On View> The Greatest Grid: The Master Plan of Manhattan
Columbus Circle in the late 19th century. (Courtesy MCNY)
The Greatest Grid:
The Master Plan of Manhattan, 1811–2011
Museum of the City of New York
1220 Fifth Avenue
Through April 6, 2012
In 1807, to head off health threats and a growing lack of habitable space, New York City’s Common Council commissioned a three-year project to organize massive land development north of Houston Street. The Museum of the City of New York presents The Greatest Grid: The Master Plan of Manhattan, 1811–2011 in honor of the bicentennial of the 1811 Commissioners’ Plan for New York, which established the iconic street grid from Houston to 155th Street. Along with the original, hand-drawn map of New York’s grid plan, other historic documents demonstrate the city’s physical development due to the grid’s application and evolution over time. Co-presented by the Museum of the City of New York, the New York Public Library, and The Architectural League of New York, and sponsored by the Office of the Manhattan Borough President, The Greatest Grid will be on display until April 6.
Bjarke Ingels, WSJ Architecture Innovator of the Year
BIG's concept for the expansion of the National Beaux-Arts Museum in Quebec. (Courtesy BIG)
If Bjarke Ingels‘ ascension into starchitecture hasn’t been dramatic enough, the Danish architect is again moving up in the world. On Friday, Ingels’ firm BIG threw a party to christen their new office space in Manhattan. BIG has expanded its Chelsea presence, moving up from the third to the twelfth floor of the Starrett-Lehigh Building. A press preview of the new space preceded the party a couple floors above. Among those in attendance were Crown Prince Frederik and Princess Mary of Denmark, who earlier this month awarded Ingels the $90,000 Culture Prize—the MacArthur of Scandinavia—for his emerging work in architecture.
Now it looks like Ingels’ October has just been getting started. The Wall Street Journal Magazine will declare the Danish architect among its inaugural Innovators of the Year. Read More
On View> PIIOTOS_WTC: 22 Brazilian Photographers Capture the World Trade Center on Film
Dive with a WTC View, 1990 by Tuca Reines.
PIIOTOS_WTC
1500 Gallery
511 W 25th St. #607
Through September 17
In honor of the tenth anniversary of September 11th, 1500 Gallery in West Chelsea will present PIIOTOS_WTC, an exhibition of photographs of the Twin Towers taken by 22 of Brazil’s most notable photographers. The images, which all have the World Trade Center site as their subject, span the last three decades of the 20th century. Selected photographers include Victor Andrade, Ali Karakas, and Roberto Linsker, among others. The selection is diverse, with works ranging from distant portrait landscapes of the towers from the Hudson River, to bold aerial views, black and white night shots, glowing, hazy sunsets, andclose-up structural shots, like the work of Tuca Reines, above. Gallery 1500—the only gallery in the world to focus specifically on Brazilian photography—brings together these poetic works, capturing the power, strength, and beauty of the city as it is no longer.
AN Video> Esplanade Walk-Through with Amanda Burden
View of the Esplanade from under the FDR at Wall Street.
On Thursday, the East River Waterfront Esplanade officially opened to the public. Last week, while the paint on the new bike lanes was still drying, City Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden took AN on a walk through of the first section. The commissioner barely contained her excitement while showing off design details by landscape architect Ken Smith and SHoP Architects. Follow the commissioner as she takes us through the dog run and points out clever details like the “Get-Downs,” the riverside bar stools, and “seat walls.”
Quick Clicks> Wren, Denver, Pike, & Livability
London Skyline with Wren's cathedral at right (Courtesy James Cridland/flickr)
Wren’s Dome. Some 300 years ago, Christopher Wren completed St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. Now with today’s modern icons transforming the city’s skyline, the Telegraph pays homage to his lasting landmark amongst the new “Shards, Gherkins and distorted walkie-talkie-shaped skyscrapers.”
Green Mile High. The Editor-at-Large brings news that the USGBC has named Denver the “greenest” city in the United States with about 230 LEED registered or certified buildings. Two have earned LEED Platinum since 2010.
Pike Park. StreetsBlog reports that construction has begun on permanent Pike Street pedestrian improvements to be completed this fall in Manhattan. The project replaces temporary materials DOT installed in 2009 to calm traffic along Pike and Allen streets.
Shut Out. Reuter’s has the list of the world’s most (and least) livable cities ranked by the Economist Intelligence Unit. Vancouver topped the list (Harare, Zimbabwe came in last). No city in the United States managed to break into the top ten.
Video> Exhibition Recalls NY′s Lost Garden of Eden
Adam Purple's Garden of Eden in the Lower East Side (Photo by Harvey Wang)
As he watched his Manhattan neighborhood crumble and burn around him in the urban decay of the 1970s, Adam Purple decided to build a garden. For roughly a decade from the 1970s until 1985, Purple’s Garden of Eden earthwork expanded with concentric circles as more and more buildings were torn down. Photographer Harvey Wang is marking the 25th anniversary of the garden’s destruction with an exhibition at the Fusion Arts gallery running through February 20.
Click through for more info and a video about the exhibition.
Friday Video: Little Plane Flies Through Big City
It’s Friday afternoon, so why not take a joy ride through the skies of New York? Gothamist uncovered this amazing video of a homemade RC airplane with a video camera attached to its nose making its way among the skyscrapers and bridges of New York. Makes for some pretty amazing footage!
A Thousand Drops of Light in Madison Square Park
Scattered Light installation by Jim Campbell (Photo by James Ewing courtesy Madison Square Park Conservancy)
Upon first stumbling across this massive array of 2,000 LED lights encased in standard light bulbs in Madison Square Park a few weeks ago, I thought holiday decoration had come a little early to the Flatiron’s front yard, but as shadowed figures began moving across the field of light, it became apparent that this installation by artist Jim Campbell was something special.
Hudson Square Pushes to Reclaim Pedestrian Space
Street scene in Hudson Square (Courtesy Hudson Square Connection)
A major transformation of the once-industrial Hudson Square neighborhood in Lower Manhattan aims to bring pedestrian vitality to streets originally designed for delivery trucks servicing printing houses. Crain’s reports that Hudson Square Connections, the local business improvement district, has selected a design group led by Mathews Nielsen Landscape Architects from a pool of 23 respondents to create a new streetscape to improve the area’s image.
More on the plan to balance the area’s changing demographics.
A Worm in the Big Apple
New York's ugly block of 35th Street (Google Maps)
It’s not all glitz in Midtown Manhattan. One block of 35th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues was awarded the pernicious title of Midtown’s ugliest stretch on the appropriately named “Ugly Streets” walking tour, headed up last Friday by the Municipal Art Society‘s Frank Addeo.
All Planning Is Local
Stringer (far left) and Anthony Borelli, his planning director (far right), with last year's fellows. (Courtesy MBPO)
One of the roles played by the city’s 59 community boards—besides issuing liquor licenses—is to oversee local planning issues, and while the input of the board is only advisory, it tends to weigh in the decision making of the City Planning Commission (as was the case at Hudson Yards earlier this week) and the City Council. The only problem is, the boards have no professional planners on staff. Manhattan has been blessed with a great deal of help the past three years, however, thanks to a fellowship program begun by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, and today he announced it will hopefully be expanding to the entire city by next year. Read More
Rough Sailing
Thirty-five cents. One quarter, one dime. That’s how much—or how little—it cost to buy one share of stock in General Growth Properties at the end of trading today.
It’s been a rough year for the 54-year-old mall developer and operator as it stock has tumbled—in concert with the real estate and retail markets—from a high of $67 per share in March 2007. Yet that stock was still valued at $38 as recently as June 18, when the company announced its plans for new South Street Seaport. Even when it presented those plans to the Landmarks Preservation Commission on October 21, when the stocked closed at $4.84, GGP remained confident in the future of the project. But that was before Monday’s report in The Wall Street Journal that General Growth might file for bankruptcy. Read More
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