irishboyinlondon

Looks topical! The film examines the conflicts between politicians, developers and communities when it comes to issues such as property development, economic growth, jobs, regeneration, gentrification and community!

dominoeffectmovie:

We are proud to present a sneak peek at The Domino Effect. Coming Soon

The Domino Effect is a documentary film that explores the process of real estate development in New York City. The film digs deep to uncover the complex networks of banks, developers, politicians, and non-profit organizations that shape our cities. During the last decade, the North Brooklyn communities of Williamsburg & Greenpoint, have experienced the negative impacts of excessive luxury development and gentrification, more than any other neighborhood in NYC. Told through the voices of longtime residents, this film conveys the personal impact of real estate development in their community while shedding light on issues encountered by residents of cities across the country. Will your neighborhood be the next to fall? Full release Summer 2012.

03/23/12

Esquire: Janette Sadik-Khan: Urban Reengineer

Photo:Olugbenro Ogunsemore via Esquire

A great piece on NYC DOTs, Janette Sadik-Khan in Esquire at the moment as part of The Brightest: 16 Geniuses Who Give Us Hope …

Whereas most city officials and past DOT commissioners would have insisted on capital funds for something like, say, a bike lane, Sadik-Khan teases them out on the cheap. When you use capital funds for a project, you need approval from a few different places, and it takes months, sometimes years. So she takes a bunch of guys already painting double lines and gets them to dot a bike lane with the extra paint. Where she wants a plaza to swallow a car lane, she convinces abutting stores and the local business-improvement chapter to pay for the cleaning and to take the chairs and tables in every evening and set them out every morning. She tells them that shutting down the street will actually help their business, the way it did in Times Square. She shows them the numbers and where once they may have been against her, suddenly they are footing her bill. She doesn’t even need to check in with Bloomberg. Like a high school a cappella group trying to get to Ibiza for spring break, Sadik-Khan finds money between seat cushions. She uses her guile and glamour to get what she needs, craftily but lawfully.

More downright rebelliously, she sometimes circumvents the community by experimenting with test swatches called pilots, like little harbingers of the future. With a pilot change, you don’t necessarily need community permission, since the idea is that you may end up just taking it down. For example, with the DUMBO parklet, a past commissioner might have educated the residents first, tried to get them to buy into the plan. But it takes months to convince a neighborhood to agree to a change. Instead, she just painted. She did the same thing in the Meatpacking District, when she drummed up a plaza next to the Apple store, and again on Willoughby Street in Brooklyn. She’s figured out a quiet way to get her way without getting the pesky public in her face.

11/21/11

NYC's Mayor Bloomberg: Urban innovation depends on mayors with both clear ambitions and autonomy

Interesting interview with Mayor Bloomberg where he talks about urban innovation and the need for more local city autonomy.

“The public,” Bloomberg says, “insists, and arguably has a right to insist, that it knows where its money’s going. [They] have a very high expectation of results.” He is talking about how the government spends its funds. “That is not the way innovation works. Innovation—the essence of innovation—is you don’t know what you’re going to build, what it’s going to be called, how much it’s going to cost. You cannot use public monies unless you can answer virtually every one of those questions, which is why government tends not to innovate. The public wants that accountability in advance, that justification in advance. But that’s not going to work for certain things.”… As Bloomberg sees it, urban innovation depends on mayors with both clear ambitions and autonomy. Also, improvement and measurement are often one and the same. New York, Bloomberg offers by way of example, is halfway to its goal of planting a million trees. The energy needed for air-conditioning has fallen after a citywide program to paint rooftops white, which can reduce energy costs for buildings by between 10% and 50%. He rattles off more facts: Crime has fallen, even with fewer police on the street. After being closed to traffic, Times Square is teeming with tourists at 11 p.m….

09/15/11

New York Times: Central Park Has 1,500 New Ways to Say Keep Off, or On, the Grass

Central Park gets a new look!

Central Park presented a new face this weekend to visitors who arrived as Tropical Storm Irene made its way up the coast:

Titling Gothic.

That is the typeface used on more than 1,500 new signs that have sprouted around the park this summer, as the Central Park Conservancy tries to stake an ever-stronger claim in the public’s eye to the 843 acres of parkland under its management.

The appearance of white Titling Gothic letters on a sprightly yellowish-green background is supposed to convey more of an informal than a dictatorial stance. Except, of course, when a tropical storm is coming.

“Park signs are traditionally prohibitive — a lot of ‘Don’t do this, don’t do that,’” said Douglas Blonsky, president of the Central Park Conservancy. “The primary purpose of our new signs is to help visitors have as rich an experience as possible in the park – we’re telling them: ‘Do this! Try this!’”

08/30/11

Cities in Focus | New York City

New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Department of Transportation are on a mission to make the Big Apple the “greatest, greenest big city in the world” by ramping up bicycle infrastructure across the city, introducing bus rapid transit to the Bronx, and pedestrianizing Times Square, among other bold transportation initiatives.

10/6/10

SoHo New York - Mixed Use, Density and the power of the Myth

Interesting article on the emergence of SoHo - interesting piece about myth building in cities

08/30/10

“

A poem compresses much in a small space and adds music, thus heightening its meaning. The city is like poetry: it compresses all life, all races and breeds, into a small island and adds music and the accompaniment of internal engines. The island of Manhattan is without any doubt the greatest human concentration on earth, the poem whose music is comprehensible to millions of permanent residents but whose full meaning will always remain elusive.

Excerpt from “Here is New York” by E.B. White

08/30/10

Restoring New York Streets to Their Cobblestone Pasts!

Interesting article in the New York Times…Im not an avid conservationist but I like this! Cobbles add subtle texture to a street and its surrounding environment! As long as they are laid properly they are just as good as concrete!

In the mid-to-late 19th century, cobblestones began to be phased out as a primary material, in favor of less expensive concrete. Much of the city’s old surface has been dismantled, or paved over. But the current reconstruction projects provide cobblestone a second life, in some cases, even giving observant passers-by a living history lesson.

07/19/10

Amazing tiltshift, timelapse video of life in New York entitled ’The Sandpit’ which was directed and compiled by Sam O’Hare.

Its amazing what humans have evolved and built since our very first settlements! Some great urban scenes in it as well!

northwestfive:

Just found this amazing video. Makes me looking forward to my next NYC visit in October so much.

06/20/10

The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation’ proposal for historic district designation! Really interesting reading!

06/18/10

New Yorks Green Spaces - State of the City’s Housing & Neighborhoods

Interesting reading in the New York Times!

This spring, the New York University Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy released its annual housing report, which included a study on the proximity of residential buildings to parks in New York City. In 2000, the report said, 93.7 percent of Manhattan’s housing units were within a quarter mile of a park. But of the housing that was built between 2000 and 2008, only 70.2 percent was within that distance of a park.

See more here and read the actual report here

Whilst access to green space is of paramount importance in urban areas, it is also critically important that we examine how we use other public spaces such as squares, lots and streets so that we exploit them to their fullest potential and really create a vibrant urban city. See some examples of ingenuity here

06/4/10

Pioneer of Urban Farming in New York retires

John Ameroso, who has helped New Yorkers raise food to feed themselves since 1976, is retiring.

05/28/10

Manhattan subway map is getting a redesign!!

05/28/10

Empire Diner in New York has closed!

This really is sad news! My partner and I visited it one Sunday morning in December 2009 on a trip to New York. It had the most lovely neighbourhood feeling! It was warm, welcoming and judging by the interaction between the people eating there, completely jammed with locals. The waiters were really friendly and interactive and the food was scrummy. It will be a loss to that part of the city if not the city as a whole! Its depressing to hear about local places being shoved out for corporate landlords.

http://empire-diner.blogspot.com/

http://www.observer.com/2010/culture/end-empire

05/20/10

Amazing! Its on my to do list to see now!

05/10/10

irishboyinlondon

Esquire: Janette Sadik-Khan: Urban Reengineer

New Yorks Green Spaces - State of the City’s Housing & Neighborhoods

Empire Diner in New York has closed!

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