"'If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.' So goes the old saying. Yet conditions in some American facilities are so obscene that they amount to a form of extrajudicial punishment." Mother Jones is profiling "America's 10 Worst Prisons." Facilities were chosen for the list based on "...three years of research, correspondence with prisoners, and interviews with reform advocates."
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posted by zarq
on May 14, 2013 -
87 comments
"But placing sand in island shapes is not enough. Because the islands are appearing in the blink of an eye, ecologically speaking, they are at risk of incredibly rapid erosion. Natural islands develop a healthy covering of plant life over the course of their accumulation, which serves as an anchor. New plants are not strong enough to provide the same utility, and so, created islands demand millions of transition plants, grown in nurseries, to pre-age the island. Once planted, their sturdier roots help the islands hold together long enough for a full ecosystem to boot up."
Just one detail from the tour of New York City’s dredged landscapes Tim Maly, founder of the
Dredge Research Collaborative, undertook to help understand the enormous scale on which dredging shapes New York and its harbors.
posted by MartinWisse
on Feb 17, 2013 -
4 comments
"On a good day, the street maintenance team tasked by the New York City Department of Transportation with roadway repair might fill 4,000 potholes in eight hours. In an average week, they could resurface 100,000 square yards of road. After Hurricane Sandy, their crews removed 2,500 tons of debris. And every day, on a Tumblr called
The Daily Pothole, New Yorkers can take a peek inside the workings of a city system few have likely thought about." Storyboard:
A Day with New York City’s Pothole Repair Crew. [more inside]
posted by zarq
on Jan 2, 2013 -
8 comments
In 1993, 18-year-old Trevell Coleman shot a man in East Harlem and fled the scene. In the following years, he became part of the New York City rap community and eventually signed with Bad Boy Records, though he never stopped wondering what had happened to the man he'd shot. At the end of 2010,
Coleman decided to find out.
[more inside]
posted by catlet
on Nov 20, 2012 -
38 comments
In a few weeks, ground-breaking will begin on the far West Side. The project: Hudson Yards, the largest real-estate development ever undertaken in the city's history, an enormous mini-metropolis whose planning might have left even Robert Moses dumbstruck. - Wendy Goodman
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posted by Egg Shen
on Oct 9, 2012 -
22 comments
Narratively is "devoted exclusively to sharing New York’s untold stories—the rich, intricate narratives that get at the heart of what this city’s all about." The site, launched in September, presents one long-form piece of journalism, sometimes text, sometimes video, sometimes a photo essay, sometimes audio.
posted by beagle
on Oct 8, 2012 -
10 comments
"This technology cannot simply substitute for the great libraries of the present. After all, libraries are not just repositories of books. They are communities, sources of expertise, and homes to lovingly compiled collections that amount to far more than the sum of their individual printed parts. Their physical spaces, especially in grand temples of learning like the NYPL, subtly influence the way that reading and writing takes place in them. And yet it is foolish to think that libraries can remain the same with the new technology on the scene.
The Bookless Library, by David Bell (
print ready version).
[more inside]
posted by codacorolla
on Jul 18, 2012 -
13 comments
In December 1974, there was a memorial service at St. James Episcopal Church on Madison Avenue for Louise Fitzhugh, author and illustrator of Harriet the Spy, the groundbreaking children's novel that has sold 2.5 million copies since its publication in 1964. [more inside]
posted by Trurl
on Mar 26, 2012 -
45 comments
"
I know you are out there, just wanting to put your wig on, just like me. And I know you're just waiting to have a good time. Just put a little ball earring on, a little bad sunglasses, and a big, bad wig on, 'cause it's good. It feels good, works, it does." It is, or was,
Wigstock, an annual outdoor drag festival held in NYC, starting in 1985 by
"Lady" Bunny and friends. Each year
the party grew, moving to
Union Square in 1991, then
to Christopher Street waterfront in 1994 to deal with the expanding crowd.
2001 was supposed to be the last year, but
the party came back in 2003,
in conjunction with the annual HOWL festival. That carried the tradition on for another two years, and
Wigstock's official website is stuck in 2005, a reminder of the festivities that were. You can
reminisce with Gawker, or take a short journey back to 1987 with
Wigstock: The Movie (part 1 of 4), not to be confused with the longer film of the same name,
capturing Wigstock 1995 (part 1 of 8).
posted by filthy light thief
on Mar 9, 2012 -
18 comments
June 25th 1906, was the opening night of the musical revue
Mamzelle Champagne on the roof of
Madison Square Garden. In attendance were Stanford White, renowned architect
(Washington Square Arch, Judson Memorial Church, Madison Square Garden itself), and
Harry Kendall Thaw, eccentric coal and railroad scion. During the performance of the song
I Could Love a Million Girls, Thaw "
left his seat near the stage, passed between a number of tables, and, in full view of the players and of scores of persons, shot White through the head."
(pdf) Standing over White’s body, Thaw said “You’ll never go out with that woman again.”
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posted by davidjmcgee
on Dec 22, 2011 -
14 comments
