The Artist Is Present
What happens when artists embed within city government? For ten years, New York’s Public Artists in Residence have been building bridges and breaking down walls between the civic and the public.
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Nooks and Crannies
Local birds evicted from their usual habitats find themselves nesting and hunting atop skyscrapers, power lines, and traffic lights.
Safer Spaces
With the new mayor promising to deliver “community safety,” one well-established city program charts a path through new public spaces and long-needed repairs at the city’s most under-resourced NYCHA developments.
New City Critics 2025-2026: Object Lessons with Anna Kodé and Oliver Wainwright
Join the New City Critics on March 4, 2026 for a conversation with Anna Kodé & Oliver Wainwright.
Designing Mamdani’s New York
At the start of a new mayoral administration promising an urban transformation, eight practitioners discuss architecture’s role in shaping the social democratic city.
Heat Islands
While hibernation and migration are the norm, some animals stay in the city for winter, seeking out opportunities in the heat we generate.
Where's My Package?
Amazon’s logistical network is as extensive as it is abstruse. To get a sense of its scale, we reconstruct the regional distribution system, one order at a time.
Wonder is All Around Us
Ordering pad thai on an iPad in the muzak of a takeout food chain created in the pressure cooker of the post-pandemic economy.
The Future, Encapsulated
With a fragment of the Tokyo Nakagin Capsule Tower preserved for posterity, a MoMA exhibition provides more than one perspective on planned obsolescence.
Signs of Change
Posting the experiences of shelter residents and staff in the public realm, artist Alex Strada creates a walking meditation on the right to housing.
The Hottest Club
A contemporary "bathhouse" draws on ancient traditions to heighten experience, but is untethered from the more convivial aspects of bathing culture.
Medieval Times
The MTA’s latest military-inspired tactics to curb fare evasion may be fighting the wrong enemy.
Good Food
At an experiment in collective dining, sitting between food justice and conspicuous consumption
What Goes Around
A high-volume transfer station, a model municipal soil bank, and a cutting-edge soil washer: Three area sites illustrate the values, costs, and benefits that shape the flow of recycled soil in and around the city.
Fighting Fire
In the 1970s, a wave of arson caused widespread damage to the Bronx and the tenants who called it home. What brought a decade of fire to an end?
The Reefs Beneath the Piers
Where maritime industry once thrived, and where a tunnel was thwarted, New York’s submarine species make homes in the shadow of waterfront development.
The Future of Infrastructure and Place
What is the path forward to contend with historic and contemporary harms of urban highways across the country, and to honor the needs and desires of contemporary residents? Insights from a conversation on the Cross Bronx, the BQE, and the road to more just transportation infrastructures.
The Midnight Shift
A small task force listens in on an obscure city soundtrack to maintain a century-old water system.
From Creek to Fountain
Polluted and repressed, the buried streams of Flushing Creek will once again see the light of day.
No Rest for the Whimsy
Multiple spins on an elaborate underwater-themed carousel reveal the importance of wonder in the public realm.
Can’t We Have Both?
A very short story debates two long-term visions for vital infrastructure in Queens.
Funeral for Fish
At one of the country’s largest food distribution hubs, a logistical choreography keeps our fish fresh.
A Resurrection
Behind the scenes of a DIY stalwart’s rebuild as it returns after ten years to a changed LES, and world.
Life Beyond Line Items
To get the city we deserve, New Yorkers must be active participants in its governance. What spaces and methods can help us build democratic muscle and demand moral budgets?
Unsettled Ground
The city’s construction projects don’t just rise skyward. They dig downward, displacing massive amounts of material whose journey in and out of the city few ever see.