NYC GRID TURNS 200
This week marks the bicentennial of the Manhattan grid system, introducing the 90-degree, angular streetscape we know today. The grid reveals priorities of a 19th century New York, and this bicentennial offers a unique moment for urban enthusiasts to explore and understand the ideas behind 11 major avenues and 155 crosstown streets laid out in 1811.
The creation of the grid…
FATBERGS
“A nice working environment” is not how most would describe a city sewer system, but to Rob Smith, “head flusher” at Thames Water, traversing the bowels of London has its upsides. Smith and his team of 39 flushers are responsible for unclogging sewer tunnels of “fatbergs”– congealed deposits of cooking oil and flushed waste that look as disgusting as they sound. Fatbergs are typically formed of…
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Roy Strickland describes a student project that combines infill development, real estate financing and urban design to re-envision the housing projects of the Lower East Side. |
In the past, keys to a city were reserved for the heroic and the honored. Now, thanks to artist Paul Ramírez Jonas, you can bestow a key to New York City upon your own personal hero. Through June 27th, “Key …
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This original Urban Omnibus-produced video explores a day in the life of five New York neighborhoods: Hunts Point, Jamaica, Mariner’s Harbor, Downtown Brooklyn, and Chelsea. |
The term landscape might suggest images of shaded glens, rolling plains, sublime mountains, or manicured lawns. This descriptive vocabulary is primarily aesthetic or emotional. Yet the great surveyed grids of the West, the patterns of farming, transportation, housing, and industry indicate that the choices that underlie the form of the American landscape have a lot to do with function; the “American landscape” is a much…
Update: You can now view Archipelago, an original Urban Omnibus video production, exhibited in The City We Imagined / The City We Made, that explores a day in the life of five New York neighborhoods: Hunts Point, Jamaica, Mariner’s …
Traffic in Lisbon – emphasis on sluggish areas from Pedro M Cruz on Vimeo.
It’s been a week of big projects, big plans, and big ideas.
New York University has announced the NYU 2031 plan, an anticipated 40% …
Calling all architects, designers and artists! Now that the city has made the Times Square pedestrian plazas permanent, the Department of Transportation is launching a design competition to “refresh” the existing temporary treatments while the longer, separate process begins to …
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Sociologist Dalton Conley takes us on a walk through the public housing complexes where he grew up, reflecting on the economics of housing policy and the limits of design. |
