MetaFilter posts tagged with nyc and urban

Whenever there's trouble, they're there on the double.

zarq — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 08:20:51 -0800

"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. "One of the most popular online inventions of New York City’s government is The Daily Pothole, a blog that tracks, in gravelly detail, the milling and paving of street cavities from Midwood to Midtown. It is eye candy for the asphalt-obsessed: panoramic photos accompanied by comic captions (“Bump!” “Sneak Attack!”) and a goggle-eyed mascot named Warmy, an asphalt plug, to boot."

On your feet, pirate

roomthreeseventeen — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 08:43:26 -0800

The Urban Etiquette Handbook

Ephemeral New York

zarq — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 06:02:34 -0800

Ephemeral New York 'chronicles an ever-changing, constantly reinvented city through photos, newspaper archives, and other scraps and artifacts that have been edged into New York’s collective remainder bin.' You can browse by category on the right. Notable: * Cool Building Names * Out-of-Date Guidebooks * Random Signage * Sketchy Hotels * Disasters and Crimes * Urban Beauty * War Memorials * Houses of Worship * New York Street * Old Print Ads * Music, Art, Theater * Queens * Transit Pages from Ephemeral New York have been linked in some fantastic posts, previously on MetaFilter.

Penciled in for 2025: the Medium Line

shothotbot — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 07:52:30 -0800

Could the Low Line be joining New York's popular High Line park?

I Used to Love Her, But I Had to Flee Her: On Leaving New York

reenum — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 10:09:09 -0800

Cord Jefferson on loving and then leaving New York City.

It's like KittenWar for urban spaces

desjardins — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 13:51:21 -0800

Which place looks safer? Which place looks more unique? Which place looks more upper-class? MIT is crowdsourcing a "perception network" to analyze people's subconscious judgments about urban spaces. Preliminary results for Boston, New York City, Vienna, Salzburg, and Linz (Austria). Visual preference surveys are a common tool used by urban planners to gauge public interest in and desires for the aesthetic components of their neighborhood. This PDF is a good example of a summary report and shows the most/least desirable images from a study in Bellevue, Washington. This article from the Journal of the American Planning Association (PDF) goes into detail about how hierarchical models are used with visual surveys to improve the streetscape of an area.

"Rotten But Beautiful"

zarq — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 12:45:16 -0800

Stéphane Missier alias Charles le Brigand (and/or Carlito Brigante) is a Brooklyn-based urban photographer and filmmaker. "From the Bronx to Brooklyn, I capture the real New York, the one I like to call 'RottenbutBeautiful'." Flickr Sets. Here's a showcase of his self-chosen best work / Flickr Set Some recent sets: ("Site" links are single page, bandwidth intensive. 'Flickr' set links show individual photos or allow you to run a slideshow.) * 100 Days of Summer: Flickr (via) * Streets: Flickr * People: Flickr * Monochrome: Flickr * Street Art: Flickr * New York Grain Terminal: Flickr * The Bronx Riviera: Site / Flickr * Hasidic Brooklyn: Site / Flickr * The Freedom Tunnel: Site / Flickr * NY Decay: Flickr * Lavender Lake: Site / Flickr

Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine and Fred MacMurray Not Included

zarq — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 21:00:38 -0800

For their 43rd anniversary issue, New York Magazine chose "to explore, across time, one of the things that has most defined New York life for centuries and has become a unit of measurement for our successes and failures: The Apartment: A History of Vertical Living" / Sardine Life: What a century and a half of piled-up housing reveals about us. Additional features in the section: Tales of a Stacked City * Luc Sante on His Dealing, Stealing Neighbors * Gay Talese on His Vertical Land Grab * Shalom Auslander on His Search for Grit * Anne Roiphe on Her Homeless Houseguest * David Rakoff on His Erotic House-sit * Philip Gourevitch on His Tugboat Sublet Interior Lives * The New York Apartment in Television and Film (Slideshow) * Attention Seekers: Apartments ad extremum (Slideshow) * The Perpetual Garret: Where the starving artists slept (Slideshow) More Freeman Gunter: A Lifetime at the Ansonia (Only some of it in the baths.) Going Condo or Getting Boutiqued? (Slideshow) Twenty under-the-radar microneighborhoods that may just be the Next Big Thing

Urban Design

zarq — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 11:47:16 -0800

Candy Chang is a public installation artist, designer, urban planner and 2011 TED Senior Fellow based in New Orleans. Her Civic Center creates projects that try to "make cities more comfortable", and encourage residents to envision alternate urban realities: "I Wish This Was...." (site) / The NYC Street Vendor Guide / "Before I Die... In NOLA" / The Restroom Map Notepad / The Sexy Trees of the Marigny 2011 Calendar / The Neighbor Doorknob-Hanger / A Nice Place for a Tree and Post-It Notes for Neighbors. (Via). From the Via link: Chang's "I Wish This Was" project challenges New Orleans residents to project their ideal neighborhood onto the still-struggling post-Katrina landscape. The installation is simple: just a bunch of blank "my name is"-style stickers that say "I Wish This Was." What would you like to see in that boarded-up shop window? Food? Bikes? Tacos? Art supplies? A sex place? Fill in a sticker and slap it on up there. It's all fantasy, of course, and everyone knows it. But it gets people thinking about what their dream city would look like, and it probably gets them talking. Common desires start to emerge -- bike shops, art, affordable fresh food. The project lets people call out for others to take an interest in the city, and it makes them take an interest too. As you read the stickers, an even-better-than-before New Orleans starts to shine through.

We used to get 김치 on the corner....

zarq — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 08:03:36 -0800

In the 1960's, 70's and 80's, urban decay and high crime rates caused retail chain supermarkets to flee New York City. (google books link) Korean immigrants filled the gap with corner grocery stores. For nearly two decades they were ubiquitous -- symbols of the group's ongoing quest to achieve the American Dream. But 30 years later, Where Did The Korean Greengrocers Go? A shorter version of this article appeared in the New York Daily News earlier this week. Some blame New York City's "growing chain-store massacre" (in part.) But other cities are seeing a decline in Korean-owned grocery stores as well: The situation is widespread and brings with it serious implications. In Philadelphia, for example, the grocery business has been almost single-handedly responsible for building up the economy of the Korean-American community. Ever since the earliest days of Korean immigration to America, grocery stores have been the entry-level business of choice for countless numbers of Korean immigrants. Through the steady presence of their groceries, Koreans have added stability to neighborhoods experiencing ethnic change. Grocery stores provided Korean immigrants not only a precious foothold in their new country, but the opportunity to achieve economic independence. These ma-and-pa-run groceries have become almost cultural stereotypes in inner-city life. In some ways, Koreans inherited the role once held by local, neighborhood Jewish merchants. Through hard work and sacrifice, Koreans in Philadelphia managed to increase the number of groceries to over 1,000. Now, however, there are as few as 150 left.

The Urban Ballerina

netbros — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 14:14:05 -0800

Ballerina Project — Nine years ago, young photographer Dane Shitagi walked up New York City’s Broadway towards the highly patronized and well known STEPS dance studios in search of a ballet dancer who could help him begin his project: to capture images of ballerinas in urban environments. Those images first started appearing on Blogspot, but have since migrated to Facebook. [via]

Neither snow nor rain nor expanded train service

The Whelk — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 13:23:12 -0800

The stately James Farley Post Office on 8th Ave in Manhattan is being converted into the long-awaited Moynihan Train Station. Almost the entire block-long building has been emptied to prepare for the conversion and Mefi's own nycscout (previously, previously, previously) was there to take pictures. [via mefi projects]

OASIS

ocherdraco — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 06:02:21 -0800

The New York City Open Accessible Space Information System Cooperative (OASIS) is an online, interactive mapping and data analysis application that gives an incredibly detailed view of New York City's open spaces and how they are used. The map enables overlays of information like: transit; parks, playgrounds and open space; zoning and landmarks; current and historical land use; social services; demographics; and environmental characteristics.(via The Ministry of Type, who like OASIS mainly for its pretty map possibilities.) From the project's "About" page:

How: A community-based undertaking, local organizations design and test the first city wide, web-based, open space mapping resource for NYC. OASIS facilitates and focuses the delivery of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) resources to provide timely and accurate information about the green infrastructure of NYC. What OASIS Will Do: OASIS will enable NYC community residents, for the first time, to:
create maps of open space by zip code, borough, tax block and lot, and/or neighborhood;
identify key open space resources within or near a user- defined area;
locate these resources by name, type, and other attributes in addition to geographic-based searches;
identify other natural resources and landmarks near or adjacent to open spaces in the city;
calculate statistics based on open space patterns by zip code, borough, tax block and lot, and/or neighborhood;
undertake “what if” scenarios, such as, what would my neighborhood look like if these vacant lots remained community gardens, or how would new bike lanes or bus routes improve my access to a park in the Bronx?; and
use other mapping and data analysis tools.
Why: OASIS is based on the belief that a common, free, open space inventory – really a web-based GIS mapping resource – is invaluable to NYC’s greening and planning communities. In NYC and across the Nation, GIS and other GeoData Systems are critical planning tools for enhanced spatial visualization and data analysis. They integrate socioeconomic profiles and demographic analysis with data set creation, strategic mapping and comprehensive community and regional planning services. GIS is an invaluable resource for environmental, design, health, safety, economic and planning decision making.

Making Policy Public

netbros — Sun, 31 May 2009 11:14:59 -0800

Urban Omnibus is an online project of the Architectural League that explores the relationship between design and New York City's physical environment. They are featuring Making Policy Public, a program of The Center for Urban Pedagogy, through their articles about Vendor Power and Predatory Equity. "Just as we were beginning our collaboration, 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, a predatory equity building in the Bronx widely recognized as the birthplace of hip-hop, was being overleveraged by a predatory developer. This was not only a case of people potentially losing their homes; but also of New York City losing its heritage and culture. The threats are social and cultural as well as economic. Through their work helping tenants organize and speaking to lawmakers and media sources, (we) knew that the poster would have to address two different audiences: 1) Tenants who wanted to know how the law and predatory equity practices could directly affect them and 2) decision-makers who would need inside information to take action. They imagined the publication’s goal was to mobilize tenants in affected and at-risk buildings and to convince politicians and banks to recognize the problem and take immediate action. We agreed finding a way to visually explain predatory equity was the best place to start."

Till human voices wake us

plexi — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 07:19:48 -0800

Alone Together. In American lore, the small town is the archetypal community, a state of grace from which city dwellers have fallen.

Yet the picture of cities—and New York in particular—that has been emerging from the work of social scientists is that the people living in them are actually less lonely. Rather than driving people apart, large population centers pull them together, and as a rule tend to possess greater community virtues than smaller ones.

"The rendering is a means to an end; the end is architecture."

Blazecock Pileon — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 02:53:57 -0800

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.

#7: Ten percent of all city space shall be open land where you can "touch the dirt"

salvia — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 19:26:49 -0800

"First we kill the architects..." Photographer Danny Lyon [1, 2, 3, 4] offers ten suggestions for New York City. Suggestion #6: "Leave the World Trade Center excavation exactly as it is and use the space as a freshwater pond planted with pink, white, and yellow lilies..." His essay is only one of many from names you'll recognize in a book called Block by Block: Jane Jacobs and the Future of New York. An associated exhibition opened yesterday [museum, NYT review]. Is New York City moving in the right direction? Is your city? [via] Footnotes: * It might also be interesting to see what others think about the direction of NYC. (Though only eleven people had expressed their opinion as of this posting.) * Background on Lyon's suggestion #7: he titled a collection of Polaroids of his children I Like to Eat Right on the Dirt.

People who walk faster live longer

nickyskye — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 23:32:36 -0800

Why New Yorkers Last Longer. Interestingly, urban theorists believe it is not just the tightly packed nature of the city but also its social and economic density that has life-giving properties. When you’re jammed, sardinelike, up against your neighbors, it’s not hard to find a community of people who support you—friends or ethnic peers—and this strongly correlates with better health and a longer life. [New York Magazine article]

Cyberpunk Street Games

maniactown — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 18:51:35 -0800

"The streets of 2030's New York remain the only venues not under the thumb of the monolithic corporations. Manhattan’s three major hacker gangs have developed black-market technology that enables them to jack into the phone network though the payphone nodes, and redirect the payment deposited into that phone into their own coffers." The premise of a new cyberpunk novel? Nope. A new street game you can play with your friends.

Urban Forest Project

tpl1212 — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 05:58:36 -0800

Design Times Square: The Urban Forest Project "brings 185 banners created by the world’s most celebrated designers, artists, photographers and illustrators to New York’s Times Square. Each banner uses the form of the tree, or a metaphor for the tree, to make a powerful visual statement. Together they create a forest of thought-provoking images at one of the world’s busiest, most energetic, and emphatically urban intersections." Including work by Milton Glaser, the Walker Art Center, and many, many others. Via Speak Up.

NYC street furniture update

mathowie — Thu, 18 May 2006 15:09:03 -0800

New York City has been trying to revamp its street furniture for nearly a decade and last Fall, deals were struck between a British architecture firm and a Spanish outdoor firm in a 1 billion dollar deal. Recently the designs for public toilets, bus stop shelters, and (my favorite) a modernized clean newsstand were released.

Ikea comes to Red Hook

Armitage Shanks — Wed, 05 Jan 2005 09:21:51 -0800

Red Hook is New York's perennial next-year neighborhood, perenially held back by huge housing projects and bad transportation, despite some ambitious proposals. Ikea's proposed store has been the subject of a long battle between "it'll bring jobs" and "it'll destroy the neighborhood". It's finally going to happen, and soon these buildings will be a parking lot.

NYC Lights Design Competition

liam — Tue, 06 Jan 2004 14:16:10 -0800

New York City Lights Design Competition (via Gothamist). What are the existing examples of urban illumination that impress? Are there unused designs or interesting ideas from art and movies floating around?

The High Line

sierray — Tue, 10 Sep 2002 09:46:02 -0800

The High Line is a strip of elevated railroad on Manhattan's West Side, it runs from 34th Street and 12th Avenue to Gansevoort Street in the meatpacking district. It is a treasure now mostly because it's the structure that time forgot. Who'd thought? Discover what could become NYC's highest park.

Things Fall Apart.

BT — Wed, 03 Apr 2002 20:53:42 -0800

Things Fall Apart. Particularly in urban environments. Individually, the moments of entropy-in-action caught here may not mean much; collectively, they recite a visual poem about decay. A slightly melancholy site for you insomniacs out there. (By the way, you have to scroll right to get to the thumbnails.)