Temple University Press Modern Mobility Aloft: Elevated Highways, Architecture, and Urban Change in Pre-Interstate America (Urban Life, Landscape and Policy)

Product Description In the first half of the twentieth century, urban elevated highways were much more than utilitarian infrastructure, lifting traffic above the streets; they were statements of civic pride, asserting boldly modern visions for a city's architecture, economy, and transportation network. Yet three of the most ambitious projects, launched in Chicago, New York, and Boston in the spirit of utopian models by architects such as Le Corbusier and Hugh Ferriss, ultimately fell short of their ideals.Modern Mobility Aloft is the first study to focus on pre-Interstate urban elevated highways within American architectural and urban history. Amy Finstein traces the idealistic roots of these superstructures, their contrasting realities once built, their impacts on successive development patterns, and the recent challenges they have posed to contemporary urban designers.Filled with more than 100 historic photographs and illustrations of beaux arts and art deco architecture, Modern Mobility Aloft provides a critical understanding of urban landscapes, transportation, and technological change as cities moved into the modern era. Review " In Modern Mobility Aloft, Finstein looks deeply at the historical intersection of civil engineering, technology, and urbanism and comes up with a major topic that no one has seen before. She is exactly right in her assertion that the elevated highway as a specific mode of technological response to the problem of automobile congestion has not been treated systematically. More importantly, she sees the connection between the elevated highway and elements of modernist urbanism and culture. Her extensive, original archival work and case studies of downtown congestion and early highway design point to a new integration of the history of technology and urban history."-- Robert Fishman, Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning, Taubman College, University of Michigan " Like the elevated railroads before them, elevated highways have generally been viewed in negative terms by urban dwellers. Yet the elevated highway represents an important, if not altogether welcome, phase in the daunting challenges to reconcile the demands of accommodating motor vehicles to city fabric on a large scale. Amy Finstein's beautifully researched and written book examines the seminal early stages of implementing this complex and costly infrastructure in Chicago, New York, and Boston during the first half of the twentieth century. Modern Mobility Aloft is an important analysis of the visionary schemes first devised to address the issue and the myriad factors involved in conceiving and implementing actual projects. Economic considerations, local politics, architectural design values, and changes in building and transportation technology are all addressed in a seamless, engaging narrative."-- Richard Longstreth, Professor of American Studies Emeritus, George Washington University About the Author Amy D. Finstein is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Visual Arts at College of the Holy Cross.