Honorable Mention Award

A hundred years ago, in the summer of 2016, the Federal Bureau of Investigation released several findings from an inquiry into money laundering and tax evasion practices attached to market speculation and luxury residential sales in Manhattan.  The report found that over 50% of real estate sales above 3 million dollars were to limited liability corporations whose controlling interests were individuals listed on international criminal databases for organized crime and political corruption, among other illicit activities.  Spurred by the FBI’s condemnatory exposé, lawmakers enacted several pieces of legislation requiring more transparency in luxury real estate sales, effectively limiting particularly egregious forms of laundering and speculation.  Simultaneously, and using similar shadow tactics, the agency initiated a covert operation to seize properties in connection to the criminal investigations - properties only identified in classified sections of the report.  

What follows is a selection of anecdotes surrounding the visibly bizarre transformations of a set of park-side towers in Midtown Manhattan during the 21st century.  Of particular significance is the account of whistle blower JP Kennedy’s 2058 discovery of the FBI’s covert seizing of a large portion of Manhattan’s most valuable property.  Other stories account for the transition of this seized property into one of the city’s most cherished pieces of public infrastructure since the creation of Central Park some 200 years earlier.   

This story of corrupt politicians, fallen sports stars, thermal anomalies, and a whistle blowing FBI agents documents how misfortune fuelled a secret FBI plot that initiated selective disassembly and wholesale abandonment of some of the world’s most valuable property.   In the end the story reveals a 22nd century model for urban revitalization, built on the poetic potential of chaos and the transformation of a city choking on its own rampant consumption.