The Rubber Room: The Battle Over New York City’s Worst Teachers.
posted by Oxydude on Aug 27, 2009 - 81 comments

Murder: New York City. A map pinpointing murders in the five boroughs of NYC from 2003-09. Broken down by time of day, weapon used, age, sex and ethnicity of both victim and perpetrator. Not surprisingly, in the heat of summer the body count rises. [more inside]
posted by crossoverman on Jul 21, 2009 - 48 comments

When Man on Wire won a Grand Jury Prize: at Sundance this year, many could hazily remember Philippe Petit's high-wire walk between the World Trade Center Towers in New York in 1974 (previously) but few knew the extent to which the entire endeavor was a wacky multinational caper. [more inside]
posted by jessamyn on Oct 11, 2008 - 32 comments

Radar magazine: Secrets of a hipster hooker.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Sep 7, 2008 - 168 comments

Design plans for the much talked about High Line in NYC were unveiled today. It has been hotly anticipated as one of the most distinctive public projects in generations.
posted by aletheia on Jun 25, 2008 - 26 comments

New York City in (mostly) black and white. A huge collection of photos starting in the 1880s—some beautiful, all fascinating. Previously.
posted by cerebus19 on Jun 19, 2008 - 18 comments

Liberty City vs New York City
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 on May 14, 2008 - 42 comments

Hugh Ferriss: Delineator of Gotham. Through his charcoal renderings of dramatic, imaginary skyscrapers in early 1900s New York City, Ferriss influenced the aesthetics of numerous architects with his bold compositions.
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Jan 6, 2008 - 12 comments

Maritime New York
posted by Miko on Dec 6, 2007 - 5 comments

"New York City 1968-1972" Some very compelling black and white street photography by Paul McDonough. via
posted by CunningLinguist on Oct 18, 2007 - 49 comments

Hear our demands: give us back New York. Just think of the possibilities! Join the struggle. Or else.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Apr 1, 2007 - 35 comments

Like old cheese and vomit, mixed with dog food ... Halitosis and aged cabbage ... Rank Swiss cheese ... Sour milk ... Pee in the air every day ... Like an open corpse ... Like a musty homeless person decomposing in musky homeless person urine ... Caramel with a slight undertone of mildly rank underarm ... Rodenticide. It's Gawker's New York City Subway Smell Map.
posted by Urban Hermit on Sep 26, 2006 - 17 comments

New York City Water Tunnel No. 3 has been under construction since 1970 and completion is expected in 2020. (Be sure to click the sidebars.) City Water Tunnels Nos. 1 and 2 have been operating continuously since 1917 and 1936, and currently cannot be shut down for repair without disrupting the city's water supply. Popular Mechanics and BLDBLOG have articles, Newsday has photos, and 60 Minutes has an article with video. Local paper The Villager covers the construction of one of the many shafts that connect to the tunnel. It has inspired a one-woman show. The Sandhog Project covers the workers, called "Sandhogs," with photos, sound, and video. Over twenty sandhogs died building the tunnel.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim on Jul 29, 2006 - 11 comments

Bill Clinton Doesn't Care About Black People. (More. Protest Announcement.)
posted by bardic on Jul 24, 2006 - 79 comments

A hate crime in Harlem? Some say it is, some say it isn't. Some are reminded of an incident at Howard Beach in 1986.
posted by anjamu on Apr 10, 2006 - 46 comments

Some 30 billion pounds of steam every year flow beneath the streets of Manhattan from the Battery to 96th Street. While it is unknown to most New Yorkers, Con Edison's subterranean steam system is the biggest steam district in the world, larger than the next four largest U.S. steam systems combined... And it's got a robot. [MI]
posted by ursus_comiter on Jan 4, 2006 - 45 comments

Some Photographs:
New York club scene in the 70's
Mingle's America in the 80's
NSFW (first link is a biggish load on dialup)
posted by peacay on Jun 18, 2005 - 39 comments

Thomas Shine, a former Yale student, is suing David Childs for copyright infringement Mr. Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill for copyright infringement over the design of the Freedom Tower located at Ground Zero. Shine alleges in his lawsuit that the proposed Freedom Tower was "strikingly similar" to his "Olympic Tower" design for the proposed 2012 Olympic Games in New York.
posted by plemeljr on Nov 10, 2004 - 21 comments

A long-lost treasure too toxic to touch: Construction at New York City's Harlem Community Justice Center recently revealed a room piled high with records documenting the building's former life as an early 20th century prison. They offer a peek into the street life of ca. 1900 NYC and scholars are already interested - there's only one problem: the room also contains decades worth of toxic pigeon droppings. (NY Times - registration required). Photos (click on the "records rescue" link at the bottom) of the room are available at the great correctionhistory.org which also offers histories and photos of other out-of-the-way corners of NYC like the Hart Island Potter's Field.
posted by ryanshepard on Nov 5, 2004 - 9 comments

The Triangle Factory Fire of 1911. 'This site includes selected information on a terrible and unnecessary tragedy involving the death of many young working women in a New York City sweatshop at the beginning of the 20th century and the resulting investigations and reforms. '
posted by plep on Jul 22, 2004 - 7 comments

Love on the Quiet. One breezy evening a few months ago, 19-year-old Joseph Briggs did something he had never before dared to do growing up gay in New York: he held hands with and kissed his boyfriend in his own neighborhood... While New York is legendary as a place where gays and lesbians can live openly and free from prejudice, Mr. Briggs's story reveals a great deal about what might be called the other gay New York. Life in this New York unfolds far from the chiseled Chelsea boys, funky Village bars and relatively gay-friendly neighborhoods like the Upper West Side and Park Slope, Brooklyn, that represent the public image of gay life in the city. In the farther reaches of the boroughs outside Manhattan, gay life is often harder and nearly always more complicated. In these neighborhoods, the national debate over gay marriage can be much less important than the search for a doctor who does not squirm when talking about homosexual sex.    And here is your NYC Gay And Lesbian Population Distribution--a handy, color-coded map in pdf format, which comes from The Gay And Lesbian Atlas to provide more snapshots of life as lived, block by block, butterfly wing by butterfly wing, hometown and homeboy, in a time of more cultural evolution than, say, revolution.
posted by y2karl on Jul 18, 2004 - 22 comments

Undercity reveals Gotham's secrets as uncovered by a guerrilla historian. [via Anil Dash]
posted by riffola on Jun 26, 2004 - 9 comments

iNetwork calls itself "an in4mation network by E.T.D." I discovered it through its amazing New York Skyscrapers subsite:

In addition to individual building entries and background info, it contains links to other resources, NYC webcams, clickable maps of locations of NYC skyscrapers, a forum for NYC skyscraper-related discussion and more.

But it's also got sections on Functionalism and the city of Viipuri ("a study of the 1930s Functionalistic architecture in the city of Viipuri in pre-war Finland"), the development of the square-rigged sailing ship from the Middle Ages to the beginning of the 19th Century, and, uh, Trini Alvarado ("an amazingly underrated NYC film and stage actress"). Something for everyone!
posted by languagehat on May 5, 2004 - 2 comments

Li'l G n' R - the first ever Guns N' Roses Kids Tribute Band. Check the audition video here (quicktime). They're playing CBGB's in a couple of weeks. Only $5, c'mon NYC MeFi'ers....one of you has to go and report.
posted by Ufez Jones on Feb 4, 2004 - 20 comments

Abandoned Bicycles of New York. Most seem to have been abandoned after thieves stripped unlocked components. Because of modern strong steel U-locks, many abandoned bikes aren't going anywhere soon. After reviewing these photos, you may want to review your bike-locking technique.
posted by profwhat on Jan 12, 2004 - 19 comments

I've become addicted to Satan's Laundromat -- a photoblog based out of Brooklyn that shows NYC daily in all its weird and wonderful glory.
posted by anastasiav on Dec 22, 2003 - 16 comments

The Brick Apple - New York City in LEGO®
posted by riffola on Dec 3, 2003 - 8 comments

More Magnificent Obsessions - 14to42.net - "This site intends to survey all of the signs in New York City from 14th Street to 42nd Street." Great photos of Ghost Signs, signs painted on buildings, signs attached to buildings, window signs, modern signs, graffiti signs, and even some pretty creepy signs, along with some surprisingly complete histories of the businesses the signs were made to advertise.
posted by anastasiav on Nov 11, 2003 - 14 comments

Celluloid Skyline. New York City as a dream constructed by the movies, with reference photographs and production drawings from Hollywood.
posted by liam on Oct 15, 2003 - 8 comments

Welcome to the Blackout History Project. With all the hub-bub today, josh m. marshall of talkingpointsmemo posted a link to an associates history of two other nyc blackouts. marshall says:

The Blackout History Project...which covers the social history of these events, what happened, people's reminiscences in written and recorded formats, and so forth. The site also has a great deal of information about just how blackouts happen, what these 'grids' are that folks are talking about, and how various forms of electricity deregulation which have taking place over recent years have made an event like we've seen today much more likely.

take it easy nyers and anyone else blacked out.
posted by asparagus_berlin on Aug 14, 2003 - 22 comments

100 Years of New York City. A New York Times special, originally published in 1998. 'The following articles offer a glimpse into the past 100 years of New York City -- a decade at a time. Each decade includes a full time line prepared by the staff at The New York Times, photos from The Times archives, headline clippings from archive copies of The Times, and essays by noted authors and Times staff writers. '
The new born city, seen from above - a panorama from 1902.
posted by plep on Jul 28, 2003 - 7 comments

NYCASD. Themed photos of New York and Amsterdam.
posted by plep on May 8, 2003 - 2 comments

A Love of Monsters: Gargoyles & Architectural Details in NYC. 'They crouch in the corners and lurk under windows. They curl around drainpipes and blend into doorways. They're so clever at hiding most folks won't see them at all. '
'But I know where the monsters live. I see them all the time. If your heart is understanding and your eyes remember wonder, then take a quiet stroll with me and see what you can find.'
Self-guided walks, too.
posted by plep on Mar 17, 2003 - 17 comments

19 inches of snow at Central Park and counting. This is now a top 5 snow storm in NYC history. In 1996 the accumulation was 24 inches.
posted by riffola on Feb 17, 2003 - 78 comments

In the long stretch of culinary history, the creation of the menu was a notable development. In the U.S., New York is the restaurant capital, and the New York Public Library has an enormous collection of menus, many of which they are currently displaying in a third-floor gallery. If you're in NYC (or will be visiting this winter) and are interested in such things, don't miss it; it's showing until March 1.
posted by languagehat on Nov 20, 2002 - 14 comments

New Plans for the World Trade Center. Call Frank Gehry, and keep Eric Owen Moss far, far away.
posted by four panels on Nov 20, 2002 - 41 comments

The New Yorker wonders whether the new Westin hotel at Times Square is the ugliest building in NYC. What do New Yorkers think? Is ugly architecture anything more than just poor business? What is the state of architecture in this country? (more)
posted by pejamo on Oct 8, 2002 - 45 comments

It's amazing how good religion is at mobilizing people to do awful, murderous things. There is this dark side to it, and anyone who loves religious experience, including me, better begin to own there - a profound admission - in very well produced piece about 9/11 -
posted by specialk420 on Sep 5, 2002 - 3 comments

There's a guy with an "immensely detailed, three-dimensional, interactive, constantly updated map of New York City," which "could provide the DNA for a re-created city" if something happened to destroy New York. Besides the nitpicking (do you want to recreate every awning and kiosk?), there's the big question: does it make sense to try to recreate in detail something that's gone? Or as the article puts it, "At what point do we accept the reality of loss?" And if a city were destroyed so utterly it couldn't be recreated, would its surviving inhabitants wander the world endlessly, keeping their lost home alive in their hearts and customs, like R.A. Lafferty's Angelenos?
posted by languagehat on Aug 14, 2002 - 25 comments

Is the planned WTC memorial in the wrong place? "There is a desperate futility in the project as presently conceived, because even if the whole site were turned into a memorial garden it would be in the wrong place. For most of the dead did not die there at all, but a thousand feet away, a sixth of a mile, directly above. "

Finally IMHO the perfect solution! The city gets its office space back, the country gets its memorial, the world gets a shockingly wonderful new piece of architecture.
posted by revbrian on Aug 7, 2002 - 59 comments

After an extensive search of my personal archives (box of stuff stored at my parent's), I stumbled upon the true inspiration for the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. Seven years prior, video game manufactuer Koei Games released Aerobiz, an airline management simulator. Its boxart features this chilling image of the New York City skyline. I am not a New Yorker so please, correct me if I am wrong, but the positioning of the Empire State building and the Chrysler building would seem to place the office inside one of the World Trade Center towers.
posted by nathan_teske on Mar 28, 2002 - 22 comments

The New York City I first saw in 1985 has partially disappeared, and vanishes more everyday. The New York of 50 years ago, the veneer of daily life in the city, is but a memory. The city of 100 years ago is a shadow, remembered by no one. But the past remains, if not in direct human memory, in "lampposts, advertisements, bridges, buildings, signs, and things you pass every day in the street that bear silent witness to the NYC that once was." What lies forgotten below the streets? The decaying splendor of an bygone age, as well as the deep roots that have sprouted and nourished the present, living city...
posted by evanizer on Mar 22, 2002 - 37 comments

Toxic Exposure Near Ground Zero EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman said a week after the attacks: "I am glad to reassure the people of New York...that their air is safe to breathe and their water is safe to drink." Yet now: "Dust taken from an air vent in the apartment building's hallway contained 555 times the suggested acceptable level for asbestos.....Many of those who live or work downtown report strikingly similar symptoms: nosebleeds, sore throats, bronchial infections and an endless racking cough." How long do we need to wait until we see some full blown investigative reporting?
posted by Voyageman on Jan 8, 2002 - 29 comments

My Mom just got back from the Ionesco festival in New York. It sounds cool - it's usually hard to find stagings of even Ionesco's most famous plays, but these people seem to be doing everything.
posted by crunchburger on Sep 28, 2001 - 2 comments

A few WTC things to start the day: 1) If you have a desire to move "off the grid" or just simply disappear, has the City of New York got a new program for you! Now you can get yourself declared dead with nothing more than a copy of Acrobat Reader and an ability to lie through your teeth. 2) The arguments over what to replace the WTC with are starting to gather steam. 3) That last piece standing of the WTC has been removed for probable use in a memorial. God please save us from another huge OKC-style Memorial From Hell.
posted by aaron on Sep 26, 2001 - 16 comments

Financial/NY people add your name If you were expected to be downtown in the area. Also, the FISD has set up this site to post questions about missing people and anything else.. that you're ok, if you need help.. if you can help... (one thing.. some places had decided to use the UBB to tout their wares.. how screwed in the head are you?.. I can understand people with a skill.. but a company trying to sell something...).. But use the sites responsibly, please.
posted by rich on Sep 13, 2001 - 0 comments

extremely good photographs non graphic, but so excellant in showing many facets of this disaster.
posted by JackthaStripper on Sep 13, 2001 - 12 comments

'Oh my God they are jumping.' The British press covers the attacks with an emphasis on the people who jumped [graphic photo advisory]. I noticed the same thing watching BBC World on cable Tuesday -- is the U.S. press showing restraint with images like this?
posted by rcade on Sep 12, 2001 - 39 comments

Are we sure it's over? I don't mean to play the role of doomsday prophet here, but as happy as I am to be alive (I watched the buildings fall from my office on 23rd St), I feel utterly trapped on Manhattan and completely vulnerable to an attack which would dwarf today's tragedy as much as today dwarfed the previous WTC attack. Anyone want to allay my fears?
posted by Sinner on Sep 11, 2001 - 27 comments

Giuliani's son is headed for high school in N.J. where he will attend St. Joseph Regional High School in Montvale. The school is known for an excellent football program. Andrew Giuliani, the son of the mayor of New York City, will try out for the football team.
posted by NJguy on Jun 23, 2001 - 21 comments