We met through Twitter and had our first real conversation for a podcast. What a world! Eric Miller is passionate about creating great and healthy cities and other communities, and so am I. He is the editor/publisher of The New Colonist, a site where he and Richard Risemberg chronicle the return of many from life [...]
Entries Tagged as 'historic preservation'
Mindful Walker: A Chat With New Colonist
June 19th, 2009 · 2 Comments · Be a Mindful Activist, Explore New York
Tags: architecture·cities·Coney Island·historic preservation·Pittsburgh·smart growth·suburbs
Teach-In Set at Underground RR House
May 26th, 2009 · 2 Comments · Explore New York
In the mid-19th century, runaway slaves found protection in an Underground Railroad “safe house” on West 29th Street in New York, as they fled northward to freedom. A century and a half later, a group of Bronx high school students plan to take a journey of their own in defense of this house. The students, [...]
Tags: architecture·historic preservation·landmarks·manhattan·midtown·new york·women
Sparks Over an Underground Railroad Site
May 11th, 2009 · 2 Comments · Explore New York
Is the architectural and historical integrity of a New York City mid-19th century row house that served as a “safe house” for the Underground Railroad during the Civil War being imperiled again? Neighbors and local historic preservationists certainly believe so, and they’re again fighting to stop construction at the Hopper-Gibbons House, at 339 W. 29th [...]
Tags: architecture·historic preservation·landmarks·new york·women
Thirty-Minute Tour: Bowling Green
May 3rd, 2009 · 2 Comments · Explore New York
Stand in Bowling Green Park in New York City and look around at the park and the buildings on its perimeter. At one time or another over the centuries here, Native American tribes gathered in council, men and women bought tickets for ocean passage in a couple of the nearby buildings, and John D. Rockefeller [...]
The Place That Powered the Subway Lines
March 29th, 2009 · 4 Comments · Explore New York
Its architecture and ornate decoration reflect the City Beautiful movement, in which public buildings were expressions of a city’s beauty, order, and harmony. Yet it had a belly-of-the-beast interior containing massive boilers, conveyors, engines, steam pipes, and seven bunkers capable of holding up to 18,000 tons of coal. The Interborough Rapid Transit (IRT) Company Powerhouse [...]
Tags: architecture·cities·historic preservation·manhattan·midtown·new york·terra cotta
Wal-Mart’s Threat to a Historic Battlefield
December 23rd, 2008 · 2 Comments · Beyond Gotham
Recently, a bankruptcy expert told a Bloomberg Radio interviewer that the United States is “over-stored” – it has far too much retail space than is needed to serve American consumers. Amidst the holiday shopping blitz, I thought of this observation as I read this week of the plans by Wal-Mart to construct a new 141,000-square [...]
Manhattan’s Dyckman Farmhouse
December 15th, 2008 · 8 Comments · Explore New York
In a world where teens hang out for hours in their bedrooms playing video games and a household may have three or four computers and several TVs, consider the parlor of Jacobus Dyckman. In the early 19th century, Dyckman’s family, servants, and one slave – up to 10 people – would likely have confined many [...]
Still Missing McHale’s
November 30th, 2008 · 23 Comments · Explore New York
In some ways, buildings are like people. They have a birth and a prime of life. As they age, they either wear well or not. They’re either cherished and well cared for, or neglected. The lives of some buildings are cut short way too soon. Others seem to thrive year upon year upon year. Still [...]
Tags: cities·historic preservation·manhattan·midtown·new york·taverns
