Here’s one of my favorite topics, items that are destroying our economy. The number one enemy on that list, the dreadful McMansion. Architecture’s Devilspawn.
History has taught us that a bigger house is not the most desirable. The Victorian manor is the best example of this, and these babies were built nonstop during the late 19th century and into the early 20th. The reason people stopped building them is quite simple, housewives will sick of cleaning them! They were too big, too spacious for little families, and awfully expensive. People wanted smaller, more practical homes. Although Victorian houses are architecturally impressive structures, beautiful though they may be, they outlasted their purpose. The modern day suburbs would take on smaller forms over their older Victorian cousins. The new children would be the quaint rancher, the bungalow, and the cape cod.
Of course, the modern suburb itself is a demonic creation started by the nefarious Robert Moses and his lustful want to construct highways threw New York’s most historic neighborhoods, displacing the poverty stricken, the minorities and so on. A post war generation had no option but to move into the newly constructed ‘burbs’, as the city was classified as an awful place to live. Racial overtones abound indeed. Thus the happy go lucky driving public could live in the distant suburbs and commute to work! How delightful! The only downsides were the influx of cars gobbling up oil and essentially making it a half hour trek to get anywhere. New Jersey is the perfect example of poorly built suburbs and the worst in drivers and driving to boot. The advent of the car heralded the end of the railroad, trolley systems, and public transport in general. Those were reserved for the poor or just terminated as a whole. Curse you Robert Moses!
Surprisingly, the ‘white flight’ of the post war generation is being reversed entirely with primarily white up and coming families scrambling for real estate in Manhattan and the other boroughs. Funny isn’t it? Maybe we’ll just stay in the city next time and spare ourselves the time and energy of commuting from our drab suburbs. But that’s a whole other story, one rife with the desecration and destruction of brownstones in favor of condos that could make NYU’s buildings look like St. Peter’s Basilica.
New Jersey though was one of many staging grounds for the McMansion during the 1980’s. These ugly and characterless creations spread like the plague, soon every up and coming family had to have one. A status symbol indeed but at what cost? Almost every classmate I knew was one of a few lone occupants in these massive dwellings. So many rooms unused that even the family dog could have nearly half the place to himself. The yards are merely boxed in plots of grass and maybe a tree if the owners were lucky. The great porches of old vanished, only to morph into a meager stoop at best. The idea of the neighborhood faded too, people kept to their castles, which of course, all looked identical for the most part. And in general, your typical McMansion is built of shoddy material, lathered with stucco and other ugly aesthetic details to hide its interior flaws. They usually sit off the sides of highways and busy roads, where the endless hum of traffic rolls into the night. A large sign with the name of the faux neighborhood is usually lit up, the name itself recalling some far gone natural feature of the area before it was torn up by the demon houses. Names like “Mallard Creek” or “Oak Grove”. They are the worst incarnation of suburbs.
I actually like the little Levittowns of yesteryear. Sure, they are cultureless and fairly boring, but historic in their own right. They are neighborhoods with their own heart and soul. The McMansion has nothing, and why so many moronic families squander thousands upon thousands on these economic travesties, these Soprano Specials, is ridiculous. I despise them more than Sarah Palin, and thankfully have never had the so called luxury of living in one. Despite the monsters creeping into my old neighborhood, they have kept their distance. It is a working class neighborhood comprised of cape cods built during the 50’s and 60’s. Relatively untouched but the McMansions are happily intruding its borders. In time, I can imagine them devouring the cods and emerging in all their horrid glory. However, the recent downturn in the economy has made the McMansion a rare commodity now. People can’t afford them and they top foreclosure lists. Whole streets of McMansions are becoming semi-ghost towns throughout America.
Oh who will save the McMansion? Will they too one day be historic monuments of a bygone era of unchecked wealth and frivolous spending? Will the Wall Street fat cats of the future be happily boasting about the purchase of a 2005 McMansion in 2090? “Oh yes, so much history and charm.” Yeah, just like the thirty other ones surrounding it.
Instead of drill baby, drill, knock em’ down baby, knock em’ down!
Vote Obama.
