It was on the perimeter of a legendary slum that back then fit its name, Hell’s Kitchen. Yet it was conceived and designed by men in suits who believed that fine, grand civic buildings served to reflect the great accomplishments and ambitious aims of a city crossing a threshold. The Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) [...]
Entries Tagged as 'new york'
Taking In the Subway’s Old Powerhouse
August 10th, 2009 · 4 Comments · Be a Mindful Activist, Explore New York
Tags: architecture·cities·historic preservation·manhattan·midtown·new york·terra cotta
The Glories of New York’s Stoopscapes
July 27th, 2009 · 2 Comments · Explore New York
Like other city dwellers, New Yorkers follow the progress of the days and seasons on the details of the buildings and structures around them, from the rosy-pink and golden light of dusk upon the brick and stone to the melting of snow on window sills or the glint and angle of sunrise caught between two [...]
Tags: architecture·art·historic preservation·museums·new york
New York’s Great Sunset Spots: Pier 84
July 17th, 2009 · 4 Comments · Explore New York
Several children splash through the dancing waters of an interactive fountain, a guitarist plays at P.D. O’Hurley’s bar, a woman points out a gargoyle in the flower garden to her toddler daughter, and dogs and humans socialize at the dog run. A man lies on a landing, with his khaki-dressed legs draping over the steps, [...]
A Summer Walk at the Irish Memorial
July 10th, 2009 · 3 Comments · Explore New York
“Could it be possible that a landscape might have a deep friendship with you? That it could sense your presence and feel the care you extend towards it?” John O’Donohue Beauty: The Invisible Embrace If we are blessed with such kinship, then the Irish Hunger Memorial is a place of its embrace. This small. lush [...]
Tags: landscape architecture·manhattan·meditations·nature·new york·spiritual places·stone
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 [...]
Earth Day in New York: 1970 and 2009
April 22nd, 2009 · 6 Comments · Explore New York
John Lindsay was mayor of New York. It was the spring of 1970, when the United States was bogged down in a far-off land in the Vietnam War and divided at home, labor strikes roiled the country, and the Beatles officially broke up. On April 22, 1970, 39 years ago, a spirit of passion, anger, [...]
Tags: green energy·nature·new york
Springtime at the Irish Hunger Memorial
April 15th, 2009 · 1 Comment · Explore New York
New York City may seem like a curious place to go looking to see gorse, the small shrub that thrives in rural fields and along hillsides, its yellow flowers rippling across the countryside in spring. But there’s at least one sure place I’ve enjoyed the sight of it in New York – the Irish Hunger [...]
Tags: landscape architecture·manhattan·nature·new york·spiritual places
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
Wanna Buy an Art Deco Gem? Ask AIG
March 20th, 2009 · 9 Comments · Explore New York
When corporate kingdoms fall, they often lose their castles. That may well be the case with AIG. The bailout-dependent conglomerate that has made “bonus rage” a media catchphrase said Wednesday that it’s considering the sale of its legendary 66-story headquarters at 70 Pine Street in Lower Manhattan, Bloomberg confirmed. Like other assets that the American [...]
Coney Island’s Off-Season Vibe
March 8th, 2009 · 2 Comments · Explore New York
Scrawled on the cornice of a dilapidated building on Coney Island’s Surf Avenue is “Shore Hotel. Nature’s Paradise By the Sea.” But paradise this isn’t. On Coney Island’s main thoroughfare, it sits in the midst of a mish-mash of garish-colored patches of buildings, “Stores for Lease” signs, boarded-up windows, and neon that heralds “Eldorado Auto [...]
Tags: Brooklyn·cities·Coney Island·new york
Whose Dreams Will Revive Coney Island?
February 27th, 2009 · 47 Comments · Be a Mindful Activist, Explore New York
Say the words “Coney Island” to New Yorkers, especially of a certain age, and you may well get a dreamy kind of pause and a vivid memory: feeling the sensation of a drop on the Cyclone roller coaster, seeing the steel top on the gigantic Parachute Jump from the distance, riding the fast Steeplechase horses, [...]
Vertical Cities: Hong Kong and New York
January 29th, 2009 · 8 Comments · Explore New York
Sometimes in a sea of numbers, it takes just one stat to astound you into getting the picture: In one of the New Towns of Hong Kong, Tseung Kwan O, some 350,000 people live within four square miles. They live in towers that vary from 57 to 62 stories. Here’s another stat: 80 percent of [...]
Tags: architecture·Asia·cities·international·manhattan·museums·new york
Winter Colors in Central Park
December 6th, 2008 · 3 Comments · Explore New York
For the eyes that glory in autumn’s rich, awe-inspiring colors or spring’s bright exuberance, winter may feel like the ho-hum season, one big letdown. To many, it’s “dreary” winter, a time to hunker down inside and hang on until the color in the Northern climes “returns” to the trees, bushes, and flowerbeds come spring. Yet [...]
Tags: Central Park·nature·new york·seasons
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
How to Stay Merry Before Christmas
November 23rd, 2008 · 2 Comments · Explore New York
Ah, the lovely holiday season in New York City is upon us. It means bright, colorful lights, enchanting holiday windows, the Rockefeller Center tree, the smell of pine in front of your corner deli…and gridlock. We’re talking vehicle gridlock and people gridlock. That’s exactly what happens in New York as Thanksgiving rounds into the crazed, [...]
Tags: Central Park·cities·holidays·midtown·museums·nature·new york
Bowery Savings: The World in a Building
November 11th, 2008 · 24 Comments · Explore New York
Tinos green marble is a vivid green-blue with wide white veins, mined from the quarries of a small mountainous Greek island in the Aegean Sea. Briar Hill sandstone is an earthy stone of warm red, rust, brown, and buff-colored tones taken from quarries in Glenmont, Ohio. Missouri is the source of Napoleon gray marble, while [...]
Tags: architecture·art·landmarks·manhattan·midtown·new york·stone
Pecks and the City: My Sparrow Friends
November 2nd, 2008 · 2 Comments · Explore New York
Birders glory in having spotted a Tennessee warbler in Central Park, and I would, too, if I was fortunate and plucky enough to see one. But day-to-day, this New Yorker exults in the sparrows of Hell’s Kitchen. They chirp and call locally outside our apartment window every morning. Happily, it seems. Sparrows are to 6 [...]
Tags: birds·Central Park·manhattan·nature·new york
