The immense distances trash travels (and the amount of cost and energy used to transport, transfer, recycle, incinerate or dump it) pose obvious questions about how we expend environmental resources in support of our country’s vast consumption practices. According to Rit Aggarwala, former director of the Mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability, it’s time to shift the ways we measure environmental impacts “from combustion towards consumption.” He was speaking at a conference of city planning professionals entitled Zoning the City, but the implications of his words extend far beyond land use: he was expressing the far-reaching truth that there’s more than just carbon in our footprints. And while engines and energy usage are the primary metrics used to calculate degrees of green, zooming out to a broader inquiry into the infrastructure that supports both the supply chain and the removal chain raises larger questions about the life-cycles of the products and materials that pass through our daily lives.

Two years ago, for its landmark exhibition Toward the Sentient City, the Architectural League commissioned five innovative design projects that interrogated the convergence of digital technologies and the urban systems. One of the projects, Trash | Track, started with a simple question: “why do we know so much about the supply chain and so little about the removal chain?” To close this gap in public awareness about where stuff goes after we throw it away, the team behind Trash | Track (MIT’s SENSEable City Laboratory) devised sensors that would track the movements of a variety of everyday objects on their often convoluted routes to their final destinations. They completed a pilot project in partnership with the City of Seattle that visualized these journeys and documented the ultimate fate of pieces of trash that are barely considered after being tossed in the garbage (see introductory video below).

Trash | Track from senseablecitylab on YouTube.

To be sure, sensors and analytics can help us make more intelligent choices about how we use resources, but as we go about enhancing or improving complex urban systems through technology, we must also provoke discussion about what kind of city we want. What are the values that should guide our quest for efficiency, reliability and convenience in the technologies that support the urban environment? And how can those values be informed by careful consideration of those infrastructures that may be out of sight, but should never be — if we want ecological, economical and resilient cities – out of mind.

-C.S.

This Urban Omnibus video is the fourth and final in a series called City of Systems, a suite of short videos intended to offer a poetic peek behind the scenes of some of the complex systems that enable New York City to function. This video series is made possible by IBM as part of its commitment to use technology and information to help build more sustainable and intelligent cities. 

Garbage Truck at Night | Photo: Drew Geraets

Elizabeth Royte is the author of Bottlemania: How Water Went On Sale and Why We Bought It; Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash; and The Tapir’s Morning Bath: Solving the Mysteries of the Tropical Rain Forest. Her writing on science and the environment has appeared in Harper’s, National Geographic, Outside, The New York Times Magazine, and other national publications.

CityBench | photo via streetsblog.org

BENCHES!
Weary pedestrians take note. This week, DOT commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan introduced CityBench, a PlanNYC project to install 1,000 new benches on the sidewalks of New York City. The benches will strategically be located adjacent to major transportation nodes that mostly attract seniors and mobility impaired or physically disabled individuals. They also will enable social encounters across local communities and will bring people together in a collective effort to improve their own neighborhoods, as local residents can help determine the location of the benches simply by calling 311. Meanwhile, as part of their “Building of the Day” series, the folks at the Archtober blog reminded us of the Rogers Marvel-designed flood mitigation streetscape installations, already in place in certain locations around the city. In response to subway shutdowns caused by intense storms back in 2007, the MTA and the DOT were charged with finding a way to prevent similar service interruptions in the future. The benches serve a utilitarian double function as they manage overflow depths and provide outdoor seating for pedestrians.

Photo by Flickr user SpecialKRB | via secondavenuesagas.com

7 TRAIN TO SECAUCUS
Mayor Bloomberg has generated some buzz this week with his apparent support of a proposal to extend the 7 line, under the Hudson, to Secaucus, New Jersey. The plan was first floated after New Jersey Governor Chris Christie killed plans for the ARC Tunnel last year. Details are still fuzzy, with the city’s plan only in draft form and not yet formally released to the public, and though city officials claim funding could be shared by the City, the State, NJTransit, the MTA and the Port Authority, some of those parties are already distancing themselves from the idea. The $10 billion plan is already drawing criticism and skepticism, even though nothing concrete has been announced. Check out Second Avenue Sagas, which has been keeping a close eye on the topic, for the latest.

PARKING REFORM
Streetsblog has been reporting this week on some potential parking reforms under consideration at the Department of City Planning that would tighten loopholes in the policies that determine parking maximums in Manhattan’s core. Parking maximums were implemented in response to a series of lawsuits brought against the city after the passage of the Clean Air Act in 1970. But the research studies come from DCP appear to be flawed, weakening the agency’s argument, and any proposed parking reforms will no doubt be challenged by opponents, such as the Real Estate Board of New York, which lobbies for the removal of parking limits already in effect. Meanwhile, in a seemingly contradictory move, the DCP has also expressed interest in removing the link between the existing parking maximums and the Clean Air Act, a connection that Noah Kazis describes as “the ultimate guarantee that the parking rules will remain in place and be upheld.” For more about parking reform and the potential future of the DCP plan, stay tuned to Streetsblog.

EVENTS AND TO DOs

The Civilians — Tonight at Joe’s Pub: Tonight, Friday, October 28, theater company The Civilians (whom Omnibus readers might remember from Brooklyn at Eye Level, a production about Atlantic Yards in 2009) will perform a one-night-only cabaret of monologues and songs on the topic of Occupy Wall Street. The Civilians team has been down at Zuccotti Park “talking to the 99% about the current demonstrations, our government, the economy and the future,” and tonight they’ll turn those conversations into a performative investigation of “the current exercise of democracy that will mark our nation’s history.” Buy tickets here or watch a livestream of the event here.

Urbanized at IFC: Last month we spoke with Gary Hustwit about his new film Urbanized on the eve of its US premiere at the closing night of Urban Design Week. For everyone who was unable to make that screening, the film is returning to New York for a week-long engagement at IFC Cinemas, until November 2nd. Don’t miss this chance to see this inspiring overview of some of the innovative thought and action addressing some of the most complex challenges facing our cities and our planet.

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Rendering by MIR and Snohetta, courtesy of NYC DOT

TIMES SQUARE PLAZAS MADE PERMANENT
On Tuesday, September 27, Manhattan’s Community Board 5 met with Craig Dykers of Snøhetta to review their plans for the Times Square pedestrian plazas of the not-so-distant future. No more lawn chairs, no more paint as marker for where the car space ends. The plan calls for a leveling of the streets and curbs, to create a continuous pedestrian surface of dark concrete. Inlaid into the pavers will be steel rivets to reflect the bright lights of the big city. Benches and street furniture will provide seating as well as space demarcation to aid pedestrian flow, making the plazas useful as lounge spaces and as thoroughfares. The intent, according to Dykers, is to make the space seem larger and less cluttered. NYC’s Department of Design and Construction hopes to get started next fall with a completion date of 2014. Check out more of the coverage from DNAinfo and the A|N Blog.

WEEKENDS WITH VIGNELLI
The Vignelli map is back. In 1972, graphic designer Massimo Vignelli created a subway map for New York City that was a favorite of designers but, because it eschewed geographic faithfulness for legibility, was deemed too geographically inaccurate by some. With the release of the MTA’s new Weekender website, the MTA has brought the Vignelli map back into use. The Weekender is a website devoted to helping people plan their weekend subway trips with ease despite service changes. The site features a trip planner, so that the MTA can “do the navigating for you – around any service change”, tabs to look up service by station, line or borough, and visual navigation through an interactive version of the iconic map.

fasttrash.org

FASTTRASH.ORG
Fast Trash is now a website! Last year we spoke with architecture, writer and curator Juliette Spertus about the exhibition of Fast Trash, an exploration of Roosevelt Island’s pneumatic trash collection system and her ongoing project to expose and document complex infrastructural systems. Now the exhibition has become a website that gives readers access to Spertus’ research and documentation of the exhibition and provides a space for discussion of larger questions of how we can radically rethink how garbage is moved through our city. Check it out at fasttrash.org.

EVENTS and TO DOs

VELONOTTE NYC
How do you “turn cities into nocturnal open air museums experienced on a bike”? Velonotte! On Saturday, October 1, the Storefront for Art and Architecture will host the kickoff of VELONIGHT NYC. In the early hours of Sunday, October 2, from midnight until 5:30am, a bicycle tour of the urban and cultural history of New York City will take cyclists to 20 planned stops throughout the city. An audio guide led by architects, architectural historians and cultural historians will be broadcast live over a proprietary radio frequency straight into participants’ headphones. Contributors to the tour include Jean Louis Cohen, Peter Eisenman, Ken Jackson, Rem Koolhas and Guy Nordenson, among others. Read more about the kickoff event here, and more about the tour here.

The Archtober Calendar

ARCHTOBER
What day is it tomorrow? Why, it’s Archtober 1st. New York’s Architecture and Design Month — Archtober — is a month-long festival of architectural design activities, programs and exhibitions that kicks off tomorrow. The initiative was spearheaded by the AIA NY Chapter, openhousenewyork and the Architecture & Design Film Festival, and plenty of cultural institutions from across the city are participating, including us here at the Architectural League and familiar faces like the BMW Guggenheim Lab, the Design Trust for Public Space, Friends of the High Line, the Institute for Urban Design, MoMA, Storefront, Van Alen and many more. Find out more about the dozens and dozens of events taking place over the next 31 days here and start planning your month around celebrating all things architecture and design.

Freshkills Park+ in action

FRESHKILLS PARK+
This Sunday, October 2, from 11am to 4pm, Freshkills Park will be open for the second annual Sneak Peak, complete with kayak tours, walking tours, biking, kite flying and making, a craft market, live music, public art, games and food trucks. This year’s event also marks the release of Freshkills Park+, a new augmented reality application. Because of the landfill infrastructure that lies beneath the park, signage can’t be installed. The Freshkills Park+ app allows visitors to learn more about projects under construction, nearby activities or surrounding natural environments and serves as a wayfinding tool throughout the 2,200-acre site.  Read more about the app here, the event here or check out photos of last year’s event here.

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The Commissioners' Plan of 1811 provisional map, released in 1807 | via Wikimedia Commons

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 is lauded for introducing long, standardized, narrow blocks and responsible for shaping lots and blocks for facilitating real estate demands, breaking up traditionally large estate parcels. It has also been criticized for many of the pedestrian and traffic issues of Manhattan today — the narrow, pre-automobile streets gave rise to the term “gridlock.”

The significant lack of open space — only two areas included in the 1811 map, the ‘wide green’ or ‘Parade’ (Central Park came in 1850) and a future market — perhaps reflects the grid’s expected reliance on waterborne transportation and a clean, accessible riverside. In the words of William Bridges:

“It may to many be a matter of surprise that so few vacant spaces have been left, and those so small, for the benefit of fresh air and consequent preservation of health. Certainly if the City of New York was destined to stand on the side of small streams such as the Seine or the Thames, a great number of ample places might be needful. But those large arms of the sea which embrace Manhattan island render its situation in regard to health and pleasure as well to the convenience of commerce, peculiarly felicitous.”
-Remarks of the Commissioners for Laying Out Streets and Roads in the City of New York under the Act of April 3, 1807

In light of growing discussion over sea level rise and more recent attention given to developing both the built and recreational waterside ‘sixth borough’ in Vision 2020, New York City’s new Comprehensive Waterfront Plan, it is a timely comparison to note 19th century New York’s reliance on the waterfront as major open space and city government’s renewed interest in reviving New York’s waterways. To see other visual representations of the grid and Manhattan’s visual history, check out these beautiful posters on the grid’s birthday.

For in-depth coverage, see the New York Times‘ look at the grid’s birthday featuring an interactive map comparing John Randel’s 1811 map with today’s streets. Also, see Cornell Library’s original text from the Comissioners’ Plan of 1811 when the map was introduced.
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Series of screen grabs from WNYC's Interactive Map on 2010 Census Data

NEW YORK CENSUS 2010
The Census 2010 numbers were released yesterday, and according to the findings, the city grew only 2.1% since 2000 (166,855 people). Mayor Bloomberg is particularly bewildered by the results in Queens, saying yesterday “For example, the Census Bureau determined the population of Queens increased by only 1,300 people…Think about that — 1,300 people over 10 years. I’m not criticizing them, but it doesn’t make any sense.” Other city politicians are anxious about the impact of potential underreporting. Scott Stringer called the numbers “preposterous” adding that “the impact of this undercounting has severe ramifications for the city, when it comes to redistricting and the distribution of crucial social services to those most in need.” According to the Census, Brooklyn only grew by 1.6 percent (to 2,504,700 people) in the past decade while Manhattan reportedly grew by 3.2 (to 1,585,873 people).

The New York Times highlights some significant findings: the number of black New Yorkers has declined 5 percent since 2000, Non-Hispanic blacks now make up 23 percent of the population, the number of Asians increased 32 percent, passing the one million mark (now 13 percent of the population), the Hispanic population rose 8 percent and now 29 percent of the total, and Non-Hispanic whites registered a 3 percent decline, or 31,649 people (compared with a drop of nearly 362,000 during the 1990s) — the smallest decrease in a half-century of white flight. They now constitute 33 percent of the population. Manhattan and Brooklyn accounted for the only counties in the country with a million or more people where the white share of the population rose.

For a detailed report on Census numbers see here, and see WNYC’s coverage and interactive map on the Census data.
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ARCHITECTURAL LEAGUE ANNOUNCES LEAGUE PRIZE WINNERS
Some in-house news: The Architectural League Prize for Young Architects and Designers 2011 winners have been announced! The League Prize (formerly known as the Young Architects Forum) is an annual competition, series of lectures, and exhibition created to recognize specific works of high quality and to encourage the exchange of ideas among young people who might otherwise not have a forum. This year’s theme is It’s Different: “Not content to wait for the hoped-for return of economic conditions favorable to conventional ideas about architectural practice, architects must ask: What is the new role of the designer? The Call for Entries addresse[d] the state of architecture as a reflection of our world: it’s different now.” For the full list of winners and more information, check out the Architectural League website and stay tuned for more updates on the upcoming lecture series and exhibition by the winners.
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CITY CONSIDERS WASTE-TO-ENERGY
Gotham Gazette reported this week that Waste-to-Energy, a process commonly understood as burning garbage to convert to energy, is currently being seriously considered by the Bloomberg administration in light of the soaring costs of exporting our city’s trash (up 62% in the past decade). A similar incinerator has been in operation in Newark for the past 20 years, and currently burns up some of the city’s refuse. Following the closure of the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island, most of the city’s garbage is trucked to out-of-state landfills in Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Virginia. Five years ago, the city approved a solid-waste management plan, hoping to improve the handling and moving of solid waste via barge, railroad and new waste transfer stations across the city, to distribute the garbage burden citywide, over a few neighborhoods. Waste-to-Energy has been considered before, as reported in this 2005 WNYC interview on Bloomberg’s take on garbage, and with the possibility back on the table, questions are again being raised — the burden of trash processing has fallen upon traditionally low-income and minority-based communities, and activists in Sunset Park and Hunts Point are voicing their concern. The energy conversion process is popular in Europe and has gotten cleaner in recent years, but remains a potential source of unease for many residents. See more on Waste-to-Energy technology and the NYC Environmental Justice Alliance’s platform, and map on existing waste transfer station in communities of color.
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1911 Postcard of Penn Station

EVENTS
Clean up the Gowanus Canal
Remember the community-drive clean-up efforts detailed in last year’s Canal Nest Colony feature? Now’s your chance to pitch in on the fun and help clean up the Gowanus Canal! Join the Gowanus Canal Conservancy on Sunday, March 27th to clean the 2nd Avenue Rain Garden and organize their Salt Lot for the 2011 season. See more details on the event and more to come in their Clean and Green Season series.

Historical Exhibition on Penn Station
An exhibition exploring the legacy of New York’s lost Beaux Arts landmark and ideas for the future opens today You can see “The Once and Future Pennsylvania Station” at the New York Transit Museum Gallery Annex and Store at Grand Central Terminal now through October 30.

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Images from left to right: Hudson River Park, image courtesy of Mathews Nielsen; West Harlem Piers Park, image courtesy of Alison Cartwright | via archleague.org

PARK TOUR AND BIKE RIDE
This Saturday, Architectural League group Design in 5 is hosting a park tour and bike ride of Hudson River Park and the West Harlem Piers, two of the many waterfront revitalization efforts springing up all over New York City. Design in 5 events are typically open to designers roughly five years or fewer out of school, but the group invites all young Omnibus readers as well. Participants will travel by bike to two different Hudson River parks and meet Len Greco from the New York City Economic Development Corporation and designers Barbara Wilks, of W Architecture, and Signe Nielsen, of Mathews Nielsen Landscape Architects. Join them to talk about waterfront development, design processes, and coordination efforts involved in projects of this scale, all while enjoying a beautiful day out in the sun. Email designin5@archleague.org to sign up.
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A HUNDRED MILLION CALLS TO 311

311 Calls for New York | Pitch Interactive via wired.com

WIRED reports on What a Hundred Million Calls to 311 Reveal About New York, including how 311 calls “represent a huge pool of data to be collected, parsed, and transformed into usable intelligence,” evident in crowdsourced detective work like the Maple Syrup Mystery. Eye-grabbing infographics provide a quick glance at New York’s most vocal zip codes and common gripes, but also reveal more nuanced geographic and temporal complaint patterns. The article points to various efforts, by the City and private companies, to improve the efficiency of problem solving, but suggests that these programs can only go so far in improving the urban fabric. As a resource though, the uses of 311 call data continue to unfold. The call center is a voice of accountability that may encourage more New Yorkers to speak up, and 311 data is a tool to analyze the City’s problems, spurring timely and targeted response.
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DESIGN MATTERS
A recent survey following Election Day, which tested polling issues ranging from voter privacy to equipment functionality, found that over a third of the survey participants thought that the newly-designed ballot was difficult to read and used font that is too small. Design matters! Maybe its time for New York’s Board of Elections to go back to the drawing board with AIGA’s Design for Democracy, which “applies design tools and thinking to increase civic participation by making interactions between the US government and its citizens more understandable, efficient and trustworthy.”
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TRACING TRASH
Trash can over flowing? Not to worry, take your waste to Union Square tomorrow from 11am- 1pm for Culture Push’s Tracing Trash symposium. The “curated trash experiment” gathers information about waste disposal practices in the city. Orange-jumpsuited liaisons will answer questions about where garbage comes from and where it goes, and offer ideas for alternative disposal. Just remember to RSVP, to cp@culturepush.org, for your date with the dumpster.
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SWIMMING CITIES
Last weekend, the newest addition to Swimming Cities, which we discussed with artist Swoon earlier this fall, was launched in the Gowanus — or at least the radial foundation for it was. The Ocean of Blood, as the fleet of small boats is called, and its crew of artists will begin a journey up the Ganges River in India in March. The small rivercrafts can be connected for common space or separated in order to navigate narrow waterways. On-board motorcycles serve dual purposes, as propellers for the individual boats and vehicles for the crew when they need to get supplies on land. The final destination for The Ocean of Blood is Varanasi, the oldest living city in the world, where the crew will collaborate with local artists to create visual and musical performances using their journey as inspiration.
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KRANTHOUT

KrantHout | via worldchanging.com

File this under new materials wrought from extreme recycling: Worldchanging tells us about newspaper wood, aka KrantHout, designed by Mieke Meijer and available through the Dutch design firm, Vij5. The product is made from layers of recycled newspapers, which can be milled and sanded like any other type of wood. Meijer says KrantHout is “a reversing of a traditional production process; not from wood to paper, but the other way around.” The material has been in development since 2003 and Vij5 is working on a line of products to be added to their collection.
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EYEBALLING BRIDGES AND TUNNELS
Last week’s interview with photographer Stanley Greenberg reminded BLDGBLOG of this 2004 “carto-photographic look” at New York’s bridges and tunnels, an impressive gallery of images from the Library of Congress, the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) and Historic American Engingeering Record (HAER). “Eyeballing New York City’s Bridges and Tunnels” spotlights the Brooklyn, Manhattan, Williamsburg, Bronx-Whitestone, Throgs Neck, George Washington, Queensboro, Verrazano-Narrows, Triborough and Hells Gate Bridges along with the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels, in all their infrastructural beauty.
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TEDxBROOKLYN

This Saturday, TEDxBrooklyn — one of many local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a “TED-like experience” — is hosting a stage event at Pratt Institute’s Brooklyn Campus. The one day program will focus on “the making of a movement,” bringing together local artists, entrepreneurs, activists, innovators and other Brooklynites to talk about and demonstrate their work and ideas. Meanwhile, you can nominate a “transformational individual” you know to be considered for TEDxBrooklyn’s “ONE Brooklynite,” to be featured on the program website.
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Yesterday was a beautiful day for wandering along Roosevelt Island’s waterfront. The Omnibus team and fifty of our friends spent the afternoon learning about the history of the masterplan, seeing one of the infamous pneumatic trash chutes in action, and getting a guided tour of the Fast Trash! exhibition (open for one more week!). Thanks are in order for Juliette Spertus, Judy Berdy, Jack McGrath, Adam Michaels, and Marianne Lau for taking us around.

Scheduled tour-guide Donald Richardson, one of the masterplanners of Roosevelt Island, was unable to join us at the last minute. Luckily, Judy Berdy of the Roosevelt Island Historical Society was part of the group and stepped in to fill his shoes. Berdy shared her extensive historical knowledge of the island, from its days as Blackwell’s Island, home to a penitentiary, smallpox hospital and asylum for the insane, to its transition to a hospital complex, renamed Welfare Island, and its subsequent redevelopment in the late 1960s/early ’70s into the Roosevelt Island we know today. The original three-phase masterplan, developed by architects Philip Johnson and John Burgee, anticipated housing and services for 20,000 residents and turned the island into a car-free zone, connected to Queens by the Roosevelt Island Lift Bridge and to Manhattan by tram and subway (though F train service did not come to the island until 1989). Ultimately only phase one was implemented, and car-free didn’t take hold (though the island is essentially a one-road town — Main Street, supplemented by a few service roads), but the island flourished and is now home to approximately 12,000 people. Development continues, with a newly modernized tramway opening later this year and construction underway for the FDR Four Freedoms Park at the island’s southern tip.

One element of the masterplan that did get implemented — and the topic that piqued the interest of many of our meet-up attendees — is the island’s pneumatic trash system.  Juliette Spertus, architect, curator of Fast Trash! and subject of last week’s Omnibus feature, explained more about the history and implementation of this unusual trash collection system. Together with Jack McGrath, the exhibition’s curatorial assistant, and Marianne Lau, an architect who lives on Roosevelt Island, Juliette walked us around the island, stopping to let us see the infrastructure in action. First stop: Riverwalk, courtesy of Charlie, a maintenance supervisor, who showed us one of the residential complex’s chutes. Next stop: the waste transfer station, where we saw the remarkably unassuming entry point where the island’s two central tubes converge to deposit the trash of thousands and peered in through windows at the facility.

While walking along the waterfront, we caught sight of another project of interest to Omnibus readers: the tidal hydropower turbine project implemented by Verdant Power and Keyspan to harness the energy of the tidal estuary that is the East River.

We wrapped up the afternoon at the exhibition space itself, watching a sample Lamson airtube shoot a capsule over our heads and across the room, looking at archival documentation of New York City’s now-defunct pneumatic mail delivery system, and learning about past experiments and current advances in pneumatic waste management in cities around the world. Juliette, Adam Michaels of Project Projects, who designed and co-organized the exhibition, and other members of the exhibition team discussed the research and inspiration for the show and pondered issues surrounding waste management and consumption on a broader scale. Our nation consumes at an excessive rate, producing a similarly excessive waste stream, one that is whisked away to far-off landfills, making it easy for us to ignore or deny the larger impact our habits create. The relative invisibility of our waste management system, it was argued yesterday, might detract from our perception of individual accountability. Would a centrally-located, highly-visible waste disposal system encourage better practices? How can we learn from the infrastructure investments being made in places like Stockholm, Barcelona or Macau? Both Juliette and Judy also rallied for individual and community involvement on a local level. The existing system is reaching its limits, and those who support its modernization, potential expansion to incorporate recycling, or even exploration of the technology’s plausibility beyond the island must make their voices heard. Sound advice from a Sunday afternoon walking tour.

As always, thanks to everyone who came out to join us. Don’t miss our next event. Sign up for our weekly email, become a fan of Urban Omnibus on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter to keep up with the latest.

Judy Berdy of the Roosevelt Island Historical Society

Charlie, maintenance supervisor, Riverwalk.

Architect and Roosevelt Island resident Marianne Lau.

Project Projects' Adam Michaels and Fast Trash! curator Juliette Spertus.

Photos by Varick Shute or Cassim Shepard.

View of the AVAC facility control room with pneumatic tubes running overhead and the container switching area below. Photo by Kate Milford.

UO: How did this project start?

JS: I’m an architect by training, and worked for a while at architecture firms where projects involved plugging into existing mechanical systems that we couldn’t really adjust. The limitations were frustrating – and that’s true for a lot of projects that are renovation-based. I began thinking more about infrastructure, about the interface between architecture and infrastructure, and about how we relate these surface infrastructures that are so hard to visualize and are so important to how we experience and influence the environment – especially in cities.

My first idea was to create an infrastructure atlas for multiple cities. What has always been striking to me is that these systems are so complicated. It’s hard enough to understand them in just one place, but if you can’t observe how other places work, you will never know that there might be another way. I wanted to produce a massive atlas with real information, not a gloss, but simple enough to be understandable – almost like Allan Jacobs’ Great Streets for surface infrastructure.

I realized that such an ambitious project would be extremely difficult, so I decided to pick one area to focus on. I came across Kate Ascher’s book The Works and saw Roosevelt Island’s AVAC system and was immediately intrigued. I started doing more research into this pneumatic trash collection system and felt that it was the perfect opportunity to create the comparisons that interest me. In one city, we can see different ways of collecting garbage and learn from those differences.

An artist rendering of the view of the Queensboro Bridge from Roosevelt Island from the catalog for "The Island Nobody Knows" exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum in 1969. The exhibition presented the master plan for Roosevelt Island by architects Philip Johnson and John Burgee for the City of New York and the New York State Urban Development Corporation.

As I started spending more time on Roosevelt Island, I learned that it was the 40^th anniversary of the Johnson-Burgee master plan for the island. In the ‘60s and ‘70s, when the first phase of the plan was developed, it was an incredibly high-profile event. There was an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art sponsored by the Mayor, it was on the cover of Architectural Record – it was on people’s minds. But interest gradually faded (though the system has its place in history with Delirious New York) and now people tend to see it as architectural history or irrelevant. But to look at it from the perspective of infrastructure, and to see how we’re still trying to tackle many of the same issues, is fascinating and instructive. We’re basically looking at new town developments, which allow or invite an integrated approach to infrastructure and engineering since they start everything from scratch. Even though the ideas behind Roosevelt Island were different than the ideas behind some of the development projects today, there are similar means.

Map of the pneumatic tube network on Roosevelt Island as it is today. Map designed by Project Projects.

UO: Tell us more about Roosevelt Island’s trash disposal system. What is AVAC, how does it work and how did it come to be?

JS: The AVAC system is the Automated Vacuum Collection System. It was inaugurated in 1975 when the first development on Roosevelt Island opened and today it serves 12,000 inhabitants of the island. Garbage is deposited in a regular building garbage chute, which is gravity-fed, and piles up behind a valve at the bottom. With your average garbage chute, there is a compactor at the bottom that compacts the trash and puts it into bags that are then carried to the curb. Here, there is no compactor – there’s just a plate and a network of tubes that lead to a facility at the end of the island. Engineers at the facility turn the system on several times a day. It could be automatic, but they often run it manually. The valves open, the garbage drops in and is pulled back to the facility with an air speed of 60 miles per hour (the garbage itself, depending on the density, shoots through at 30-60 miles per hour). A cyclone separator then separates the heavy items from the light, after which a dust collector removes the dust from the air, and the all the garbage and dust drops into a compactor and is condensed into one of 10 containers in the facility that are then picked up by the Department of Sanitation. There are two parallel set-ups, one for the east side of the island and one for the west, which run alternately, and which also provide a redundancy that can act as a back-up if one system has a blockage.

There are only eight staff members that run the entire system, and the manufacturer thinks even that is excessive. They claim the AVAC system could be fully automatic with only a couple people needed to supervise. But the machinery is 35 years old, and one engineer we interviewed said it is held together with bailing wire and chewing gum. So for now there are three stationary engineers, two machinists, a stationary high-pressure plant tender and an oiler. They work two or three to a shift, which run from 6:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. It’s not round-the-clock but it is 365 days a year.

UO: How does this differ from the way that garbage is collected elsewhere in New York?

JS: Typically New York garbage trucks come to every address and pick up garbage from the curb. With high-rise buildings, they have containerized collection where a large container will be emptied by a roll-on/roll-off truck every so often. The main difference is that the pneumatic system removes that element of city streets. Roosevelt Island’s trash, once containerized, is taken to a transfer station where it is loaded onto a long-haul truck that goes to Pennsylvania or wherever the rest of the waste goes.

When Roosevelt Island was designed in 1968-9 and this system was first being explored, there was a huge garbage strike in New York City. There were nine days with no pick-up in the city. Many things that we take for granted now were in transition at that time – quantities of garbage produced were increasing, returnable bottles had ended and the 17,000 building incinerators that had processed trash for years were being removed from use due to environmental concerns, among other reasons, so suddenly all of that trash had to go out on the streets. There were riots in neighborhoods where there wasn’t sufficient trash pick-up. So when Roosevelt Island was being developed and the planners were exploring different options, they looked at the growth of garbage and the changes in how it was being processed and pneumatic collection made a lot of sense.

UO: What do you think this has to teach us about our attitudes towards infrastructure, in terms of both the system itself and also investments in large-scale systems, something we’re finding politically difficult at the moment.

JS: One goal I have with this exhibition is to give people a way of conceiving this system. Garbage collection is invisible. You see the trucks but you don’t see the logistics network and infrastructure. It’s very difficult to get a grasp on it, whereas with a park, a tram, a new building or a school, it’s very concrete – this is what it is and this is what we need to get there. Hopefully by showing how engineers, administrators, developers and planners worked with this, we encourage people to take and use some of those same tools or ask for more information. In the show we look briefly at what’s happening in other cities now – places like Stockholm, Barcelona and Macau. We’re planting the idea that this is something people can take on and creating a platform on which people can start discussions. Trash removal is such an essential service and we take it for granted.

Cover of a 1974 design competition booklet showing an aerial photo of Roosevelt Island after phase 1.

UO: In your opinion, how does the AVAC system reflect the planning philosophy that led to Roosevelt Island as we see it today?

JS: The Urban Development Corporation worked very quickly on the entire enormous project. They worked outside of zoning codes, outside of building codes, they were able to issue bonds, they worked with tools not accessible to most developers. If you read the engineering reports, you can see that they were casting a very wide net in exploring all sorts of alternatives. It was very socially engineered. There was an idea to disperse schools through the bottoms of all the buildings, allowing the kids to go freely from one building to another. They looked at alternative forms of transportation, including personal rapid transit, in which people could travel using individual monorail cars that they could move themselves. Of course they didn’t go that route – they decided to use shuttle buses – but they were really exploring. They started from zero and asked, “how do we achieve the goal of creating a better urban environment?” That approach is really refreshing.

Outside of Roosevelt Island, I discovered that there are two other pneumatic systems in the New York area. One is in Jersey City in a project that was part of “Operation Breakthrough,” a Nixon administration initiative by HUD to promote innovation and boost quality and economies in multi-family housing by bringing in industry and pre-fabrication. They picked about ten projects around the country, and one was a 500-unit apartment building in the Journal Square area of Jersey City. The pneumatic garbage collection system there was actually installed and operational before Roosevelt Island. I’m still trying to find out exactly what happened to that building, if it’s running now.

DSNY stationary engineer Lloyd Smith demonstrating how the cyclone separator is cleaned. Photo by Kate Milford.

UO: So it doesn’t require a huge economy of scale.

JS: No. It needs a certain density and there are situations in which it makes more sense than in others. The fact that the radius for a pneumatic system is very small (two miles or less) and the transfer stations process the waste from their own area gives both the responsibility and the control to the community. The Pratt Community Council has voiced interest in this topic. A student at Pratt has suggested a project on the Broadway Triangle in which they use pneumatic collection to direct waste for reprocessing within the community as a light industrial activity, as part of a larger project to empower the community. Some environmental justice groups in the city have expressed interest as well. Whether or not it actually makes sense to install a pneumatic system there, I don’t know. But it offers a way to look at how we move garbage around the city, what’s equitable and who’s responsible.


Juliette Spertus is an architect, writer and curator. Her work focuses on the relationship between architecture and infrastructure and the possibilities for public space. Fast Trash is her first infrastructure exhibition. She previously worked as a project architect for Michielli Wyetzner Architects in New York and as a designer at Utile, Inc. in Boston. She completed a BA in art history at Williams College and received her professional architecture degree from l’Ecole d’Architecture des Villes et des Térritoires à Marne-la-vallée near Paris, France.

What is the role of garbage collection in planning for dense urban environments?

What lessons can be learned from cities’ experiences with pneumatic collection?

Should installation of pneumatic systems be a priority for new development and retrofitting existing neighborhoods in New York?

FAST TRASH is an exhibition about the underground pneumatic garbage collection system in use on Roosevelt Island in New York City since 1975. We are so into this topic — exposing an innovative infrastructural system, exploring a fascinating New York city neighborhood, and speculating on what it might mean for the future of cities — that we are inviting all of you to come check it out in person at the first omnibus meet-up of 2010: save the date May 16th, 2pm on Roosevelt Island. [UPDATE: Complete info about the meet-up now posted here.] But first, this Thursday some of the issues that the exhibition brings to light will be discussed by a panel of international and local waste management experts and urban planners and designers.

FAST TRASH SYMPOSIUM: Garbage Collection and the Future of Cities

May 6, 2010 6 – 9pm

NYU Wagner School of Public Service

The Puck Building, The Rudin Family Forum for Civic Dialogue, 2nd Fl.

295 Lafayette Street, New York, NY 10012

Click here to RSVP.

The purpose of the panel is to open a dialogue around the role of garbage collection in the future of dense urban environments. Independent experts, planners and officials from cities in Europe and Canada experienced with underground waste transportation systems will describe the process and the context in which the decision was made.

The symposium is organized by Juliette Spertus, independent curator, and co-sponsored by the Urban Planning Department of NYU Wagner, the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation (RIOC) and Envac, manufacturer of the Roosevelt Island system, as part of the 40th anniversary celebration of the 1969 master plan for the Island.

SYMPOSIUM SCHEDULE:

6:00pm Session 1. City Presentations: Stockholm, London, Barcelona, Montreal

Introduced by Richard Anderson, President, NY Building Congress

Presentations by

Mike Youkee, Housing Expert and Development Consultant, London

Lovisa Wassbäck, Head of Waste Planning, Traffic Administration, Stockholm

Carlos Vazquez, Technical Director, Sanitation Department, Barcelona

Martin Maillet, Senior Project Manager for the City of Montreal

Put into perspective by Ken Greenberg, Architect and Urban Designer, Toronto

…
7:30pm Session 2. Panel Discussion

Introduced and moderated by Rosina Abramson, Vice President of Planning and Intergovernmental Affairs, Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation.

International experts of Session 1 are joined by NY officials

Suzanne Mattei, Director, NY State Dept. of Environmental Conservation, NYC Office

Steven Brautigam, Assistant Commissioner for Environmental Affairs, NYC Dept. of Sanitation

9pm Reception

…

FAST TRASH EXHIBITION ON ROOSEVELT ISLAND:

April 22 – May 23, 2010

Gallery RIVAA, 527 Main Street on Roosevelt Island

Hours: Wednesday and Friday 2pm-9pm and Saturday and Sunday 11am-5pm.

Web: www.fasttrash.org