Architecture
More Than Skin Deep
Renovated facades provide a window into existential questions for the future of New York City’s public housing.
Perhaps a Lot of Our Future Is Behind Us
The interests of the powerful dominate our collective imagination; a visionary thinker prompts us to imagine justice in the here and now, with the tools we already have.
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?
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?
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.
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.
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.