Viking Magazine - June 2013 - 8

Nordic Life
SNØHETTA TO REDESIGN
TIMES SQUARE
N
ew York's bustling Times Square has long been a haven for
tourists but a headache for its city's residents. The Norwegian
architecture fi rm, Snøhetta, hopes to change that with a
dynamic new redesign of NYC's iconic landmark.
The company is known for projects around the world, including
the entrance pavilion for the National September 11 Memorial
& Museum in New York City and the Norwegian National
Opera and Ballet in Oslo. The company's goal in the Times
Square renovation is to open it up and bring order to the chaos.
Snøhetta will reinvent the Square as the stylish and cultivated
heart of New York, as it appears in vintage photographs. It plans
to shift the Square from its neon, congested, carnival tone to a
more refi ned and subdued tone. In addition to overhauling the
plaza surfaces, Snøhetta plans to remove the excessive artifi cial
light sources, add granite benches and remove the vegetation
that tends to be mistreated. The project is estimated to cost $45
million, with construction projected to begin this summer.
Westward Ho!
O
le Lokensgaard recalled
in his memoir that in
1861 the approaching covered
wagons " appeared like white
swans in the distance. " As
the wagons drew closer, the
7-year-old realized two of his
uncles, Knudt and Ole, were
each driving one. Soon after, a
caravan of 12 people and four
wagons, including Lokensgaard's
family of six, departed from Rice
County, Minn., to Vermillion in
the Dakota Territory.
The covered wagon,
otherwise known as a " Prairie
BY JEFF M. SAUVE
Schooner, " served many
Norwegian-American pioneer
families as they migrated
westward. The wagons
measured from 8 to 12 feet long
with at least a 4-foot-wide bed.
Possessions fi lled the wagon
box or hung on the outside of
the wagon, pots and
pans clanging at every
dip and jostle.
Oxen pulled
the wagon along
at a dawdling,
monotonous pace,
often hampered by
sloughs, rivers or wheel-hubhigh
mud. Lokensgaard recalled
how their wagon fl ipped into
a ravine after one of their oxen
turned off the road to reach
some sweet grass.
Family members walked
alongside and tended to the
livestock that followed behind.
Exhausted by walking all day,
they slept peaceably inside or
underneath the wagon, except
one particular night when a
thunderstorm struck. The canvas
partially ripped from the wagon,
fl apping violently in the wind, Ole
recalls. Soaking wet and terrifi ed,
family members frantically clung
to the roof over their home on
wheels until the storm abated.
Jeff M. Sauve serves
as an archivist for the
Norwegian-American
Historical Association in
Northfi eld, Minn.
WAGON TRAIN REUNION In 1873, a seven-family wagon train left Fillmore County, Minn., headed for Dakota Territory.
An estimated 300 descendants of these families will commemorate the 140th anniversary of the journey Aug. 9-11 at
Augustana College in Sioux Falls, S.D. For more information, search for " 140th Wagon Train Reunion " on Facebook.
SPREAD
THE
WORD
Stemmerett (stem'-meh-rett) = Right to vote
IMAGES COURTESY OF (TOP) SNØHETTA (MIDDLE) NORWEGIAN-AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION (NAHA)

Viking Magazine - June 2013

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