High Line voted top place for urban stonage

Marseille, 4:36 EDT.

In a first for a rookie urban space, the Walter Benjamin Society for Urban Stonage announced Thursday that New York City's new bourgeois jewel, the HighLine, had been chosen as the top urban space for wandering around high making pointed comments about society, capitalism, urban development and pretty people. Voter's cited it's brilliant use of native plants and landscaping to highlight the vigorous mix of prewar buildings and New York's first decent modern architecture in ages, and it's outstanding collection of uberrich South Americans, young lovers, and people from Jersey. "To find a place that central to pretty much everything and be able to float above the street like a postmodern Baudelaire is just fucking awesome," noted Genevieve Maisonneuve, a delegate from Sheboygan.

As is often the case at the Benjamin Society annual meetings, the flaneurie awards votes were loud, intense and incoherent, with a vocal European contingent vociferously opposing the selection of the Highline. Some argued that it was too soon, while others disagreed with the sudden fetishization by some society members with the railroad truck turned pretty planted promenade. "Look, I have nothing against New York. It is a great city," said Tordsten Albroek from Freiberg. "But my colleagues only love it because it is so unAmerican (sic). For the first time you are actually seeing an alternative to it's shitty streets, which is a big reason they have such shitty cities. I mean fuck, you should see what happens with these American urbanists come see our bike lanes and pedestrian spaces. They are so excited they start to stutter slightly and jiggle around like they have to pee. And that is the sober ones."

Others felt that the massive billboard of Posh and Becks in their underwear gave the HighLine an unfair advantage, as it was a temporary visual, emotional and psychological orgy that could easily be replaced by an ad for Burger King. This too was rebutted by those who argued that the ginormous sign of two of the world's most attractive and richest people would most likely be replaced by some other monument to sex, beauty and capitalism which at least theoretically should be of equal or even greater interest. They argued in fact that the board served as a rotating gallery of sensory information that stood nicely in the urban gaze between the city and the Sunday strollers, and should be included as a permanent part of the urban experience.

This may be the last year that the East Coast is strongly represented in the awards. With the proliferation of legal medical marijuana in western states, the Benjamin society is considering abandoning its spiritual and intellectual roots in Europe and relocating to Hollywood, as society members seek to take advantage of the fact that the herb in Cali is just off the hook right now.