What Becomes a Legend Most?
A redeveloped Rockefeller Center draws tourists from around the globe as well as locals to a place that feels, surprisingly, authentically New York. How are its owners stewarding the storied complex into a second century?
Browse
On the City Stage
A modest, mid-block midtown building repurposed as a municipal arts center, City Center represented a monumental effort to support a program of arts for all. But how much can a building achieve?
Criticism as an Act of Love
Hyperlocal settings frame larger phenomena including stormwater management, the politics of place names, ersatz infrastructure, the tyranny of private property, and other signs of the never-ending change that characterizes the city.
The Inside Story
Images of public housing interiors decorated with love and care preserve family memories and public history, and document style as an act of resistance.
What Colors Are the Crabgrass?
New books chronicle US suburbs' divergence from their mythical origin scenes of verdant lawns and white picket fences — and detail how social struggles have always been part of their story.
Bus Time
Slow moving and overstuffed, the public bus is also a space of communion, curiosity, and solidarity for residents on the city's margins.
What's in a Gateway?
Plans for Chinatown placemaking have long called for a sculptural archway. Can this invented tradition reflect the diversity of social and cultural life in Chinatown today?
Two High School Activists
With school buildings ill-equipped to face the climate crisis, students advocate for retrofits and greener, healthier buildings.
News from Home
Reported from the imaginations of those on the front lines of New York City's housing struggles, a newspaper from the future brings tidings of homes for all.
Meet the 2024-2025 New City Critics Fellows
New City Critics fellows — architects, journalists, artists, a city planner and a rapper among them — will be training a critical gaze on New York City over the next nine months.
Long Island is Bugging Me
A disquisition into the urban/suburban and human/insect divides, and how people might come together when their surroundings are planned to keep them apart.
How to Map New York City
A lot of art and a little science went into representing fifteen years of Urban Omnibus stories on a map of New York City.
Everybody Should Be Honored
A rare combination of collective art project, community celebration, and environmental protest, the Hunts Point Fish Parade honors residents of the Bronx neighborhood and mobilizes them in the fight for its future.
Design and Deploy
To temporarily transform public space, Street Lab's lending library of outdoor furniture is designed to stand up to regular travel, extreme heat, and children's imaginations.
Stay in Your Lane
More than just red paint and white text, political maneuvers and enforcement strategies are key elements in the design of the city’s bus lanes.
Why Aren't All Playgrounds For All Children?
Forty years after its inauguration, there is still much to learn from a mold-breaking NYC playground that provided space for disabled kids to play alongside their non-disabled peers.
Building Solidarity
Workers across the building trades talk about what it takes to construct a just transition to a sustainable economy.
Watch This Space
Over two decades of twists and turns and promises unmet, one journalist has been keeping a close eye on the saga of Atlantic Yards.
All-Access Art
What makes an inclusive museum? Art institutions are reassessing their buildings and their budgets to meet the moment.
On Island Time
As tides and storms bring big changes to the cityscape, what landmass is most likely to become New York's next island?
Road Warrior
In the Bronx, a parks steward and activist takes on the campaign of a lifetime.