I have always stated I designed the stadium as a toilet seat. I don't care if this is a great cultural event or a national symbol. It has nothing to do with me. It deals with the city.
If we're not there making the argument then the cultural gulf that Republicans try to exploit saying, "Ah, these city slickers: they're all looking down on you, they don't care about you. They're just trying to help out their various special interest constituencies," that argument ends up being successful.
If youre a singer, you do concerts, and you get that interaction with fans and see what cities in what part of the world come out to see you. When youre on television, youre removed from that.
The Italians are fond of red clothes, peacock plumes, and embroidery; and I remember one rainy morning in the city of Palermo, the street was ablaze with scarlet umbrellas.
New York was not a romantic city at [80th]. Nobody knows who you are and you don't have to care about anybody else. It's a very cold city, I should say.
I waited for the train at Coventry; I hung with grooms and porters on the bridge, To watch the three tall spires; and there I shaped The city's ancient legend into this.
Yet high over the city our line of yellow windows must have contributed their share of human secrecy to the casual watcher in the darkening streets, and I was him too, looking up and wondering. I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.
What we saw was that the Ferguson Police Department in conjunction with the municipality saw traffic stops, arrests, tickets as a revenue generator, as opposed to serving the community, and that it systematically was biased against African-Americans in that city who were stopped, harassed, mistreated, abused, called names, fined.
...our cities of the present lack the outstanding symbol of national community which, we must therefore not be surprised to find, sees no symbol of itself in the cities. The inevitable result is a desolation whose practical effect is the total indifference of the big-city dweller to the destiny of his city.
My image of what a city should be - the super-rich and all the poor and desperate and the people who have some kind of a desire. It's a surviving game, people trying to survive on many different levels.