New City Critics

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.

Shelf Life

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.

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.

The Green Shift

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.

Behind the Curtain

Massage parlor storefronts along New York City streets are an invitation to wellbeing . . . and suspicion. Red Canary Song reframes these spaces for intimate bodywork in terms of care, healing, and survival.

Make Yourself at Home

Three researchers explore how queer, Black, and undocumented communities subvert and transcend dominant norms and forms of housing in New York City.