TOPIC

Race

New City Critics

Building Worlds In-Between

Navigating multiple identities, homes, and professional cultures, where can Black urbanists locate an authentic, creative practice?

21st Century Monument

Where a controversial sculpture stood, a monument to Harriet Tubman offers a new narrative and new directions for creating sites of collective memory.

Turning the Tide

Where can queer and trans community flourish, if not at Riis Beach? Yet current plans for its future don't account for the people it has sustained for decades.

Well-Placed

Clinical Trials

A bygone experiment in community-focused mental healthcare — rooted in Harlem and the life experiences of its Black population — still holds valuable lessons for making “the good life,” and good feelings, truly accessible to all.

Arch-Conservative

Vito Battista’s journey from public architecture to right-wing politics is an echo of New York’s own cyclical, reactionary tides — and a reminder of how closely the city's politics are tied to the fate of its urban fabric.

Unjust Treatment

The geography of methadone treatment in New York City follows familiar patterns of discrimination, while clinics subject patients to punishment, not rehabilitation. Does this one kind of medicine need its own space in the first place?

Burial Rights

Organizers in Flatbush are fighting for the preservation of an African burial ground — to honor the dead, and protect a living community's future.

Withdrawn Waters

The balance between New York City's public and private pools has shifted dramatically in recent decades. Why has so much city swimming retreated into towers or behind fences?

Memory Loss

Roots of Memory

Less conspicuous and permanent than statues or sculptures, New York City’s memorial trees register histories that are personal, passed over, or in progress, from intimate loss to climate catastrophe.

Swim Lessons

Pools are sites for recreation and fun. But as much as any public space in New York, they also carry the weight of the city's complex histories of race and place.