Clearly, we’re not the only ones who think this is the coolest thing to hit our iPhones since Shazam. Coverage from the Times to BLDGBLOG has affirmed that these guys are onto something. As Cheng and Snyder discussed in last week’s feature:

iPhones and mobile devices are undoubtedly transforming the way we navigate the city. Apps like Google Maps and Urbanspoon put an unprecedented amount of information about the city at one’s fingertips. Most of these programs, however, are purely functional in purpose: they seek to clarify the city, to demystify and make it more legible. In contrast, we are interested in how mobile media can deepen and intensify urban experience, perhaps even introducing new pleasures and mysteries of the metropolitan condition.

Cheng and Snyder have built a new app that uses GPS technology to explore “how mobile media can deepen and intensify urban experience, perhaps even introducing new pleasures and mysteries of the metropolitan condition.” The app is called “Museum of the Phantom City,” and it turns the iPhone into an “architectural dousing rod.” As you wander the streets of New York, it shows a city that could have been — 50 architecture sites that never got built.

WNYC’s Soterios Johnson took the iPhone tour with Irene Cheng. They started off at Bryant Park, the site of a proposed airport. Take a listen to the tour:

Cheng and Snyder developed the app with the help of the Van Alen Institute — the beta version of the app is available for free on iTunes, and you can see the whole tour on their website.

On Saturday afternoon, come join us and WNYC’s culture department as Cheng and Snyder take us on a mid-town tour of some of the sites. If you don’t have an iPhone, we’ll pair you with someone who does. RSVP to culture@wnyc.org.

Urban Omnibus and WNYC Meet-up
Museum of the Phantom City
Saturday, October 31
2:00-4:00 p.m.
Meet at the Bryant Park Fountain (6th Avenue side)
Drinks and conversation to follow
RSVP to culture@wnyc.org or on Facebook

Atlantic Avenue – Pacific Street is a station where ten (ten!) subway lines converge. (Only nine come together at Times Square – 42^nd Street, the system’s busiest station). Don’t miss an opportunity – next Wednesday at 6:30 – to wander through the station with residents, subway station enthusiasts, and with a few special guests: environmental artist George Trakas, who made the hanging sculpture in the center of the station; critic and journalist Karrie Jacobs, a contributing editor to Metropolis and downtown Brooklyn resident, and the architect who conducted a major masterplan for the station’s renovation in the early 1990s, Fred Bland, managing partner at Beyer Blinder Belle, Architects & Planners LLP.

We’ll wander. We’ll check out some buskers. And we’ll talk about wayfinding, rationalizing rail platforms, what it meant to bring the BMT (letters) and the IRT (numbers) together, and what precedent the impending name change might set for the MTA. It’s the latest Omnibus / WNYC meet-up, in coordination with WNYC Culture’s excellent Door to Door series of commuter narratives and the related special focus on transit issues this month from both Brian Lehrer and Leonard Lopate.

Those of us who are lucky enough to live near Atlantic-Pacific are fond of getting to choose between the 2, 3, 4, 5, B, D, M, N, Q or R trains to get where we need to get on a daily basis. Trains from Atlantic-Pacific can take you to every corner of the city. And underground access to the LIRR provides easy access to Jamaica, Queens, to the rest of Long Island, or to JFK and the world beyond. We even got MoMA (and a certain buzz-generating masked man) to come to us.

And those journeys that terminate at the station also bring a diversity of urban options. Each exit brings you to a seemingly different city.

You can exit at the foot of the towering Willamsburgh Savings Bank, currently the tallest building in Brooklyn and recently converted from offices to high-end residential living, and then check out the cultural development of the BAM Cultural District, home to such institutions as the eponymous Brooklyn Academy of Music as well as the Mark Morris Dance Group, BRIC Arts | Media | Bklyn and UrbanGlass.

You can exit into the anonymous malls of the Atlantic Terminal and the Atlantic Center and stroll up to the charming streets of Fort Greene. Or you can head across Flatbush to an altogether different kind of retail experience: the Fulton Mall, one of the most popular shopping destinations in the five boroughs with an incredible concentration of early twentieth century department store architecture (check out the elevator bank at Macy’s).

You can exit at Pacific Street and 4^th Avenue, and wander among the stretch of Arab shops on Atlantic, or peer down the corridor of an upzoned 4^th Avenue, with its odd mix of new twelve story buildings, tire shops, fast food joints and old industrial real estate.

And then there’s, uh, Atlantic Yards.

Come join us as we tour the station and hang out next Wednesday. We’ll meet at the northwest corner of Pacific Street and 4th Avenue at 6:30 p.m. No reservations are necessary, but please email us if you plan on attending so we can estimate audience size. Bring your Metrocard.


Image by Flickr user LarimdaME.

Steven Jones lives 12 blocks from the Queens County border, in Cambria Heights — “the edge.” Even though it takes him longer than most to get into the city, he still leaves earlier than he needs to. He told us that he leaves at the crack of dawn to cut down on stress and the number of encounters with fellow commuters.

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.

Lifelong Concourse resident Sam Goodman, historian/raconteur/tour-guide-extraordinaire (not to mention urban planner with the Bronx Borough President’s office), then led us in and out of courtyards and lobbies, around corners and across streets, talking design, economics, culture, and history.  He is one knowledgeable dude.  Big thanks to Sam!

A selection of photos are posted below, but check out Flickr for more – please add yours if you came along! Just tag them urbanomnibus.

Thanks to everyone who came out!  Stay tuned for the next one. Sign up for our weekly email, become a fan on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter to make sure you don’t miss our invites and announcements.

Photos by Varick Shute

UPDATE: Unfortunately, mother nature did not have our walking tour on her calendar today.   Due to inclement weather, the potluck and walking tour of the Grand Concourse has been rescheduled for next Tuesday, June 16th.  The walking tour will begin at 6:30pm and the potluck dinner will start at 7:30pm — full details are below. We are going to create a new RSVP list for the event, so please email rsvp@designtrust.org to let us know if you can attend.  Thank you for your understanding and sorry for any inconvenience.   We hope to see you next week, in the Bronx!

The Grand Concourse: Walking Tour and Public Space Potluck
New Date: Tuesday, June 16th
Brought to you by Urban Omnibus, the Design Trust for Public Space, and WNYC

Walking Tour: 6:30pm
Meet at 171st Street on and the Grand Concourse (B train to 170th, exit the station at 171st street, north west side of the street).  Led by Deborah Marton, Executive Director of the Design Trust for Public Space, and lifelong Bronx resident Sam Goodman of the Bronx Borough President’s Office.

Public Space Potluck: 7:30pm
Meet at the statue in Joyce Kilmer Park, just north of 161st Street and the Grand Concourse. (4, B, D train to 161st St – Yankee Stadium).  Bring along some friends, and food and drink to share in this 107 year old park on the Grand Concourse.

RSVP for both events to rsvp@designtrust.org.  The walking tour will be limited to 50 guests, while the Potluck is open to all.

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In advance of next week’s Cityscapes meet-up on the Grand Concourse, I put in a call to Deborah Marton at the Design Trust for Public Space for a preview of what she’ll be talking about Tuesday evening on the boulevard. Here’s what she said: the role of design in the service of a healthier society.

That’s a big departure from your usual walking tour, with its entertaining tidbits and “on this spot” history. But it’s a shift that mirrors a broader change in thinking about the cityscape.

Architects, designers, urban critics and sociologists have been talking about it for years. More recently, politicians and bureaucrats, in New York especially, have caught on as well. The big idea is that streets, parks and plazas—public spaces—should not only be evaluated for their decorative qualities, nor how much traffic they manage to move. Instead, they should be measured for their very publicness: for their ability to be true living rooms of the city.

“Good public spaces can make people feel like they have room to experience who they are, but also feel connected to a larger culture,” Marton said.

Being in one, you don’t have to be a shopper (like at a mall), an athlete (like at a ball field), or belong to any race or class. In a good public space you can be most fully yourself—and so can everyone else.

But here’s the catch, to be addressed Tuesday evening: we’re talking about streets. Plain old streets. What’s exciting about the Design Trust’s competition, and the broader movement behind it, is that it sees enormous possibility the overlooked and taken-for-granted spaces of the city. And it sees a role for designers and architects in cultivating that possibility.

What does this mean for the Grand Concourse? That’s for the competition entrants to say, and it’s early yet. The finalists won’t be on display until this fall, at the Bronx Museum. Marton didn’t want to give too much away, but she did say this: the best schemes put people before cars. The medians got bigger and the access roads got smaller. (A few entries even took the idea to extremes, re-imagining the Concourse as a farm or a watery canal.) All of them recognized that there’s a lot to work with on the Grand Concourse. It is a street of history – and even more so of possibility.

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.

There were lots of cameras snapping away, ours included.  We’ve added some photos to WNYC’s Cityscapes Flickr group, and so should you.  Be sure to tag them urbanomnibus!

Andrea from WNYC recorded video testimonials of where people want to explore next. We’ll post a link as soon as those go up.  If you couldn’t make it – where do you want to go next? Leave your ideas in the comments below.

Thanks to everyone that came out for the event!  We had a blast, and can’t wait for the next one.

About a month ago we posted a video site tour of the Newtown Creek Nature Walk with artist and designer George Trakas. Something about this unexpected urban park struck a chord with many of you, so we, along with our friends at WNYC: Cityscapes, wanted to invite you to come explore it.

This Thursday, April 23^rd, at 6:00, Urban Omnibus is partnering with WNYC to bring you a guided tour of the Newtown Creek Nature Walk with its designer, environmental sculptor George Trakas. With stunning views of the city’s skyline and the surrounding industrial landscape, the tour will be an opportunity both to explore our changing cityscape and to reflect on it. Bring your walking shoes and digital cameras. Friday morning, post your photos to the Cityscapes Flickr group and tag them as urbanomnibus. The tour starts at 6:00 and will conclude at dusk.

Check in with us here on urbanomnibus.net for more information in the next few days. Also check in on the Cityscapes page at WNYC.org. If you have any questions, email us at info [at] urbanomnibus [dot] net or call us at 718 249 9348. The entrance to the Newtown Creek Nature Walk is accessible from at the end of Paidge Avenue in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, one and a half blocks east of McGuinness Boulevard. Click here for more details on directions to the site.

Come one and all.