What We Need
New York has gotten good about fixing old infrastructure but is still slow to build anything new. Here’s a shopping list.

(Photo: Newscom)

Tappan Zee Bridge
NYS Thruway Authority
Constantly under repair and terminally obsolete, the 1955 bridge has already gotten all the tinkering it can take.

(Photo: Courtesy of Eytan Kaufman)

Hudson World Bridge
Eytan Kaufman
A ribbon of park plus an extension to the Javits Center, slung over the Hudson. More thought experiment than actual plan, but what a thought!

(Photo: Courtesy of the Metropolitan Transit Authority)

Fulton Street Transit Center
Grimshaw
Sure you can tuck it under a moneymaking high-rise, but then you lose the glass cupola that Grimshaw proposed, with its lofty ring of retail and views of St. Paul’s.

(Photo: Bebeto Matthews/AP)

Moynihan Station
David Childs, others
The perpetually deferred dream of a grand West Side terminal makes the rank, dank warren of the current Penn Station that much harder to accept.

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What We Could Have
Europe has done a better job than we have of nurturing and caring for its infrastructure, and its best projects have become a civilization’s mark on the land.

(Photo: Juan Silva/Getty Images)

Alamillo Bridge
Santiago Calatrava, 1992
The mast, joined to the span by a choir of diagonal cables, appears to have been swept back by the wake of rushing cars. This Seville bridge exhorts traffic not to putter but to flow gracefully across.

(Photo: Wilfried Dechau/Courtesy of Wilkinson Eyre Architects)

Gateshead Millennium Bridge
Wilkinson Eyre, 2002
In a bridge-rich town over the trafficked Tyne, this elegant crossing distinguishes itself by swiveling up to let ships pass and down for pedestrians.

(Photo: Ben Johnson/Courtesy of Foster + Partners)

Millau Viaduct
Foster + Partners, 2004
Cutting across a valley in southern France and taller than the Eiffel Tower, the viaduct is a reminder that big roads don’t have to despoil the landscape.

(Photo: The Travel Library/Rex USA)

Pont du Gard
Anonymous Roman, first century A.D.
The job of getting water from spring to public fountain produced an epochal statement of Roman culture.

Related:

• Articles by Justin Davidson
• Table of Contents: Nov 24, 2008 issue of New York | Subscribe!