Arts
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.
Finding New York in West Side Story
How did a musical that contains virtually nothing of New York come to represent the city?
When John Lindsay Gave New York to the World
How Mayor John Lindsay turned the city into a set, and a set piece.
The Tension and the Glory of Subway Poetry
Fred Hill recounts the history of poetry on the Tube and the Subway — and argues that the presence of verse means different things to Londoners and New Yorkers.
Untrashed: The Incredible Gallery of New York City Garbage
Retired sanitation worker Nelson Molina has collected and curated thousands of things New Yorkers threw away. A photo essay by Lana Barkin.
A Wanderer in the Unwired City
Presenting the second of two runners-up in our As Seen On [ ] writing competition: Nick Tobier's Uzbek flâneur narrates the theater of urban space to consider the effects of ubiquitous digital connection on people, buildings, and, of course, rodents.
Beleaguered Backstage
Presenting one of two runners-up in our As Seen On [ ] writing competition: in an era of co-everything and economies supposedly based on sharing, Andrew Renninger asks what becomes of our cities when there are so few places to be alone.
The Wandering Women
Presenting the winner of our As Seen On [ ] writing competition: Maya Sorabjee takes us to Bombay, where the intersection of loitering and gender potently demonstrates why occupation of physical and digital space is still a radical act.