Summer Streets! Gawk at New York Architecture in the Middle of the Street
The Cyclo-Phone. (Via Curbed NY)
There are many reasons to love Summer Streets in New York—or open streets programs in most cities across the country—but one of the best is the opportunity to stand in the middle of Park Avenue, Fourth Avenue, or Lafayette Street gawking up at the city’s architecture without becoming roadkill. Walking Off the Big Apple presents a list of notable buildings along the route in easy to use Google map form. Summer Streets is back again tomorrow and the following Saturday from 7:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., so look for Mies’ Seagram Building, Stanford White’s 23 Park, or, of course, Grand Central Terminal.
Also be on the lookout for this crazy bike-powered musical instrument called the Cyclo-Phone (above) by Marcelo Ertorteguy and Sara Valente. Curbed New York spotted the crazy contraption made of kiddie pools and PVC pipes at Astor Place.
Summer Streets Launches Tomorrow in New York City!
Summer Streets 2012. (Courtesy NYC DOT)
Saturdays in August, Manhattan is made for pedestrians and cyclists. The fifth season of Summer Streets, New York City’s spectacularly popular open streets program where a major thoroughfare is closed off to traffic and opened up to just about everything else, kicks off tomorrow, August 4 from 7:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Lafayette Street and Park Avenue will play host to thousands of New Yorkers experiencing the city in a way normally only someone with a death wish might, and this year, the NYC Department of Transportation is stringing out new attractions along the nearly seven mile route.
Taking Back the Streets x2
Before closing Broadway got her branded a car-hating communist, DOT commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan was already well on her way to transforming the city’s streets. One of the most memorable events–and a sign of things to come–was last year’s Summer Streets program, which, for three Saturdays last August, closed off a large swath of Manhattan from the Brooklyn Bridge to 72nd Street, with most of the course running up Park Avenue. (There was also a less publicized closure of Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg.) Never one to stand (or bike) still, Sadik-Khan and the mayor announced today the expansion of the program throughout the summer and across all five boroughs this year. Details after the jump, but first two quick thoughts: Brooklyn, with seven sites, is the obvious winner; and why no Park Avenue this year? Read More
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