07/14/2026
Broadway, Downtown LA, November 2019. At least according to Ridley Scott’s remarkable Bladerunner. We of course glanced at our own version of a dystopian future on Broadway— starting a mere three months after that date with the Pandemic and a hollowing out of our Historic Core and Downtown. A frightening look into our future— both real and imagined— as we confront what our future might look like— and imagine the beauty and horror of what may come to pass. This scene introduced Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford— whose birthday it is today!) and his mission to seek out and destroy machines masquerading as humans. Is this the future we want? Is it what we expect? Is it unavoidable? The answer is in our hands— and from the look of it, we aren’t making a lot of progress if our goal is to avoid broken weather, astonishing gaps between the wealth of those living in modern industrial pyramids and those on the gritty crowded streets below, and a perpetual struggle between mankind and machines. He may have been off in his dates— but if we don’t watch out, this may too come to pass.
