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this is 99% invisible i'm roman mars

in the center of San Francisco, there's a plaza with no benches.

Its central feature at the entrance of the plaza,

it's a unique fountain that was designed by Lawrence Halperin in 1975.

The water shoots out at various angles from inside a sunken pit filled with large granite slabs. It's a design that kind of pulls you in and

invites you to take the steps down to the water and climb in between the

Hawking stones and that's part of the problem. In 2004, radio producer Ben Temption

created a really fantastic documentary of U.N. Plaza called the biography of 100,000 square feet that first aired on a radio program

I produced called Invisible Inc. in May of 2004.

The doc takes this really hard look at U.N UN Plaza when it was at its absolute worst

and asks what I think is a really interesting question. Is there a point where good intentions

and idealism of a certain design become so removed from reality

that it actually borders on negligence.

All right, here's the show.

I'd like to think my pal Ben Temption for giving me the honor of premiering the piece back in 2004 and then letting me play it for you again more than

seven years later as part of 99% invisible. Things have changed a bit

...