By Emily Nonko, Wed, October 31, 2018 View from Domino Park, photo by Daniel Levin
Fresh off the news that the city will invest over $250 million to connect and green 32 miles of Manhattan waterfront, it’s become easier for New Yorkers to access the existing waterfront spaces open to the public. The Department of City Planning has just released the Waterfront Access Map, a tool to help you find one of the 200 open spaces situated along the city’s 520 miles of shoreline. It was released to mark the 25th anniversary of a 1993 zoning change that mandated public access to the city’s shoreline whenever a waterfront property is redeveloped.
Check out the map
By Dana Schulz, Mon, October 1, 2018 A previous rendering by Bjarke Ingels Group of ESCR, courtesy of the Mayor’s Office of Recovery & Resiliency
In July, Rebuild by Design released an RFP for a stewardship partner for the East Side Coastal Resiliency Project (ESCR), a reconstruction of the 64-acre, 1.5-mile East River Park, a flood protection system conceived in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. ESCR is the first of three phases in Bjarke Ingels’ Big U, a series of self-sufficient flood zones stretching from West 57th to East 42nd Streets. Under the city’s new mandate, construction on ESCR, which spans the loop from Montgomery Street on the Lower East Side to East 25th Street, will begin in spring 2020. Roughly 70 percent of the design will be updated, allowing flood protection to be in place one year earlier, by summer 2023, with the entire project wrapping up six months sooner. According to a press release from the Mayor’s Office, the updated $1.45 billion design will also “raise the entire East River Park, with the flood wall at the water’s edge integrated with the bulkhead and esplanade that does not obstruct views to the water.”
More details on the updated plan
By Michelle Cohen, Wed, September 19, 2018 “Breathing Wall” by Monika Bravo. Photograph courtesy of the artist via NYC Department of Cultural Affairs
On September 12, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs announced a search for applicants for a new pilot program called City Canvas, Archpaper reports. The program was designed to beautify New York City’s visual landscape by installing large-scale–and temporary–artwork on its endless construction fences and 270 miles of sidewalk sheds. The protective construction structures are an everyday eyesore for New Yorkers, but current building codes prohibit altering them. The City Canvas program circumvents that ban by allowing select artists and cultural institutions to add visual art to the visual affronts.
Find out more
By Michelle Cohen, Tue, September 18, 2018 Last week brought a sneak preview of the 16th annual Open House New York; the schedule for tours, events, and access to typically off-limits sites has been released. OHNY is happening on Friday, October 12, Saturday, October 13 and Sunday, October 14. Highlights include recently-opened sites like 3 World Trade Center, Domino Park and Pier 17, construction previews of 150 Rivington and Hauser & Wirth Gallery West 22nd Street and specially curated series like Works by Women, MAS 125, Factory Fridays and Open Studios. There’s also an event guide, interactive map showing where (“open access” only) sites and events are located throughout the five boroughs and an itinerary planner.
More about OHNY 2018 this way
By Michelle Cohen, Thu, September 13, 2018 If you love architecture and urban design from historic to contemporary, you’ll have already been looking forward to this year’s Open House New York! This much-anticipated and rare weekend of access to typically off-limits sites is now in its 16th year; this year’s OHNY will take place on Friday, October 12, Saturday, October 13 and Sunday, October 14. Thanks to partnerships with over 400 arts and cultural organizations, city agencies, architecture firms and others, OHNY Weekend will open more than 250 buildings and projects across the five boroughs for tours and talks with architects, urban planners, historians, preservationists, and civic leaders. OHNY has just released a sneak preview of the program, which includes recently-opened sites like 3 World Trade Center, Domino Park and Pier 17, construction previews of 150 Rivington and Hauser & Wirth Gallery West 22nd Street and specially curated series like Works by Women, MAS 125, Factory Fridays and Open Studios.
This way to see what’s on the list for OHNY 2018
By Michelle Cohen, Wed, September 12, 2018 Image: TF Cornerstone
Developer TF Cornerstone has released new details about public open space slated to be part of the proposed project spanning over 1.5 million square feet at 44th Drive on city-owned land along the Long Island City waterfront, LICpost reports. Known as the Long Island City Innovation Center, the proposed massive city-led development, which will need zoning changes in order to move forward, includes office, retail, and manufacturing space and two high-rise residential towers with over 1,000 units, 25 percent of which would be affordable. The latest news concerns the acre of publicly accessible open space that is also part of the controversial development. According to TF Cornerstone, this open space will become a waterfront park with a focus on resiliency and sustainability.
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By Devin Gannon, Wed, September 5, 2018 The largest state park in New York City will open next summer in Brooklyn and be named after Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Congress and a native of the borough. Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Wednesday that the first phase of the 407-acre park on Jamacia Bay will be completed in 2019. The site, formerly home to two landfills, will be converted into parkland with 10 miles of trails for hiking and biking, kayaking, picnic areas, educational facilities, an amphitheater and more.
Learn more
By Devin Gannon, Tue, September 4, 2018 Rendering via Perkins Eastman
As a solution to Manhattan’s growing gridlock, planning and design firm Perkins Eastman is proposing a physical redesign of New York City’s street grid. In a CityLab article penned by Jonathan Cohn, who leads the firm’s transportation and public infrastructure studio, and Yunyue Chen, the recipient of Perkin Eastman’s 2017 Architectural Fellowship for the Public Realm, they argue the city should “transform the streets radically, dedicating them to pedestrians.” This includes grouping blocks into larger neighborhoods and organizing them into either thoroughfares and local streets.
Get the details
By Devin Gannon, Fri, August 31, 2018 Rendering via BHA
A new study recommends building a cantilevered linear park to run along the Prospect Expressway in Brooklyn, akin to the High Line. Developed by students from NYU Wagner’s capstone program, PX Forward proposes ways to reimagine the 2.3-mile-long corridor, whose construction was led by Robert Moses between 1953 and 1962. As it stands today, the expressway cuts through neighborhoods like South Slope, Windsor Terrace, Greenwood Heights and Kensington, exposing residents to unsafe conditions due to high traffic and noise pollution.
More here
By Dana Schulz, Mon, August 27, 2018 We first learned about the proposal to turn Williamsburg‘s former Bayside Oil Depot into a public park nearly two years ago. Since then, co-founders Karen Zabarsky and Stacey Anderson have been working tirelessly with a team of designers and environmentalists to refine their plans to be something both true to the site’s history and representative of where the neighborhood is heading. Part of the larger Bushwick Inlet Park, a 28-acre open space along an unused waterfront industrial stretch, the plan is unique in that it plans to adaptively reuse the 10, 50-foot decommissioned fuel containers, transforming them into everything from performance spaces to greenhouses.
With a fresh name–THE TANKS at Bushwick Inlet Park–Karen and Stacey recently took 6sqft on an exclusive, behind-the-scenes tour of the abandoned site, giving us a glimpse into how this incredible industrial relic is poised to become NYC’s next anticipated park. Get a rare, up-close look at the tanks, hear what these powerhouse women have been up to, and learn what we can expect in the near future.
You won’t believe these photos
