James A. Farley Post Office, photo by Flickr user wallyg.

This week brought some activity back to the Moynihan Station project. The Empire State Development Corporation has officially selected Skidmore, Owings and Merrill for the first phase of the project, which exclusively involves interior and underground infrastructure. SOM says their design will alleviate foot traffic, improve rail signals and train capacity for the many thousands of passengers who travel through the station each year. Though renovation of the old Farley Post Office remains unfunded, this progress encourages us to imagine all that the new station might be.

Bird to the North reports on a successful experiment with traffic calming measures in Brooklyn Heights.  A widening of the sidewalk at the end of the block creates a narrow passage through which cars can pass, preventing them from speeding through the intersection to catch a green light. Not only do they slow traffic, they also make the city streets that much easier for pedestrians to get across.

In ribbon-cutting news, this week the city received its first ever officially-green-LEED certified New York Public Library. Gothamist reports on the new Battery Park City branch, located at 175 North End Avenue for anyone who wants to stop by. Then, next week brings the opening ceremony for Pier One, the first completed section of Brooklyn Bridge Park.  Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, Mayor Bloomberg, Governor Paterson and various council and assemblymen will gather at 9:30 a.m. Monday, March 22nd, just one week after the state handed over control of the project to the city.

Non-profit organization Pathways to Housing has launched an interactive projection campaign, currently traveling the streets of Manhattan. Designed by Sarkissian Mason, the video installation incorporates eye-catching projections (an image of a person sleeping on the street transitions into the door of a home that the person enters when passers-by text a given number) and the increasingly common “impulse donation” option to contribute to a cause via text message (people who interact with the installation through texting are given an option to donate a small amount to the non-profit through an additional text message). Though we haven’t experienced the campaign in person, the video (above) looks compelling.

In opposition to the usual pro-urbanism enthusiasm for high speed rail, Wired featured a piece pondering the possibility that high speed rail might lead to new sprawl by creating faster and easier commutes to urban city centers from suburbs and exurbs.

Limiting new sprawl is quite a different proposition than actively seeking to shrink a city. Check out this podcast from the New York Times that discusses how to deal with diminishing populations. In the case of Detroit, whose government can no longer afford to service certain depopulated and far-flung neighborhoods, certain philanthropic foundations have stepped in to help pay the salaries of urban planners and other city workers brought in to help manage the incredibly complex task of urban downsizing.

Italian engineer and inventor Enrico Dini, a “mad genius” according to Fast Company, is getting some attention lately for D-Shape, a machine he developed that can print stone buildings. The CAD-driven machine deposits layers of sand that are bound together with an “inorganic binding ink” that in effect creates solid stone. Potential applications of the technology are infinite, and the implications could be huge for reducing the distance between the idea and the physical. Blueprint Magazine has an extended profile of the project, including Dini’s own expectations for what D-Shape might do – a few modest goals such as completing the Sagrada Familia and building structures on the moon.

D-Shape, via Blueprint Magazine

Top image: Farley Post Office, by Flickr user wallyg. Bottom image: D-Shape, via Blueprint Magazine. The Roundup keeps you up to date with topics we’ve featured and other things we think are worth knowing about.

This week brought news that Tishman Speyer and BlackRock Realty are handing over Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village to creditors to avoid bankruptcy. The Wall Street Journal lists the estimated value of the properties at $1.8 billion, just three and a half years after the $5.4 billion deal to purchase the site in 2006, and lists a few of the investors facing losses, ranging from the California Public Employee’s Retirement System to the Church of England. The New York Times explains why this is “a big black eye…but it’s not the end for Tishman” and investigates what this all means for the tenants. And the Post takes a look at who is thinking about buying the property now.

In waterfront news, $8.9 million in grants is being awarded by New York’s Department of State to waterfront revitalization projects in New York City. The Waterfront Alliance summarizes what projects will receiving funding — including the installation of MWA Eco-Docks, the implementation of the Bronx’s Shoelace Park Master Plan, Brooklyn Navy Yard improvements, climate change education programs, $1.5 million for the Randall’s Island Living Shoreline, two Jamaica Bay projects, and a seed farm and tree nursery at Freshkills — and points out that the announcement is also noteworthy for demonstrating “a major commitment to urban waterfront access” by the State. Check out the complete list with more details on MWA’s Waterwire.

The Make a Difference in Two Days lovers out there will appreciate this DIY intervention in Astoria that helps pedestrians cross a filthy pool of water that has submerged a heavily-trafficked sidewalk. An artist who goes by “Posterchild” constructed the “Astoria Scum River Bridge” out of an old work bench found on a curb as a gift to the neighborhood and was recently awarded a commendation from the office of Councilman Peter F. Vallone, Jr. (which came with a promise to help get the leaking pipe fixed).

Downtown Brooklyn residents: plan ahead. In 2019 your stretch of the BQE will be closing for a complete reconstruction. While it’s a bit early to start planning alternate routes, this announcement gives us occasion to think about the challenges of tackling significant infrastructure reconstruction projects in the middle of densely populated and highly-traveled neighborhoods. Streetsblog attended the stakeholder advisory council meeting for the project where the discussion often focused on how to balance neighborhood quality of life with the need to address the existing hazardous roadway conditions.

Outside of New York, high-speed rail is the hot transportation topic of the week now that details have been released about where the $8 billion of stimulus money allotted for HSR is headed. Much of the money is going to California, Florida and Illinois, with the Northeast receiving just $485 million to upgrade 7 major corridors in the region. The Infrastructurist points us to a post by Robert Puentes at the Brookings Institute that explains why prioritizing the Tampa-Orlando route makes sense and how this program is “nothing short of a sea change for how Washington thinks about infrastructure investments.” Meanwhile Wired digests it all in their feature about the history and future of “superfast bullet trains” in the U.S.

Finally we send you off into the weekend with a little toe-tapping video we’re calling “Me and Julio Down by the PS1 Pavilion” (aka SO-IL’s winning entry for the 2010 MoMA/P.S.1 Young Architects Program):

SO-IL PS1 Pole Dance from SO-IL on Vimeo.

(Side note: Also on SO-IL’s Vimeo page you can see two quick clips of their installations for the League’s 2007 Beaux Arts Ball, Smoke and Mirrors.)


Image: Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village by Flickr user Carly Hoskins. The Roundup keeps you up to date with topics we’ve featured and other things we think are worth knowing about.

It’s been a busy week packing, moving and unpacking. And as much as we’ll miss our special Brooklyn canal and the weird infrastructural happenings of Midtown East, we’re settling into Soho and are certain to find some local obsessions at the intersection of design and the built environment to cover in this neck of the woods.

If JFK airport had a writer-in-residence, what would she write about? Poetic treatises on the ebb and flow within the top international gateway to the USA? The ghosts of art exhibit debacles past? The difficulty and expense of getting to Manhattan, despite the Airtrain? The new FAA rules for Hudson flyovers? Well, in case the Port Authority (which controls JFK, LGA and Newark airports, along with Stewart and Teterboro) decides to try a writer on for size, they’ll soon have a precedent from across the pond. Heathrow Airport has contracted Alain de Botton, author of the Architecture of Happiness, to render his observations of the world’s busiest airport in prose.

Another of our principal obsessions is, of course, urban exploration. So if thinking about airports depresses you and you’d rather buy into the whole “staycation” trend this Labor day weekend, join the folks of Hey! I’m Walking Here! for a 20-mile trek through the landscape of that other island. Hopefully, this will whet your appetite for a meet-up we got planned along the Staten Island Railway later this month. Stay tuned.

Speaking of rail systems in both the city’s past and future, the proposal for light rail between Red Hook and Downtown Brooklyn is gaining ground, and if the project ever happens, it may just find a way to resurrect Red Hook’s trolley tracks.

That sounds stimulus-worthy but far from shovel-ready. But even if longer-term projects were being funded by the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, cities are still getting the short end of the stick. Streetsblog has a nice write-up of Vice President Biden’s admission that stimulus aid to cities is imperfect:

Congress’ decision to route stimulus money through governors has sparked open confrontations between urban mayors and governors over how to distribute funds to the most needy areas. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was particularly direct in urging that the stimulus provide direct aid to cities, bypassing the politicization that often dominates decision-making in state capitals.

Politicization, is that what we’re calling it these days? We’re about ready for some interesting primaries in local races in a couple weeks, from city council to the heated contest to be elected what may be the last public advocate.

While pondering that, check out some raw footage, posted today by the Daily News, of the tearing down of the old Yankee stadium’s facade.