Author Archives: admin
The hardest working man in the memorial business.
New Jersey has announced the winner of a memorial dedicated to residents who died in the WTC attacks, one Frederic Schwartz. If this is a familiar name, it’s because he was recently announced as the designer of a memorial in Westchester County (titled, ‘The Rising’ perhaps to appeal to the New Jersey jury?). And he […]
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People of New York, we humbly present — GowCa.
Places everyone! We’ve gone over this a number of times, so let’s try and do this with a minimum of error. Opening date has been announced, and it’s a good ways off (mid-2007), so there is still plenty of room for new cast members. If you move now, you can still qualify as a curmudgeonly […]
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The day the Atlantic Center died.
Tomorrow is a big day. So big that they moved up that CPA ceremony– okay that joke only runs so far, and we didn’t even think it up. So banish that, since yesterday presages only more strife and discontent elsewhere. Here, we have much smaller fish to fry. Before we get to that, let’s touch […]
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We do what we can.
The Times reports on a new program announced by the city that provides incentive financing for Mitchell-Lama projects. Mitchell-Lama was one of the most forward-looking housing programs in the twentieth century, enabling a number of large apartment projects to be financed with goal of providing affordable housing for middle income earners. The most notable success […]
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Hey, there’s an empty lot! Cover it with a nasty institutional behemoth, stat!
Doing a fine bit of muckracking, The Villager details the ownership on two strips of land that ideally should be controlled by the city, but actually belong to NYU. Ideally, we say, since it’s one of those situations where a lot tut-tut-ing goes on about how NYU is really a benevolent land owner, and then […]
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They can call it the East River Pipe(line).
Curbed linked up to the Bloomberg interview (reprinted by Architect) with Richard Rogers, who, along with SHoP Architects, won a limited competition to renovate the lower segment of the FDR (one of his ideas is burying the drive itself). For more details, the Lower Manahattan info site has a reasonably in-depth look at the competition, […]
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Called on the carpet.
The Times has a pretty provincial ‘gee whiz’ piece (used to enter his house through a window! so kooky! ) on an installation by Rudolf Stingel, ‘Plan B’, opening in the Vanderbilt Hall at Grand Central Terminal this week (July 1). Lasting throughout July, it consists of 27,000 square feet of carpet, derived from a […]
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Boreing.
While no one is sure what is going to happen on top of the Hudson Rail Yards, and the result is certain to be a sea change for the neighborhood, what’s going on underneath it is as important, but far less visible. In the southeast corner (at 31st and Tenth Avenue), there is an anonymous […]
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Cars still win.
Welcome to the fourteenth century. The Wall Street Journal chronicles the new jargon and design considerations that creep in as more buildings require ‘hardening.’ Bollards, barriers, clear distances, and the like are the latter-day versions of moats and perimeter walls, all designed to stop the proverbial truck laden with explosives. It’s interesting, but not surprising, […]
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Lend me some sugar, I will be your neighbor.