TOPIC

History

Black Radical Weeksville

Jonathan Tarleton explores how the Weeksville Heritage Center is leveraging Crown Heights’ and Bed-Stuy’s storied pasts, local assets, and arts and culture to catalyze a community in the midst of shifting neighborhood dynamics.

Under Annihilation’s Sign: Public Memory and Prospect Park’s Battle Pass

On the 238th anniversary of the Battle of Brooklyn, Ben Nadler and Oksana Mironova delve into the ways its history is embedded in Prospect Park and explore different notions of how we memorialize tragedy.

Constantine Valhouli's Amateur Cartography

Lessons in Subway Archaeology

Henry Grabar joins subway historian Joseph Raskin on a tour of the G train, charting a history of proactive investment in infrastructure through the vestiges of uncompleted projects along its route.

Typecast: Towers in the Park

A Scheme on a Bluff: The View from Todt Hill Houses

In the third article in our Typecast series, Brad Fox travels to Staten Island's Todt Hill Houses and reminds us that amid debates on how design and policy can produce environments of opportunity, people are what ultimately make a place.

The Value of Land: How Community Land Trusts Maintain Housing Affordability

Oksana Mironova charts an alternative strategy to land ownership and property management that helps communities solve a broad range of problems — including widening inequality and decreasing community control over housing costs — that affect residents across the country.

Autopsy of a Hospital: A Photographic Record of Coler-Goldwater on Roosevelt Island

Photographer and architect Charles Giraudet documents the architecture of a sprawling hospital complex on Roosevelt Island on the eve of its demolition, and captures remnants of the life of the building and the innovative medical facility it once was.

Thirsty Borough: A Brief History of Brooklyn's Water System(s)

West of Nathan's: Planning Coney Island's Residential Community

Housing advocate Oksana Mironova investigates the planning policies and housing developments that have shaped the often-overlooked residential side of Coney Island and calls for investment in a neighborhood facing challenges of poverty, climate change, and affordability loss.

Typecast: Towers in the Park

Electchester: A City Made for Workers

Labor journalist Ari Paul visits Electchester, a Queens housing complex constructed by a labor union of electricians, and uncovers a history that provokes urgent questions about contemporary housing challenges.