Studio Reports

Design and Advocacy in the South Bronx

Nandini Bagchee shares her students' work to forge an equal exchange with activists fighting for community space in the South Bronx, in a studio where designers became advocates and advocates became designers.

Shelf Life

Architecture in the Basement

In the first installment of Shelf Life, Janet Parks, curator of the Avery Drawings and Archives at Columbia University, takes us through its architectural underworld, uncovering the collection's treasures.

Typecast: Row House

At Face Value

For our Typecast series, Rob Stephenson combs the city for the quirks, flourishes, and changing facades that make each row house unique.

Circulation Desk

If Developers Ruled the World ...

Introducing the Circulation Desk, a bimonthly snapshot of the urbanist titles that turn our gears. On Inauguration Eve, could four recent biographies of real estate giants deliver insight into the years ahead?

Codes of Conduct

Happy Birthday, zoning! The codes may have changed over 101 years, but as Andrea Renner and Eric Goldwyn explain, when it comes to how New Yorkers use zoning to advance their own visions of a perfect city, much remains the same.

Model Cities Redux

As the city makes moves to improve housing in Mott Haven, Susanne Schindler finds that current approaches bear a strong resemblance to long-forgotten efforts there.

Excavating the Farley

Margaret Morton goes behind the service window at the James A. Farley Post Office Building to decode the dust and uncover the history of this monumental building, now part of plans for a rejuvenated Pennsylvania Station.

City as Playground

Artist Julia Jacquette and writer James Trainor discuss Jacquette's graphic memoir, Playground of My Mind, digging into the sandbox of their memories and a critical chapter in the history of New York City's public spaces.

Typecast: Row House

The Magnate-Messiah of the Upper West Side

This week on Typecast, Allison Henry tells the tale of Clarence True, a 19th century architect-developer who believed he alone could save the row house from mundanity.

Typecast: Row House

The Row House Plays Itself

For our Typecast series, we look at the row house as costume, backdrop, and even a character in its own right in popular culture.