Exhibition Celebrates the Architecture of Brooklyn’s 175-Year-Old Green-Wood Cemetery
(Wally Gobetz / Flickr)
The Museum of the City of New York presents A Beautiful Way to Go: New York’s Green-Wood Cemetery, a new exhibition that examines the Brooklyn cemetery’s astonishing 175-year history, on view from May 15 to October 13. As a National Historic Landmark that predates both of Olmsted’s Central Park and Prospect Park, the cemetery grounds cover a vital 19th-century American public green space and remain a critical site in New York’s architectural history.
On View> Designing Tomorrow: America’s World’s Fairs of the 1930s
Richard Wurts, “See My Shadow,” 1938. (Courtesy MCNY)
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- Transportation Building, New York, 1938.
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- General Motors exhibition, New York, 1939.
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- Suggested Exhibit for New York World’s Fair.
Designing Tomorrow: America’s World’s Fairs of the 1930s
Museum of the City of New York
1220 Fifth Avenue
Through March 31
Designing Tomorrow presents relics from six depression-era expositions that brought new visions of progress and prosperity to a struggling nation. Tens of millions of Americans flocked to fairs in Chicago (1933/34), San Diego (1935/36), Dallas (1936), Cleveland (1936/37), San Francisco (1939/40), and New York (1939/40) to catch a glimpse of the futurist oracles that would soon become post-war realities—from glass skyscrapers, superhighways, and the spread of suburbia, to electronic home goods and nylon hosiery. The fairs helped America to look forward to an era of opulence and innovation, spreading from the metropolis to the living room. Modernist furniture, streamlined appliances, vintage film reels, and visionary renderings drawn from the museum’s collection are presented together.
America’s Oldest Existing Indoor Mall To Be Filled With Micro-Apartments
Micro Apartments. (Courtesy of Evan Granoff/Arcade Providence)
Nowadays it seems that everyone is jumping on the micro apartment bandwagon, and it only makes sense that a bite-size state like Rhode Island would pick up on this trend. Developer Evan Granoff is restoring the historic Providence Arcade (also known as Westminster Arcade), the oldest existing indoor mall in America dating to 1828, and converting it into a mixed-use complex with retail on the ground floor and micro apartments on the second and third levels. J. Michael Abbott of Northeast Collaborative Architects is leading the renovation of the Greek Revival-style Arcade.
Making Room: New York Micro-Apartments on Display Beginning January 23
Rendering of the “Making Room” exhibition. (Courtesy Resource Furniture)
Think you could live in just 325 square feet? While Manhattan is already famous for its cramped quarters, micro-apartments are poised to take space efficiency to the next level with Murphy beds lurking behind sofas and roll-away walls concealing closets. You’ll have a chance to test drive one of the tiny abodes at a new exhibition, Making Room: New Models for Housing New Yorkers, organized by the Museum of the City of New York and the Citizens Housing & Planning Council.
On View> From Farm to City: Staten Island 1616–2012
(Courtesy MCNY)
From Farm to City: Staten Island 1616–2012
Museum of the City of New York
1220 Fifth Avenue
Through January 21, 2013
From Farm to City: Staten Island 1616–2012 explores the history, evolution, and future of New York’s often overlooked fifth borough. The island has served as the city’s breadbasket, a pastoral escape for the city’s elite, an industrial center, an international port, and a toehold for new immigrant communities. Divided into four sections—Farms, Pleasure Grounds, Suburbs, and City—the exhibition examines the major forces that have shaped land use on the island, including the development of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. The exhibition includes historic photographs, maps, and other ephemera and objects, as well as an online mapping component tracing the chronology of major developments on the island.
Slideshow> Revamped Seaport Museum Opens: Old Salts Meet Occupy Wall St.
The "Hand Held Devices" gallery. (AN/Stoelker)
A revamped South Street Seaport Museum shook off the dust last night to reopen after a three-month renovation overseen by the Museum of the City of New York. The exhibits were both a departure from and an embrace of the old collection. The design team, particularly Wendy Evans Joseph and Chris Cooper of Cooper Joseph Studio, turned what could have been a cramped exhibition arrangement into a free-flowing multi-leveled space.
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.
On View> The American Style: Colonial Revival and the Modern Metropolis
(COURTESY MCNY)
The American Style:
Colonial Revival and the Modern Metropolis
Museum of the City of New York
1220 Fifth Avenue
Through October 30
Following the U.S. Centennial of 1876, architecture in New York City was defined by what was known as “the American style,” a visual language referencing both the nation’s nostalgia for its beginnings and its progressive aspirations. A new exhibition reveals the impact of Colonial Revival on the cityscape through vintage photographs and objects like a 1926 mahogany settee by the Company of Master Craftsmen, whose volutes reflect a resurgence in classicism that is the trademark of the Colonial.
AN Video> Viñoly on Postmodernism, etc.
AN exec editor Julie Iovine in conversation Rafael Viñoly at the Museum of the City of New York.
AN‘s Julie Iovine held a freewheeling conversation last week with architect Rafael Viñoly under the subject heading “What Comes After Postmodern Architecture.” The architect had some choice words about the period before moving on to a variety of other topics, including corporate architecture, collaboration, and New York.
Event> What Comes After Postmodern Architecture?
Rafael Viñoly (Photo by Adam Friedberg)
- What Comes After Postmodern Architecture?
A Conversation with Rafael Viñoly - Museum of the City of New York
- 1220 Fifth Avenue at 103rd Street
- New York
- Tuesday, April 5 at 6:30pm
Join Julie Iovine, executive editor at The Architect’s Newspaper, tomorrow (Tuesday) evening for a compelling discussion with architect Rafael Viñoly at the Museum of the City of New York at 6:30pm. The topic for the night, “What Comes After Postmodern Architecture?”, will tackle the state of New York City architecture.
The recent building boom in New York City has radically altered the look and feel of the city and added considerably to the list of starchitects currently reshaping New York’s iconic skyline. It has also helped redefine boundaries of the eclectic pluralism of postmodern architecture. How do we label the current architectural style of the last decade? Is there a post-postmodern?
Reservations required. Call 917-492-3395 or purchase tickets online through MCNY. Tickets: $12 for non-members, $8 for seniors & students, $6 for museum members.
Drinking in History
Evolution of the Speakeasy, Barney Gallant’s “Speako de Luxe,” 1933 (Courtesy Museum of the City of New York)
Last night, the Museum of the City of New York hosted the first installment of their summer long prohibition-era themed parties on the newly renovated Polshek Partnership-designed terrace overlooking Central Park. Read More
Decor Out the Door
In addition to their scholarly and artistic value, many historic houses and period rooms are the rescues of the nascent preservation movement. On view since 1938 at the Museum of the City of New York (MCNY), two 1880s Aesthetic Movement rooms from the Rockefeller Mansion on 54th Street are finding new homes at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and at the Virginia Commonwealth Museum. Read More
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