Union Square is the latest stretch of Broadway that might soon become another one of Bloomberg’s “signature open-air concrete parks,” pedestrianized and plaza-ified like Times Square and Herald Square. The proposal will be presented on Monday to the local community board, and the NYC Transportation Department is currently considering the plan’s proposal to ban vehicular traffic along Broadway between 17th and 18th streets and to “reshuffle traffic patterns” around the square.

The New York times reports on the recent release of the New York City Transit’s yearly station-by-station breakdown of subway ridership. They’ve embedded the statistics into a pretty awesome interactive subway map – when you slide your cursor over a particular subway stop, the map displays the average number of daily riders in 2009 and the percent change since 2008. While transit officials attribute the decline to construction, economists tend to identify unemployment as the real issue.

Amongst the sea of thousands of smart phone applications available today, architecture-related app’s remain difficult to track down. So, Architectural Record has the run-down on the growing number of apps for architects, including “Project Photo”, which connects your iPhone photos of buildings with their architectural plans; “Concrete Calc”, which calculates the amount of concrete necessary for a project; and “EcoFlash”, which provides flash cards for LEED exam test-prep. “Dual Level” even turns your iPhone into a construction tool — it allows your phone to act as a level and measure when a surface is horizontal.

NY1 has featured the Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center’s online software modeling system that offers a 4-D model of the World Trade Center redevelopment. The modeling software allows viewers to see 3-D renderings of the project’s estimated future progress at various points in time (the fourth dimension!) While the software was developed primarily for construction coordination, the LMDD is currently incorporating the 4-D modeling system into their website, which will allow residents to plan their lives around the development.

If you want to learn more about the World Trade Center redevelopment and other megaprojects, check out the New School’s summer course, “The Politics of Urban Megadevelopment.”  The urban planning class — that Curbed describes as “Development Battles become Homework” – will be based on some of the city’s most controversial megaprojects and will examine Atlantic Yards, the World Trade Center rebuilding, and the Jets Stadium/Hudson Yards proposal, among others.

Coney Island Dream from Joshua Brown on Vimeo.

Debates surrounding the future of Coney Island have raged for years, and many have voiced their concerns about the area’s demise. BoingBoing features photographer Joshua Brown’s beautiful and eerie short film that presents a wintery and seemingly-abandoned Coney Island. Scouting New York recently posted “Abandoned Coney Island,” a photo essay that ventures inside the now derelict Bank of Coney Island building. Those worried about the decline of amusements in the area might enjoy this animated virtual tour of Luna Park, the new amusement park set to open this Memorial Day. Located on 6.9 acres of land that the city bought from developer Joe Sitt for over $95 million, the park will feature 19 new rides, including a “Wild River” ride inspired by the original park’s ride, “Shoot the Chutes,” which you can see in all its 1903 glory below:

Top image by Flickr user acmace. The Roundup keeps you up to date with topics we’ve featured and other things we think are worth knowing about.

Proposed designs for the Kosciuszko Bridge, via NYTimes.com, c. NYSDOT

For all the Pecha Kucha fans out there — or for anyone interested in stepping out for a good cause — Global Pecha Kucha Day for Haiti is tomorrow, Saturday, February 20th. Pecha Kucha events will be taking place in 200 cities worldwide, in the hopes of raising one million dollars, all of which will go to Architecture for Humanity’s rebuilding efforts in and around Port-au-Prince. New York has an impressive line-up of presenters, including Steven Holl, Iwan Baan, Stefan Sagmeister, Craig Dykers, and more, all of whom will be presenting in standard PK style: 20 slides for 20 seconds each. Not in New York? Check out the list of other participating cities and see who is on the roster for your local event.

New York City is one step closer to its first new bridge since the Verrazano. The NYSDOT has released four conceptual designs for the new Kosciuszko Bridge, complete with video simulation, and is asking the public to vote on their favorite. Comments and votes are being accepted through the project’s website, via email, and during public review sessions (one more is scheduled for next Wednesday).

Popular Science has jumped on the ever popular how-to-fix-our-totally-broken-infrastructure bandwagon with a new feature essay. The article, which describes new technological developments, is cleanly divided into five different problem areas: transport, water, power, telecom and sewage. Nifty inventions include a scanner that attaches to the bottom of taxis that relays information on road condition back to a city database, a new paving technique that could apparently reduce accidents by 70% in inclement weather, and water laced with non-threatening bacteria that glows to indicate toxins. Some cities are making efforts to combat the recession through civic spending on the very problems Popular Science addresses. The Dirt reports that the city council of Portland, Oregon has just announced $613 million in funding for future bike infrastructure investment to their city over the next 20 years. The article also notes that Los Angeles is said to be seriously considering a huge new fund to expand self-propelled transport.

Luna Park Entrance, via nyc.gov

The Mayor’s office unveiled new plans for three parcels of land in Coney Island this week: Luna Park and the Scream Zone. The city, in conjunction with Central Amusement International, plans on opening Luna Park by Memorial Day of this year and the Scream Zone by summer 2011. Bloomberg has promised 330 new jobs, an emphasis on local hiring, and significant infrastructure investments — and a human slingshot. (Speaking of dangerous-sounding Coney Island rides, Boing Boing uncovered a 1931 article about the safety mechanisms implemented in classic Coney rides.) Then, for international amusement park news, check out Treehugger’s profile of the Ghost Train Park in Lima, Peru, a repurposed public space designed by Basurama using an abandoned electric train line and reused or recycled materials.

If anyone has trouble believing that the way we construct our built environment has significant impact on a large scale, take a look at this report by The Ecological Society of America. Québécois biologist André Desrochers has found that landscape changes caused by humans have altered the wing shapes of songbirds in the northeastern region North America in only the past hundred years. Apparently this is consistent with the “habitat isolation hypothesis.”  In other words, the patterns of human settlement have directly caused songbird evolution in a biological attempt to mitigate the negative effects of habitat change. Ponder that over the weekend.


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

So, Mayor Bloomberg will be mayor for a third term. What will this mean for the architecture, planning and urban design that have received more policy attention from his administration than from previous ones? Thoughts, opinions, predictions? Send them our way.

Some will undoubtedly answer that question by pointing to megaprojects, such as Hudson Yards or Atlantic Yards, which have proved to be one of the pressure points of urban policy in the last eight years. A city always looking for creative ways to leverage market forces to develop local economies? A city in hock to developers? A city always reinventing itself? A city in paralysis? These themes and others are sure to be discussed at a major symposium taking place tomorrow convened by the Institute for Urban Design and its inimitable executive director, Omni-advisor Olympia Kazi. Arrested Development: Do Megaprojects Have a Future? will take place Saturday, November 7th at the Great Hall at Cooper Union, from 9:30am to 4:30pm. The roster of speakers – including stimulus-critic and train station aficionado Vishaan Chakrabarti – is a huge draw.

Another meeting of the minds that is sure to appeal to those of you passionate about transit is taking place at Barnard next week. Rights of Way: A New Politics of Movement in New York City will “examine the issues surrounding bikes and pedestrianization, and will explore sustainability, finance, public health, and the ways in which the street can serve as a fulcrum in debates about public space and urban life.” Next Thursday, November 12th in the James Room on the 4th floor of Barnard Hall (Broadway at W. 117th). Free and open to the public.

We’re always on the lookout for newfangled technologies and ideas, especially as they start getting installed and tested. East Londoners are the guinea pigs this time, as Pavegen Systems has installed a panel of energy-generating pavement on a busy stretch of sidewalk. The claim is that “just five slabs spread over a lively sidewalk has the ability to generate enough energy to illuminate a bus stop throughout the night,” so you can imagine the potential applications. The folks at MIT first brought this idea to our attention with their work on Crowd Farming, and it seems like harvesting energy from human motion is an approach ripe with possibilities. You can get all kinds of piezoelectric by dancing, driving, commuting, or even by walking through a door.

For one high-visibility project that we’ve been following, Coney Island, the question has been whether it will stay a mega-playground or become a mega-mall. The City came closer to ensuring that some of Coney’s most iconic amusements will remain in perpetuity with the Economic Development Corporation’s bid for the Wonderwheel.

Another way to fuse the recreational, architectural and the political is to… have a slumber party? An Arkitektur, a Berlin-based group of design radicals, will be hosting a live-in conference on Oppositional Architecture from the 12th to the 21st of November at a loft in Dumbo (Gair Building No 6, 81 Front Street). The discussions (and dinner parties) that will emerge while the group is in residence all critique the politics and production of space in capitalist society, and we’re especially looking forward to a discussion between economist David Kotz and architect Teddy Cruz on Saturday, November 14th. We were tipped off to this by Bryan Bell, who knows what it means to practice design as activism.

We’ll leave you with some further reading: Geoff Manaugh has tackled the question: Who would want to be an architect?, in response to an article by the same name in the Times. The piece is worth reading in its entirety, but here’s a taste that might spark interest in the Omni-fans out there: “architecture is the imaginative production of future worlds even as it is the act of building houses for the urban poor or the obtaining of technical skills necessary for rationally subdividing office floorplates.” If you’re on our site, you probably agree, and would expand the definition even more. Curiosity about the complexity of the architecture and design fields, and the infinite ways that design affects the world around us, is what gets us out of bed in the morning. Geoff concluded with a call for discussion – go join in.

The Roundup keeps you up to date with topics we’ve featured and other things we think are worth knowing about. Photo by Flickr user Herschell Hersey.

This week we listened to some new strategies to involve community stakeholders in the design of public spaces, strategies tested in the parks of Manhattan’s Chinatown and the Lower East Side. Meanwhile, across the country in LA’s Chinatown, urban planner James Rojas has assembled an interactive city model from legos, blocks and other bright and shiny plastic building materials that recall many of our earliest childhood experiments with design, urbanism and (not) following instructions. At the public unveiling on August 8th, he invites “the public to play and dream about the future of Chinatown. The economic, social, and built environment of Chinatown is rapidly changing and the model will capture that energy through an interactive public participation process.” Legos sound like WAY more fun than the blue drafting dots still popular at many community visioning sessions.

Closer to home, it was a big week for planning resolutions in which the public input was perhaps less playful, despite the zany legacy of one site in question. We’ve been following the debate about the future of Coney Island for some time. On Wednesday, the City Council voted to approve a 27-acre redevelopment plan. Don’t expect the debate to end anytime soon though, negotiations with Thor Equities are still underway. And let’s not forget about Greenpoint/Williamsburg, Flatbush, DUMBO, and Middle Village/Glendale/Maspeth – rezoning plans passed for all, as did an amendment to the city’s Inclusionary Housing Program.

The debate is also still raging around Atlantic Yards, another controversial development proposal we like to check in on from time to time, although it looks like these days fewer and fewer people are showing up to show off rage or support.

Macro-projects will always inspire macro-anger, so for a dose of macro-optimism in a micro-intervention, check out the party at the Putting Lot tomorrow (reviewed in our forum today).

And we hope to see you Monday night at the Brecht Forum for back-in-the-day movie hour. But if the politics of mass transit don’t tickle your fancy, perhaps you’d prefer to see some feel-good flicks on the politics of money instead? If so, join the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP) for Money Movin’, a look at the circulation of capital on scales large and small, from Wall Street trading floors to pawn shops in South Central L.A. They’ll be screening a selection from Andreas Hoessli’s “Wall Street” (2004) and Lisanne Skyler’s “No Loans Today” (1995).

Images courtesy of Fifth Floor Gallery

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

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

Happy 4th of July weekend! New Jersey, we’ll see you on the banks of the Hudson tomorrow, as the fireworks move west in honor of the 400th anniversary of Henry’s exploration of the river.  This year’s holiday brings an extra dash of patriotism with the re-opening of the Statue of Liberty’s crown, allowing visitors for the first time since its closing after 9/11.  For the enochlophobic or lazy among us, you can follow the festivities virtually, through an online tour, Twitter or Flickr.

In last week’s Walk and Talk, we hear Bob Yaro call for the Javits Center to be taken down, but the State apparently disagrees: the Public Authorities Control Board voted in favor of an ambitious renovation plan, led by FX Fowle Epstein. They’re talking green roofs, new facades, updated mechanical systems, and public plazas with landscaping by Ken Smith.

The Mermaid Parade may have been a bit soggy, but the drama surrounding Coney Island continues to heat up. The City’s plan for Coney Island is not the final word. City Council members proposed delaying a Council vote on the redevelopment plan. Read more about some of the competing visions in our report from last month.

Now that you have visually examined NYC subway riders in new detail, take a page from the new booklet by artist Jeremy Deller for the London Tube and ponder how changes in those garbled announcements might affect your day.  Think less “Stop blocking the doors!,” and more “Hell is other people.”

Lastly, a quick event reminder. People can’t stop talking about Superfund! Check out the City’s new proposed plan to avoid designation, and come tell us your thoughts and opinions on Tuesday at the Can Factory.

Photo by Cassim Shepard

Mehta – whose 2004 book Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found set the bar for place-based, narrative non-fiction about urban space and society, and whose forthcoming book about New York and its immigrants is sure to set it even higher – opened the event by invoking a personal memory: after migrating from India to Jackson Heights in 1977, Coney Island was the first leisure outing his family undertook. The image of the Mehta family aboard the Cyclone introduced an important theme to the discussion: the historical openness, accessibility and affordability of Coney Island’s amusements for working class New Yorkers, especially lower- and middle-income immigrants. Mehta was quick to add, however, “Nostalgia is not a sufficient reason to stop change in a city defined by constant change.” Nonetheless, the images that supported each of the presentations took cues from a history of sideshow freaks and the teeming masses along the boardwalk from Coney Island’s heyday – over a century ago.

The first speaker was Amanda Burden, Chair of the City Planning Commission and the Director of the Department of City Planning. She, too, led off with Coney’s legacy of open-air amusements but swiftly contextualized the area under review as a neighborhood of approximately 50,000 people, characterized by vast tracts of public housing (one in six live in NYCHA projects), a population with twice the unemployment rate of the rest of the city and which lacks basic services and retail. Preservation of the amusement district, Burden said, would require some City control of land and year-round entertainment, but the success of any comprehensive plan could only be measured in terms of increased opportunities for housing and jobs.

Burden left the details of the City’s plan to be explained by Purnima Kapur, the Brooklyn director of City Planning. Kapur presented an overview of a five-year process, including intensive community visioning sessions and historical analysis of sixty years of speculative land acquisition and the gradual shrinking of the amusement district from 27 acres to the three acres that remain. City Planning divides the neighborhood into three distinct zones: Coney East, or the amusement zone, between the KeySpan baseball stadium and the Aquarium; Coney North, to the north of Surf Avenue; and Coney West, to the west of the stadium. To revitalize the amusements, Kapur made a strong case for mapping a city-owned park – in perpetuity – in Coney East. To encourage infill retail development, the current maximum retail floorplate of 2500 square feet would be maintained, but restaurants and shops (largely prohibited under the current amusement land use designation) would be encouraged. Hotel development would be confined to Surf Avenue frontage, and new street linkages would be mapped between Surf Avenue and the Boardwalk.

Dan Jennings spoke for Thor Equities, a real estate development firm famed for its malls across the country, which has been acquiring land in Coney East since the mid-1990s. Jennings sounded similar notes of year-round entertainments, expanded retail opportunities and rejuvenating the local economy. The major differences between the city’s plan and the developers’ plan lay in the necessity of mapping the amusement district as city-owned parkland and the size of appropriate retail floorplates: Thor wants it increased to 10,000 square feet. Jennings reminded the audience that this is not equivalent to big-box retail, citing the fact that retailers such as CostCo explore real estate with 30,000 square feet as a minimum. The video Jennings presented conjured a vision of mixed-use in Coney Island that was equal parts Las Vegas and Mall of America, where hotel guests, daytrippers to indoor rides and retail shoppers from South Brooklyn rubbed shoulders.

The Municipal Art Society (MAS) presented a third vision of Coney Island’s future. A long-time planning and preservation advocacy organization, MAS – represented by Melissa Baldock, the Kress/RFR Fellow for Historic Preservation and Public Policy – shared the results of its economic feasibility study and its large-scale community visioning process that included a far-reaching online call for ideas. She argued for the largest possible amusement area that would include both preserved icons such as the Cyclone and new ones, along the lines of the London Eye. Because land prices deter amusement development, Baldock said, the City must control the land where amusements are to flourish.

After these three visions were articulated, the presenters shared the stage with Charles Bendit of Taconic Investments, Dick Zigun of the Coney Island Circus Sideshow, Alberto Vourvoulias-Bush of El Diario/La Prensa, and Ahsanullah “Bobby” Khan of the Coney Island Avenue Project.

Taconic’s holdings are in Coney North and Coney West, areas slated for residential and hotel development. Bendit was quick to remind the audience that Taconic’s proposals have caused no controversy; his only recommendation to the City’s land use plan was to use Inclusionary Zoning to encourage affordable middle-income housing, arguing convincingly that this bracket is underserved by the market and the supply of low-income housing in the neighborhood is sufficient, if poorly serviced.

Zigun, whose most passionate recommendations were for landmarks designation for Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs, referred to Taconic as the “good developer” and repeatedly asked Thor Equities to sell their land to the City and leave Coney Island alone. But his contribution was notable for articulating the different scales at which the Coney Island site must be considered: from its position in the immediate neighborhood and New York City, to its significance to the US as a whole. Zigun, producer of the Mermaid Parade and other quintessential Coney Island programs, invoked the national legacy of Coney Island. Kapur talked about Coney Island in the context of New York City. Jennings expressed the commercial demands of the site in terms of the South Brooklyn retail landscape. And Mehta had opened the program in the context of working-class Brooklyn and Queens.

Vourvoulias-Bush and Khan spoke to the immigrant experience and the needs of the working class. Vourvoulias-Bush discussed these priorities in terms of access to open-air, affordable family fun. Khan, whose organization primarily works on behalf of the South Asian Muslim community of the area, expressed shock at the relative lack of discussion of general economic development for the area and, specifically, workforce development for the chronically unemployed residents of the neighborhood.

The atmosphere was tense, but nothing compared to the passions that are sure to fly during the public hearing on Wednesday. I recommend attending. You can find more information about the hearing here.

Panelists:
Purnima Kapur, Brooklyn Director of City Planning; Dan Jennings, Thor Equities; Melissa Baldock, The Municipal Arts Society; Charles Bendit, Taconic Investments; Alberto Vourvoulias-Bush, El Diario/La Prensa; Dick Zigun, Coney Island Circus Sideshow; Ahsanullah “Bobby” Khan, Coney Island Avenue Project.

Convened by: Suketu Mehta, NYU School of Journalism


As with all review and opinion pieces posted on Urban Omnibus, the views expressed are those of the author only and do not reflect the position of Urban Omnibus editorial staff or the Architectural League of New York.