On a Thursday evening in early October, the aurora borealis was visible from New York City, inspiring awe in those urban dwellers used to a starless sky. But rather than the nocturne of pinks, greens, and blues seen in northern climes, the firmament above the easternmost parts of Queens was painted a dull, if pretty, magenta. I sought out a more varied chromatic experience in Midtown East, where, on a vacant field abutting the United Nations, eighteen thousand glowing orbs syncopated the colors of the spectrum.
Of course, the comparison is a cheap one. Field of Light, a sprawling installation by British artist Bruce Munro, is tacky public art, the grace of its flickering lights undercut by shoddy execution. The tiny orbs are poised atop fiber-optic stems that meet the ground in a dense, ungainly tangle. The effect fails to evoke the glowing sprites of Princess Mononoke, reminding me instead of a Temu-decorated, bisexual-mood-lit dorm room. The nominative pretensions of the venue, Freedom Plaza, inspire derision, as does its natalist owner, billionaire Stefan Soloviev, who at just forty-nine has fathered twenty-plus offspring. Of the immensely lucrative holdings he inherited from his late father, Sheldon Solow, none has captured his attention as much as this six-acre waterfront property—one of the largest undeveloped parcels in Manhattan.
The toxicity of the ground here (the area beneath the soil was formerly used for petroleum storage) successfully thwarted development until the Soloviev Group sunk $100 million into its remediation. In February, Soloviev revealed plans to transform the site into a mixed use complex with residential towers, including some 500 “affordable” units; offices; shops; restaurants; green space; a Museum of Freedom and Democracy, whose epithet threatens to tip into autocritique; and a casino. This last feature underpins the entire project, which was dreamed up with characteristically misplaced exuberance by Bjarke Ingels Group. The New York State Gaming Commission plans to award up to three permits for downstate casinos in 2025, with eleven major real estate entities vying for the bid. Two permits are expected to green-light the expansion of preexisting slot parlors adjacent to the Yonkers and Aqueduct racetracks, but the third is unaccounted for. Soloviev’s tactic is subtlety: His property manager told New York Magazine that he did away with an original Ferris wheel idea in favor of burying the casino below grade.
The same putative forbearance is at work at Field of Light. This gigantic Lite-Brite was funded by the Soloviev Foundation, whose origins as a tax dodge for the family’s extensive art collection are the stuff of New York lore. (The “public” gallery at the base of the Soloviev Group’s swanky West 57th Street headquarters is inaccessible in all but name.) If given the choice between this ersatz pastoralism and the wanton artificiality of Times Square, where Jay-Z and Caesars Palace hope to build their own casino, I’d choose the latter every time.