizing” them to encourage wealth and prosperity to be drawn further in while their perceived opposites are labeled unwelcome. Eminent Toxicity looks like the closing of health centers, laundromats, cheaper grocery stores, and other features that once rendered West Harlem a place for people of all means to be able to fulfill their needs. It looks like the yearly struggle for heat in the winter and the run-around of bureaucratic agencies whereby individual concerns are often swept by the wayside. Complaints are seen as chatter, residents who complain seen as being responsible for their own living situation--perhaps if they would only take better care of their dwelling, they wouldn’t be facing these issues--that is at least what the superintendent of Grant Houses informed me of. Eminent Toxicity looks like responsibilized citizens and corporatized higher education institutions such as Columbia University, the likes of which manage and control a narrative of “revitalization” via both physical and digital infrastructures (their website, the reports/knowledge they generate, and the Community Benefits Agreement as represented by the West Harlem Development Corporation).
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