WHY’S EVERYONE HATING ON CHRIS WARD?
Michael Powell, Gotham columnist for The New York Times, questions the accuracy and consistency of calls for reform at the Port Authority issued by Governors Christie and Cuomo in the face of what Chris Ward, the former head of the bi-state agency, managed to achieve at Ground Zero in his four-year tenure. In the article (but not in regional politics) the final word goes to Mayor Bloomberg, who dismisses the way an audit ordered by the governors characterizes spending under Ward’s leadership, pointing out that the “site is perhaps the most complex construction project in the history of the world, legally, politically, engineering-wise.”

US INTERSTATES, TUBE-MAP STYLE
By systematically compressing distances and limiting all angles to 45 or 90 degrees in his map of the London Underground in 1931, Harry Beck, an engineering draftsman who devised the scheme in his spare time, revolutionized urban cartography and created an icon of modern design. New York’s answer to the diagrammatic Tube map, designed by Massimo Vignelli in 1972, was passed over in favor of more geographic fidelity in the current version, designed by Michael Hertz in 1979. But the influence of Beck’s design still looms large in information graphics, and this week Co.Design highlights a smart and useful take on the US highway system whose clarity benefits from the Tube map’s principles of simplicity and elegance.

WHAT SPELLS ROMANCE BETTER THAN “AN INTERACTIVE, URBAN EMOTICON?”
Times Square has never been high on subtlety, and the architectural installations that appear when Valentine’s day is nigh — part of the robust public art program that we explored with Glenn Weiss last year – are no exception. In years past, designers of the iconic heart have included Gage / Clemenceau and Moorhead & Moorhead. This year, Bjarke Ingels has assembled a heart cube out of 400 special LED-filled tubes to create what Architizer has called “an interactive, urban emoticon.” So for those of you who like a little public art with your romance, bring your valentine through Father Duffy Square. Check out photos on The Observer.

DESIGNING GOVERNMENT SERVICES
When Laura Forlano investigated the emerging field of service design in 2010, the clients cited as the profession’s early adopters were primarily in the private sector: finance, health care, media. But often the services most in need of a design tune-up are those provided by government. This week in The Architects’ Newspaper, Branden Klayko looks at the work of a new non-profit called the Public Policy Lab to “to improve interactions between public services and those served by them through research, advocacy, and technical assistance.” First up, an “out-of-the-box” collaboration with the City’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development and Parsons’ DESIS lab to streamline how the agency interacts with developers, property owners and residents. The Public Policy Lab also has its sight set on improving user experience at the DMV. We wish them luck.

MAKING PLANNING POPULAR
This week we heard from Shin-pei Tsay about how urban planners could intervene directly in neighborhoods, just as artists and architects have increasingly found ways to do in recent years. Meanwhile, BLDGBLOG points to an exhibit that recently closed in London that aims to make planning not only more relevant and responsive to community needs, but also more popular, principled and understood.

"Wendy" HWKN's design for MoMA / PS1 | Image courtesy of HWKN via ArtInfo

WARM-UP 2012 DESIGNERS ANNOUNCED
While the summer may seem impossibly far away, the announcement this week of the winners of MoMA / PS1′s coveted Young Architects commission means we now know what one recurring summer-in-the-city tradition will look like in 2012: HWKN’s design, “a doozy, a mass of fabric spikes christened ‘Wendy,’” has been selected for its innovative merger of green engineering — the structure will literally clean the air — and the exuberant shelter and shade it will provide for summer party-goers. The air cleaning function is accomplished by coating the structure  with Titania nanoparticles, in which sunlight “triggers a catalytic and chemical reaction that neutralizes nitrogen dioxide.” Read a Q&A with the designers, Mark Kushner and Matthias Hollwich, on ArtInfo.

EVENTS and TO DOs

FORECLOSED OPENS
Next Wednesday, the Museum of Modern Art’s anticipated new exhibition, Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream, will open to the public. On view will be the work on five interdisciplinary teams of architects, urban planners, ecologists, engineers, and landscape designers — led by MOS, Visible Weather, Studio Gang, WORKac, and Zago Architecture – who worked in public workshops at MoMA PS1 “to envision new housing and transportation infrastructures that could catalyze urban transformation, particularly in the country’s suburbs.” In advance of that event, Jeanne Gang and Greg Lindsay, two members of team Studio Gang, authored an op-ed in today’s Times that looks at the under-reported phenomenon of new immigrants in suburban America as an inroad to understanding the role — and responsibility — of design and urban planning in redressing some of the damage wrought by the foreclosure crisis and our country’s extravagant land use patterns that precipitated it.

GRID LOVE CONTINUES…
Many thanks to the 87 people from around the world who submitted to our first essay competition, which urged writers to reflect on the Manhattan street grid as a paradigm, rubric or muse for urban life. We’ll announce the winner(s) early next month, but in the meantime, if your fascination with the grid and its evolution over the past 200 years is not yet sated, you have until April 15th to check out a pair of exhibitions at the Museum of City of New York (organized in collaboration with the Architectural League), and next week, the Museum is hosting a panel discussion with traffic and planning experts called “Gridlock!: Congestion and Flow on New York City Streets” that will look at the reshaping of traffic flows in the city thanks to the introductions of pedestrian malls, bike lanes, bus-only lanes and other traffic engineering innovations. Wednesday, February 15th, 6:30 pm at the Museum of the City of New York. For more information or to book tickets, click here.

LIVE INTERVIEW @ STUDIO_X: STANLEY GREENBERG
When we spoke with Stanley Greenberg about his photographs of infrastructure and construction projects, he mentioned his forthcoming book Time Machines, which chronicles the machinery of large-scale physics experiments around the world. The book is now available, and  he’ll be sharing stories, images and reflections on his process next week. Join him Thursday, February 16th, 6:30pm, at Studio-X New York.

DELANCEY UNDERGROUND / LOWLINE
That same night, the Tenement Museum is hosting Dan Barasch and James Ramsey to discuss the ”history, current state, and potential future of the abandoned trolley terminal below Delancey Street” and to ask if “it can be transformed into a cutting edge subterranean green space for the Lower East Side.” Thursday, February 16th, 6:30pm, at the Tenement Museum.

The Roundup keeps you up to date with topics we’ve featured and other things we think are worth knowing about.

Modi Research Group / Columbia University | click image to access interactive map

MAPPING ENERGY USE IN THE CITY
In an effort to show the ways in which New York City dwellers consume energy, Vijay Modi, professor of mechanical engineering at Columbia University, and his student Bianca Howard have generated an interactive map that demonstrates energy consumption throughout the five boroughs at the block level. The map invites its users to explore the differences in energy consumption patterns throughout the city. It’s no surprise that Midtown Manhattan is the biggest consumer in the city that never sleeps. But it is more than a little alarming when Modi explains that Manhattan uses more energy than Kenya, and that the entirety of New York State consumes more than the whole Sub-Saharan region, a statistic that he hopes will change as awareness grows.

STEVEN SIEGEL’S NEW YORK
For more than thirty years, Steven Siegel has photographed and filmed the changing streetscapes of the five boroughs of New York City. The folks at Gothamist have been diligently mining his photo and film archives and interpret his images as documenting a fundamental shift from “from utter destruction to Disneyfication.” Siegel promises to continue recording these changes, and we promise to keep checking out his body of work as it evolves.

Newtown Creek Digester Eggs: The Art of Human Waste | David Leitner from Focus Forward Films on Vimeo.

FOCUS / FORWARD
For another series of artful and informative perspectives, check out this collection of short documentaries by leading filmmakers, each one spotlighting innovative people and projects addressing a broad range of challenges — a topic and approach near and dear to the Omnibus’ heart. Gary Hustwit — whom we interviewed about his urban design documentary Urbanized — is among the filmmakers, working with Jessica Edwards on a profile of the Delaware County Landfill in Upstate New York, an extremely efficient facility able to divert 70% of incoming waste through recycling and composting and able to convert the landfill gas it captures into enough electricity to power almost 400 homes. And among the projects featured is the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Facility, a place we’ve been following since we first visited the Nature Walk designed by George Trakas that rings the facility and provides a generous and beautiful public space as well as access to the water.

AS THE MILLIONTREES PROGRAMS EXPANDS, BURDENS GROW
As one of many PlaNYC initiatives, the MillionTrees program’s goal was to plant and care for more than one million trees across New York City in order to enhance the emotional and physical well being of city dwellers and the health of the urban environment that surrounds them. Although over 500,000 trees have now been planted, severe weather conditions and the challenges of ongoing stewardship have constrained the organization’s budget and plans for the program. Although MillionTrees has been successful in planting, the burden of maintenance has suffered from budget cuts. The New York City administration is preparing to plant another 500,000 and it is relying on many volunteers, community residents and neighborhood non-profit groups to help.

ARCHITECTURE ON SCREEN
This Friday and Saturday, the Center for Architecture in partnership with MUSE Film and Television will be screening international productions on architecture extracted from the 2011 Montreal International Festival of Films on Art (FIFA). Be sure to check out these innovative films filled with historical, political and poetic dimensions. For more information about the event, visit the Center for Architecture’s event page.

The Roundup keeps you up to date with topics we’ve featured and other things we think are worth knowing about.

Elisha Otis moved to Yonkers, New York in 1852 to convert an abandoned sawmill into a bed frame factory. Endless trips hauling debris from floor to floor gave the tinkerer a challenge: wasn’t there a better way? With the help of his sons, Otis designed and built the first “safety elevator” to manage the task. Two years later, Otis presented his invention dramatically at New York City’s Crystal Palace Exhibition, where he drew himself, on the elevator platform, high above the crowd, then cut the cable from which the platform was suspended. To the crowd’s astonishment, the platform fell only a few inches. The elevator proliferated, allowing people and goods to be hauled to new heights and clearing the way for taller buildings. Today, express elevators shoot up more than 100 floors, double-decked and kitted-out with electromagnetic brakes. These new technologies push the limits of even a New Yorkers’ need for speed: in the city’s elevator lobbies, “morning wait times ranging from 20 to 25 seconds are considered good, while those between 30 and 35 seconds are generally considered unacceptable.” Faster, higher, stronger: we watch our buildings zoom up and kiss the sky.

The Heights: Anatomy of a Skyscraper, by Kate Ascher. The New Press, 2001. Click image to purchase.

The image of the elevator frames Kate Ascher’s new book The Heights: Anatomy of a Skyscraper, a form-centered analysis of the towering building typology. Ascher underscores her focus on the technologies that have enabled the skyscraper – like the elevator – in the book’s organization: she takes the reader from the ground level introduction up, through “Building It”, “Living In It”, “Supporting It”, and “Dreaming It.” Ascher’s elevator, however, doesn’t reach other, crucial floors. Like her previous book The Works: Anatomy of a City, this is intended to be a graphic investigation of the inner workings of our urban environment, and as such, it is a success. But Ascher, with an extensive career in real estate, corporate finance and municipal government that has primed her to take this investigation further, has sacrificed a more thorough exploration of the social implications of living and working at greater heights in favor of a review of construction processes and technology.

The skyscraper’s “original purpose was to make money from real estate,” an intention that has given rise to its characterization as “the ultimate architecture of capitalism.” Skyscrapers, Ascher writes, are the invention of 1880s urban America, first debuted in New York and Chicago once the elevator became a mainstay and building technology hurled forward. The Beaux-Arts period filled New York City blocks with masonry giants, but all were surpassed by the summit of the Empire State Building, the world’s tallest building for almost four decades — until a new generation of “supertall” American skyscrapers built in the 1970s outdid their forebears, especially the Willis (Sears) Tower, bolstered by load-bearing steel tubes, reinforced concrete, and glass curtain walls. Soon enough, though, supertall skyscrapers were widespread in Asia, where the form began to include not only commercial but also residential, retail and recreational functions. Growing economies (and a new class of developers within them) have fueled the desire for tall buildings, and for the last two decades, the world’s largest and most advanced towers have been based in Asia and the Middle East, crowned by Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, opened in early 2010 as the world’s tallest. The Burj and others like it, Ascher says, “represent a new extension of the skyscraper as an urban form.” This new class may not all push to new heights like the Burj, but they will certainly be multifunctional cities-within-cities, where 21st century citizens need only stroll to an adjacent floor to go grocery shopping, see a movie, and pick up the kids from soccer practice. At least, that is the idea.

A massive team of designers, architects, engineers, and builders is required to plan, develop, design and construct the behemoths. A solid foundation is key to structure, as tall buildings must battle multiple physical forces, particularly vertical and wind loads, that, according to Ascher, “really drive skyscraper design.” The higher a building is built, the greater the wind pressure, and the horizontal (wind) load that increases with height can multiply by twice as much as the vertical (gravity) load. But even strong foundations and structure can’t stop a building from swaying in the wind or during earthquakes, nor should they. Buildings are designed to be slightly flexible, just not to the point of breaking: this is where dampers come in. Dampers act as a pendulum at the tops of skyscrapers “to shift weight around to counteract the forces of the wind against a building.” The Comcast Center in Philadelphia has a giant water tank on the top of the building acting as its damper; the water oscillates to offset the buildings movement. Skyscraper facades, or skins, have also rapidly changed; today, most skyscrapers are clad in glass, which allows for more light and more useable square footage – but also more exposure to the outdoor elements from noise pollution to weather conditions.

Once the skyscraper is built, though, how is it managed? Power, air and water must be distributed throughout the building, utilizing mechanical floors and various other infrastructure efficiently. Considering the ubiquity of cell phones and wireless signals, buildings must also allow for signal continuity and enhancement, particularly for those important moments when rescue crews – like firefighters – need to communicate to each other. Life safety, in fact, is an important aspect of a skyscraper’s operations, and Ascher notes systems for prevention, rescue, and shoring up the building’s structure. For example, intumescent paint covers a building’s steel beams, puffing up when heated into a layer of foam to protect the steel from heating too quickly and losing strength. After safety, maintenance is central to building operations, and Ascher explores various mechanisms for window cleaning, waste removal, and facade and structural repairs. Skyscrapers’ systems are increasingly efficient, incorporating more self-sustaining and “green” systems, like black and grey water recycling. Black water is what comes from used sinks and toilets, and it can be treated and used to water green roofs, for example. Greening, both adding natural features to a building as well as making it more sustainable and environmentally friendly, will likely continue to be prominent in the future, along with a rise in mixed-use functions and, and of course, height.

No matter how tall or how green they become, skyscrapers exist within complex layers of society, culture, and politics; topics that Ascher skirts. I would have hoped that Ascher, the former vice president of the city’s Economic Development Corporation and someone who lists The Death and Life of Great American Cities as a favorite book on architecture, would have dedicated more of her attention to the socio-cultural complexities of skyscrapers, from occupants’ health to the balance between safety and surveillance. I would have preferred she explore the implications of a phrase like “segregate users” (in terms of entrances and use), for example, rather than explaining the intricacies of communications technology. Her assertion that skyscraper design is “about money” is undermined by the absence of a discussion of who benefits from the construction and use of a skyscraper, what its economic impacts are, or how the abundance of the form affects the city as a whole. Ascher succeeds in breaking down the typology to what it takes to get it made in technological and physical terms, but reducing a skyscraper to an exclusive object of engineering misses an opportunity to explore the relationship between architectural forms and the social context of their use.

…

Mercedes Kraus is a Brooklyn-based writer and editor. She co-founded and publishes Womanzine and has worked to engage the public in the built environment at both Van Alen Institute and the Institute for Urban Design. She loves pizza, outer space, and .gifs of both.

The views expressed here are those of the author only and do not reflect the position of Urban Omnibus editorial staff or the Architectural League of New York.

Also this week in the Omnibus roundup: Kimmelman looks at towers in the park; New York goes convention center crazy; Verdant Power gets a green light for the Roosevelt Island Tidal Energy Project; President Obama forsakes infrastructure investment in “An America Built to Last”; the Asian American Writers’ Workshop calls for Creative Nonfiction Fellows; the South Street Seaport Museum reopens; Studio-X hosts a discussion on Roosevelt Island’s pneumatic trash tubes; the DOT calls for public art proposals; and Lead Pencil Studio exhibits in Boston.

“ARCHITECTURE IS NEVER DESTINY”
A viewing of the The Pruitt-Igoe Myth, a documentary by Chad Freidrichs, prompted Michael Kimmelman, architecture critic of The New York Times, to question the limits of architecture’s role in determining the success of failure of a public housing project. The piece once again confirms the writer’s commitment to interrogating the social and urbanistic implications of the built environment. He contrasts the fates of the infamous Pruitt-Igoe project in St. Louis — a complex whose rapid descent from model low-income housing community to a national symbol of urban deprivation and crime led to its demolition in 1972 — with Penn South — an example in Chelsea of the same towers-in-the-park building typology that has, according to the residents Kimmelman interviews, thrived. He notes that part of Penn South’s success has to do with the ways it serves the needs of older residents, which led to its official designation as a Naturally Occurring Retirement Community, or NORC, in 1986 (the nation’s first). Using the phenomenon of NORCs as a lens through which to reconsider towers-in-the-park — a typology maligned in the popular imagination specifically because of examples like Pruitt-Igoe – is an argument that the urban design firm Interboro introduced to Omnibus readers in “NORCs in NYC.” Read that feature again, wander by Penn South or some of the other NORCs in the city, and then go see The Pruitt-Igoe Myth at the IFC Center.

WAIT, HOW MANY CONVENTION CENTERS DOES NEW YORK NEED AGAIN?
If the demolition of Pruitt-Igoe signalled an end to a particular philosophy of urban problem-solving, what would the demolition of the Jacob J. Javits Convention Center on 11th Avenue in Manhattan signify? Especially if Governor Cuomo gets his wish of a replacement venue — intended to be the nation’s largest — at the site of the Aqueduct racetrack in Ozone Park, Queens, a place whose vibrant flea market we visited just before redevelopment plans shut it down for good. Skepticism about the long-term financial viability of a convention center has not dimmed the governor’s enthusiasm for the project. Nor has the new plan changed Queens Borough President Helen Marshall’s mind about the need for a second convention center in Willets Point. Critics of both projects cite evidence that this kind of megaproject is rarely the panacea it claims to be, an economic analysis explored in depth in this 2009 article in Next American City.

Power Grid Scenarios | Illustration: Michael Loverich for Urban Omnibus, "East River Power," February 9th, 2009

GREEN LIGHT FOR TIDAL POWER 
The kind of urban infrastructure investment that looks forward rather than looking back is one that capitalizes on New York’s unique assets and seeks to provide viable and affordable energy alternatives. In the hope that tidal power might be the energy source to make that possible, the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission awarded Verdant Power Inc. the first license for a tidal energy project for the Roosevelt Island Tidal Energy Project, or RITE. Verdant will use the ten year pilot contract to test the commercial viability of the project as well as the environmental impact on fish and the river’s sediment. In an Urban Omnibus feature from way back in 2009, “East River Power,” we looked at some of the questions that the prospect of tidal power raised for New York City’s waterways, and for the framework of energy generation and distribution. As the first grid-tied system of tidal turbines, RITE will hopefully be a sign of things to come. Read more at Bloomberg and Inhabitat.

AN AMERICA BUILT TO LAST, SORT OF
Infrastructure investment was once a policy priority for President Obama, but was all but absent from his State of the Union Speech this week, entitled, “An America Built to Last.” Gone are the promises of high-speed rail included in his 2011 speech; gone was mention of an urban agenda. The President did cite America’s past endeavors to revitalize its economy during the Great Depression through large-scale building projects like the Hoover Dam or the Golden Gate Bridge, or to knit the nation together through the interstate highway system after World War II. But the larger focus of the address, the point to which he returned again and again, was to try to bridge the chasm between the two parties and redress growing income inequality. Check out more of the coverage at The Atlantic Cities and The Transport Politic.

South Street Seaport Museum | Photo by Andrew Hinderaker via dnainfo.com

EVENTS and TO DOs

OPEN CITY CALL FOR NONFICTION FELLOWS
The Asian American Writers’ Workshop is about to start a new year of its Open City project, profiled last year on the Omnibus, for which a competitively selected group of writers documents and reflects on urban change in the three New York Chinatowns. The call for Creative Nonfiction Fellows has just been announced, so if you’re an emerging creative nonfiction writer passionate about New York City neighborhoods, apply today. The application deadline is February 17. Check out the call here.

SOUTH STREET SEAPORT MUSEUM REOPENS
The South Street Seaport Museum is reopening this week after an eight-month hiatus during which the museum was renovated to respond to its expanded scope under the creative direction and management of The Museum of the City of New York, which has thrown its full weight into the project. The re-opened space aims to connect more powerfully with its surrounding neighborhood, avail itself of the top two floors as exhibition space, and make the museum more easily navigable through signage and other measures. Read more of the coverage in The New York Times.

TRASH TUBES OF THE FUTURE
A couple of years ago we spoke to Juliette Spertus about her exhibition Fast Trash, about the Roosevelt Island AVAC (Automated Vacuum Collection System). Since then, she and Benjamin Miller have been studying the feasibility of upgrading Roosevelt Island’s AVAC system and also expanding the system to Manhattan using existing transportation infrastructure. Join them as they discuss their preliminary findings, followed by a discussion on the future of waste disposal in New York City featuring Vishaan Chakrabarti, Claire Weisz, Marcia Byrstryn, Juliette Spertus and Benjamin Miller. Tuesday, February 7, 6:30-8:30pm, at Studio-X. More information available here or here.

URBAN ART CALL FOR PROPOSALS
The New York City DOT has announced its open call for proposals for their pARTners and Barrier Beautification Projects. Both projects seek to create a more livable city with public art. The Barrier Beautification project asks artists to imagine how they would decorate the barriers that have become necessary in our bike friendly city, separating bikers, pedestrians and drivers from one another. For pARTners, the DOT commissions artists to produce site-responsive art in collaboration with community-based organizations for high priority sites owned by the agency. Check out the full call for proposals.

LEAD PENCIL STUDIO HITS BOSTON
Back in April we spoke to Annie Han and Daniel Mihalyo of Lead Pencil Studio about their firm’s work with LIDAR. For our Boston area readers, Lead Pencil Studio will be in Edifice Amiss: Constructing New Perspectives, an exhibition about the constructed world opening January 30th at the Stephen D. Paine Gallery of MassArt. The works in the exhibition reveal the secret lives of the architectural spaces in which we live and work. More information available here.

Lead Pencil Studio in Edifice Amiss

The Roundup keeps you up to date with topics we’ve featured and other things we think are worth knowing about.

MORE STATE OF THE CITY – Wi-Fi and WASTE-TO-ENERGY
In addition to the familiar Mayoral priorities reported in last week’s Omnibus Roundup (the economic potential of building projects, more jabs at the teachers union, etc.), Bloomberg’s speech last week also mentioned some tech initiatives, including partnering “with AT&T to bring Wi-Fi service to a dozen city parks – so even if you’re enjoying a beautiful day, you can still work or study or play ‘Words with Friends.’” And, as Next American City highlights, he also spoke about new sources of renewable energy, claiming New York City will “become one of the first cities in the country to turn wastewater into renewable energy and we’ll explore the possibility of cleanly converting trash into renewable energy.” Read the full text of the address at NYC.gov.

Undercity on MyBlockNYC

MYBLOCKNYC GOES UNDERGROUND
Before the holidays, we spoke with Alex Kalman and Alex Rickard about their video hosting site MyBlockNYC. Now they’re teaming up with Gothamist to bring viewers an exclusive glimpse at the world below ground with the series “Undercity.” The makers of the Undercity films, Steve Duncan and filmmaker Andrew Wonder, have been taking viewers on adventures into the unknown underground world of New York City, and now those adventures will be geographically located, visually correlating the world beneath our streets with the city above. Check out the series at MyBlockNYC and the coverage at Gothamist.

PARKING APP
This week the DOT started testing sensors in 177 parking spaces on both sides of 187th Street in the Belmont neighborhood of the Bronx. The sensors send information to a smart phone app that tells the user when fewer than two or more than four spaces are available on a given block. So instead of circling the block, searching for the right spot, a driver will know their chances of getting a spot and head towards a block with available space. The app will purportedly save drivers from endless frustration, alleviate traffic in shopping areas and help relieve “pollution associated with those people who are cruising around looking for parking,” according to Janette Sadik-Khan of the DOT. The sensors, bright yellow and about the same diameter as a hockey puck, are being tested over the next three months for how they withstand the weather and street sweepers of New York City streets. If they last the testing period, the city will launch a free app for drivers to try. Read the coverage at the Daily News.

CONGRESS INCENTIVIZES DRIVING TO WORK
For the past two years, commuters taking public transportation and those driving private vehicles have been granted the same pre-tax benefit of up to $230 per month. But starting this year, thanks to Congress, all pre-tax benefits are no longer equal: drivers can now set aside as much as $240 pre-tax per month for commuting costs, while the benefit for commuters taking public transportation has dropped to $125. The change means non-drivers will pay up to $550 more in taxes each year. Read more of the coverage at GOOD or in an editorial from The New York Times.

Manhattan Skyline | Photo by flickr user Marcin Wichary

SKYLINE PEAKS AND TROUGHS
The heights of New York City skyscrapers have long been thought to correspond to the depth of the bedrock beneath them. Conventional wisdom has held that the peaks of the Manhattan skyline, Downtown and Midtown, were situated atop the island’s most solid foundation, and that building high on the spaces in between was too difficult, and thus costly, to be worth the effort. Not so, according to “skyscraper economist” Jason Barr. Taking 173 core samples from the Battery to Central Park South, the study shows no correlation between the likelihood of skyscraper construction and bedrock depth. Read more from Matt Chaban at the Observer.

EVENTS AND TO DOs

Stargazing in Times Square | Courtesy of Ian Cheney

THE CITY DARK AT THE IFC CENTER
Last year we spoke to Ian Cheney about The City Dark, his documentary about the loss of the stars in the night sky to light pollution. The documentary takes a winding journey through the unforeseen repercussions of losing the stars, from Maine and back again. Now, The City Dark is showing at the IFC Center for one week only. More information and show times here.

007 URBAN SONGLINE
How can a space become a musical instrument? And how would one play such an instrument? Answer these questions and many more by visiting 007 Urban Songline at the Storefront for Art and Architecture, a project by Allard van Hoorn that turns Storefront’s iconic façade into an interactive and responsive acoustic device through a network of strings activated by vistors’ bodily movements. Through February 18th, you can play the building yourself, listen to performances the artist has recorded in and with the space, or take part in a series of discussions and events on the relationship between space, sound, tension and materiality. Once you’ve added to the cacophony (or symphony) of New York City, or partaken in the playing of a space, you can revisit Storefront at 5pm to hear the daily concert of the song of the day. You can find more information about the installation here, and prepare for your visit with the “Instructions for 007 Urban Songline” here.

The Roundup keeps you up to date with topics we’ve featured and other things we think are worth knowing about.

Urban Omnibus BlockParty 2012
Tuesday, February 28
A cocktail reception, art auction and benefactors’ dinner to support Urban Omnibus, the Architectural League’s online publication dedicated to defining the culture of citymaking.
Buy tickets here.

Party and Auction
St. Patrick’s Youth Center
268 Mulberry Street
6:30-8:30pm
Tickets start at $40

Benefactors’ Dinner
City Grit
38 Prince Street
8:30-10:30pm
Tickets start at $250
Dinner ticket availability is very limited.

Benefit Committee
Maya Hernandez, co-chair
Peter Mullan, co-chair
Alanna Bailey
Jake Barton
Vishaan Chakrabarti
Alyson Dick
Kim Dowdell
Dana Esposito
Carolyn Gallagher
Robert Hammond
Penny Hardy & Granger Moorhead
Paul Haydon
Andrew Hollweck
Susan Lowance
Elizabeth Lusskin
Deborah Marton
Nadia Meratla
Scott Metzner
Diana Murphy
Patricia Ornst
Neysa Pranger
Paul Proulx
Dana Sandberg
Joe Smith
Margaret Sullivan
Paul Wolf
Karen Wong
Douglas Woodward

Sponsors (list in formation)
Bernsohn & Fetner, LLC
Buro Happold
Denham Wolf
Hunter Roberts Construction Group
James Lima Planning + Development
Robert Kliment and Frances Halsband
Levien & Company
The New York Building Congress
Newmark Knight Frank
Sciame Construction  

Stay tuned for a preview of the items up for auction, coming soon…

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Current conditions on the Queensway | Photo: Neil Sullivan via Old NYC

WILL QUEENS GET ITS OWN HIGH LINE?
The High Line is in many ways unique, but it’s by no means the only disused urban rail line in New York in need of repurposing. In Queens, the 3.5 mile leg of the Rockaway Beach Branch rail line, out of service since 1962, runs from Rego Park to the Ozone Park Trailhead, over auto-body shops, through Forest Park and a number of residential neighborhoods. While the current proposals reference the success of the High Line, they differ in intended audience and scope. Friends of the Queensway, the group leading the effort to create a new public space, is prioritizing providing amenities for the surrounding community — such as much-need bicycle infrastructure and community garden space — rather than primarily serving as a tourist attraction. Read more coverage on Treehugger.

The George Washington Bridge in Heavy Smog. View toward the New Jersey Side of the Hudson River | From the Documerica collection.

WHAT AMERICA LOOKED LIKE BEFORE THE EPA
In the 1970s, one of the early acts of the newly formed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), was a documentary effort called Documerica, for which EPA photographers travelled the country to capture the state of the nation in ecological terms. Forty years later, the National Archives has released 15,000 of the 80,000 photographs the project produced, many of which portray the harsh reality of our national landscape prior to an overhaul in environmental regulation. Be sure to explore these powerful photographs on the National Archive Flickr database and check out more about the collection on Grist.

MetroChange

METROCHANGE
When there’s not enough money left on your MetroCard for a trip, do you toss it? Apparently, lost or discarded MetroCards account for millions of dollars in wasted funds. So, NYU students Stepan Boltalin, Genevieve Hoffman and Paul May have collaborated to create a charity donation platform, called “MetroChange,” intended to turn these losses into gains for the city’s neediest families. The project calls for MetroChange kiosks to be installed in the subway, where commuters can swipe their cards (and recycle them) to donate the remainder of the value left of the car to charity. Read more about this project on the MetroChange blog.

RETHINKING AMERICA’S PARKING CULTURE
For those commuters who don’t use a MetroCard to get around this city, the availability, price and logistics of parking your vehicle often determine driver behavior. In most of the rest of the country, however, parking is abundant and takes up uncalculated amounts of land. Eran Ben-Joseph explores the problems and possibilities of parking in Rethinking a Lot, a new book published by MIT Press, that advocates for a transformation of parking lots into appealing, environmentally sound and better integrated features of our built environment. Michael Kimmelman, architecture critic for The New York Times, explores Ben-Joseph’s argument that parking lots need to be taken seriously by designers and urbanists. Accompanying the article is a fascinating slideshow that encourages a reconsideration of this ubiquitous form that has, until recently, somehow eluded critical investigation by scholars of architecture, urbanism and the American landscape.

NYC HOUSING AUTHORITY TO CONSIDER SELLING AIR RIGHTS, RAISING RENT CAP
On Monday, the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) released its five year plan, in which it announced the selling of air rights — the space that can be developed above buildings — as one potential strategy to redress its budget deficit. According to WNYC, NYCHA has also proposed raising the current $2000 rent cap and requiring all households to pay 30% of their income in rent.

BUS TIME
BusTime, the real-time bus tracking website, is now available for all of Staten Island. By allowing users to view exactly how far their bus is from their chosen stop, the real-time bus information “means more time at home with your family, relaxing with a cup of coffee,” according to MTA chairman Joe Lhota. Riders can access the information online, on a mobile phone (simply text a bust stop code to 511123), or — starting this spring — by scanning a QR code at the bus stop. Previously the MTA was having trouble reliably tracking buses through the tall buildings in Manhattan, but Bus Time’s opening up to all of Staten Island bodes well for the other four boroughs, all of which should have complete Bus Time service by 2013 . Read more on StreetsBlog.

The Roundup keeps you up to date with topics we’ve featured and other things we think are worth knowing about.

After a two week hiatus, we’re back to wish you a happy new year — and to toast the beginning of the fourth year of Urban Omnibus!

A lot has happened in the past year, and there is a lot more coming. Our features have allowed us to explore the sweet shops and courtyard homes of Jackson Heights, the plazas of Midtown, and the public art of the subway system and Times Square. They have introduced us to the strategic assessment of urban agricultural activity across the city and the first undergraduate degree program in urban design. And they have exposed us to a wide range of urban art, ecology, infrastructure and, of course, design. In the weeks to come, look out for features that reveal original perspectives on urbanism from photographers, acoustic engineers, sociologists and more.

2011 was also a year full of special projects: our 50 Ideas for the New City (posters are still available as a gift with donation!), our series of videos on complex urban systems, and our partnership with the Citizens’ Housing and Planning Council on a project about housing regulations in New York.

Our first special project of 2012 is a competition for original, evocative writing inspired by the Manhattan street grid. The deadline is less than a month away, so get cracking! Also coming up, we are planning more live events and field trips, starting with our second annual party and art auction — now christened The Urban Omnibus BlockParty 2012 — on February 28th. Like last year’s shindig, this event will be a fundraiser for Urban Omnibus, but it’s also a chance for our local readers to connect with us and with each other, to hang out with other creative people for whom the physical city is a passion.

That passion is why Urban Omnibus exists: to bring together insights from the wide range of perspectives on interpreting or improving the built environment of New York. But passion alone can’t sustain the hard work that makes this publication possible. Now, more than ever, we rely on the support of readers like you to keep us going.

In addition to donating, there are other ways to participate in helping us shed light on good ideas for the future of cities, conceived in the public interest, executed across disciplines, and tested in the five boroughs. We are always on the lookout for new projects and perspectives; get in touch here if you are up to something and you think we should know about it. And even if you don’t have a specific project in mind, we also want to hear from you about topics that you’d like to read more about. Our goal has always been to bring original thinking from across disciplines and neighborhoods together into a common conversation about urban architecture, infrastructure and environment. And in order to do that, we need to hear from you about projects and perspectives that you think present a new way of looking at the city around us.

It has been an extraordinary first three years. We look forward to 2012, sharing more of the projects, insights, ideas and voices redefining the culture of citymaking today.