New Jersey/In the Region - The Art of Remaking Orange - NYTimes.com A PAIR of New York architects describe the plan they have conceptualized for remaking downtown Orange as something that will "rewrite both the physical and social spaces of Orange." Township officials, on the other hand, compare it to what "you could see in a third-world country" and say it's "not really grounded in reality." Certainly, at this point, any such remake is far from being realized. In fact, it exists only as a component in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. Keeping company with towns in Oregon, Florida, Illinois and California, Orange is the focus of a show called "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream." In preparation last summer, the museum matched up teams of architects, planners, ecologists and engineers with each of the chosen communities, asking them to re-envision the ailing urban/suburban model. The results are on display at MoMA through Aug. 13. Led by Michael Meredith and Hilary Sample, partners at MOS Architects in New York, the team that took on Orange concentrated on the half-mile radius around the main train station. They came up with a campuslike pedestrian village that replaces many streets with connected ribbons of four-story mixed-use buildings and an energy-producing rooftop park. Titled "Thoughts on a Walking City," the plan also tries to address the problem of obesity by adding bike paths and replacing elevators and escalators with stairs. "The idea was that there's this poor, disenfranchised group that's paying for infrastructure they're not using," said Mr. Meredith, describing his and his colleagues" thought process after a tour last year. "So we asked, "What if we rethink the streets?" The street is seen as this place of freedom, and yet it is incredibly polluted, it takes a lot of capital to maintain, it's filled with private interests. It's even illegal to stand there for too long. Predictably, the notion of cutting off thoroughfares didn't go over well with leaders. "That may be perfect for a utopian society where there's no crime, no fires, no issues," said Mayor Eldridge Hawkins Jr. But how would you get fire trucks and emergency vehicles in there? It doesn't make any sense. Yet Orange not only has a good deal of crime and fire, but also a sizable population of poor and disenfranchised residents: 18.8 percent of its 30,134 people live below the poverty line, according to 2010 census numbers. Recognizing that the city has its challenges, the Hawkins administration has tried to tackle issues like decrepit public housing and blocks of boarded-up homes, in what it considers a more measured response than the architects" radical vision. On a recent bus tour with a reporter, the mayor and his team were eager to point out the reality of the area they call "the heart of Orange." First up was Tony Galento Plaza, just north of the train station, where Orange is working with the RPM Development Group in Montclair to build two five-story buildings, each with 80 market-rate rentals and commercial space on the ground floor. Joseph Portelli, an assistant vice president of RPM, said the company expected to break ground on the first building by the end of this year. Planned for a parking lot the city leases to the Postal Service, it will have a 175-space parking garage for residents and commuters, along with a wellness center that may include a health clinic and a gym. The $28 million first building is being financed by a federal tax credit program, state and local funds, a $13 million private mortgage and $4 million from RPM, Mr. Portelli said. The RPM group recently completed Grand Central Housing, a 70-unit affordable building elsewhere in Orange. One goal is to tie Tony Galento Plaza more closely into city life, which mostly takes place a block north, on bustling Main Street. And while they're at it, city planners are seeking to improve the quality of the shops along the two-mile stretch of Main Street. Storefronts are already occupied, but ultimately the city would like to attract a major supermarket chain to the area, which Stephanie Gidigbi, Mayor Hawkins's chief of staff, calls a "food desert." Progress is more evident south of the train tracks, where residents have begun moving into the new Walter G. Alexander Homes: 48 units for older residents and 66 affordable town homes, which replace the seven-story public projects that were the scourge of Orange until 2010, when they were demolished. "There was lots of crime, drugs, guns," Mayor Hawkins said, "but the good people were suffering, they had no control over their lives." To bankroll this $27 million project, the city took advantage of the state's Neighborhood Stabilization Program and other tax credits. And to stabilize this East Ward neighborhood, the part of town hit hardest by the foreclosure crisis, it is also looking to add market-rate housing to the mix, as well as offering home-improvement money to owners of some of the single-family houses. There was never any interaction between city officials and the MoMA project team, either during the research phase last year or since the exhibition opened in February. Yet Orange officials are willing to admit that the architects got some things right. "We agree with the themes of mixed use," said Valerie Jackson, Orange's director of planning and development, "and we think it's very important to include wellness in the form of an exercise center that is open to tenants and the public. What we don't agree with is putting structures up that close off the streets. Commenting on the architects" renderings - tiered gray blocks of aerated concrete - both Ms. Jackson and Ms. Gidigbi compared them to what one might find in the third world. And on that note, Mr. Meredith suggested it was the Orange officials who were in need of a reality check. "You could say parts of Orange look like a third-world country already," he said. It's incredibly tragic what's going on there, what some people have to do to survive.