New City Critics

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.

New City Critics

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.

New City Critics

The Hottest Club

A contemporary "bathhouse" draws on ancient traditions to heighten experience, but is untethered from the more convivial aspects of bathing culture.

City Habitats

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.

New City Critics

No Rest for the Whimsy

Multiple spins on an elaborate underwater-themed carousel reveal the importance of wonder in the public realm.

New City Critics

A Resurrection

Behind the scenes of a DIY stalwart’s rebuild as it returns after ten years to a changed LES, and world.

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.