Search Results for: brooklyn history

How New Yorker Howard Bennet fought to make Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a national holiday

Martin Luther King Jr. at the 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington, D.C. via Wiki Commons

April 4, 2018

How New Yorker Howard Bennet fought to make Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a national holiday

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Fifty years ago, on April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was shot as he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. This ended the life of one of the 20th century’s most revered and influential figures. It also began a 15-year campaign to make Dr. King’s birthday a national holiday — the first-ever honoring an African American. That successful quest began with and was spearheaded by a native son of Greenwich Village, Howard Bennett. Bennett was one of the last residents of a Greenwich Village community known as “Little Africa,” a predominantly African-American section of the neighborhood which was, for much of New York’s history through the 19th century, the largest and most important African-American community in the city. That neighborhood centered around present-day Minetta, Thompson, Cornelia, and Gay Streets.
Learn more here
De Blasio is considering a vacancy tax for landlords who leave their storefronts empty

Photo via Dan Nguyen/Flickr

April 2, 2018

De Blasio is considering a vacancy tax for landlords who leave their storefronts empty

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In the "it's about time" department, the New York Post reports that Mayor Bill de Blasio is considering a tax that would discourage retail landlords from letting their properties sit vacant, depriving potential local businesses of opportunity while giving the middle finger to neighborhood morale. Addressing the rising number of vacant storefronts in just about every neighborhood in the city, the mayor said Friday on WNYC that he would like to see a penalty in place for landlords who leave storefronts sitting unoccupied, presumably waiting for big-ticket tenants who have yet to materialize.
Find out more
Underground moving sidewalks were NYC’s transit plan of the future at the turn of the 20th century

Photos courtesy the New York Public Library’s Digital Gallery

March 30, 2018

Underground moving sidewalks were NYC’s transit plan of the future at the turn of the 20th century

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As the city currently tackles a plethora of issues with its public transit system, New Yorkers have been presented with no shortage of innovations to make commuting (hopefully) better. Take a look back at the turn of the 20th century, though, and the moving sidewalk was considered the future of urban transportation. According to Gizmodo, "The moving sidewalk represented a bold new vision for tomorrow... This idea of rolling pavement appealed to people in major cities who didn't yet see the rise of the automobile as inevitable and were looking for an affordable alternative to more elaborate infrastructure like subway trains." In 1903, an article in Harper's Weekly said that moving sidewalks were the perfect solution for the city to tackle congestion issues that would arise with new bridge connections bringing people from Brooklyn into New York City.
They would move at 9MPH
Three historic East Harlem buildings designated as New York City landmarks

Photos via LPC

March 27, 2018

Three historic East Harlem buildings designated as New York City landmarks

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The city's Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) on Tuesday officially designated three East Harlem buildings as individual landmarks, marking them as some of the neighborhood's most culturally significant structures. The landmarks include a former 19th-century meatpacking house and two former public schools. The LPC chair, Meenakshi Srinivasan, said the buildings were designated for their architectural and cultural significance. "They embody East Harlem's unique development history and recognize the civic institutions and businesses that helped shape the lives of the neighborhood's immigrant groups," Srinivasan said in a statement.
More here
Carole Teller’s ‘Changing New York’ captures the city’s 20th-century transformation

Washington Square Arch wrapped by artist Francis Hines, 1980 © Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation/Carole Teller

March 26, 2018

Carole Teller’s ‘Changing New York’ captures the city’s 20th-century transformation

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Change in New York is an expected norm, sometimes so constant it almost goes unnoticed. It’s such an ingrained part of the New Yorker’s experience, we often forget just how much our city has transformed, and what we have left behind. To help us remember, we have Carole Teller. A Brooklyn-born artist who’s lived in the East Village for over 50 years, Carole’s also a photographer with a keen eye for capturing defining elements of New York’s cityscape, especially those on the verge of change or extinction. Fortunately for us, Carole kept the hundreds of pictures she took scouring the streets of NYC between the early 1960s and early 1990s. She recently unearthed them and shared them with the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation for inclusion in its online Historic Image Archive. What follows are just a few photos from what we call “Carole Teller’s Changing New York.”
See some of the most captivating photos
Ditmas Park house featured in ‘Futurama’ asks $2.2M
March 26, 2018

Ditmas Park house featured in ‘Futurama’ asks $2.2M

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In addition to being an enchanting single-family home with a big front porch and a garage, this Ditmas Park house at 516 Rugby Road has the fun history of being the home of "Futurama" star Philip J. Fry (h/t Curbed). The seven-bedroom house was the childhood home of one of the popular cartoon's writers, Eric Kaplan. The well-preserved 1905 Brooklyn home is asking $2.195 million.
Take the tour
On the first day of Spring, NYC will reopen five parks after $24M in renovations

Photo of Arrochar Playground via Department of Parks and Recreation

March 19, 2018

On the first day of Spring, NYC will reopen five parks after $24M in renovations

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Tomorrow, March 20th, the first day of spring--otherwise known as the day before another half-a-foot of snow gets dumped on us--NYC will celebrate five park re-openings, one for each borough (h/t amNY). The Department of Parks and Recreation’s ribbon cuttings represent a total of $23.9 million in capital improvements ranging from park landscaping, new play areas, exercise spaces for adults, water features, and new comfort stations. The parks are: Staten Island's Arrochar Playground; Queens' Grassmere Playground; Brooklyn's Hilltop Playground; the Bronx's Lyons Square Playground; and Manhattan's Martin Luther King, Jr. Playground in Harlem.
All the details
The best pop-up food markets coming to New York City this spring
March 19, 2018

The best pop-up food markets coming to New York City this spring

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Although it seems like winter may never end, the opening dates have been released for many of New York City's seasonal pop-up markets, finally signaling the start of warmer weather. This spring, try standbys like Smorgasburg, Broadway Bites, and the Hester Street Fair. Or check out under-the-radar, but just as tasty, pop-ups like the Red Hook Food Vendors and LIC Flea & Food. To make it easy to taste test the endless options offered up, we've put together a list of 11 pop-up food markets coming to the city this season.
Get your munch on
Coney Island boardwalk likely to be landmarked

Image:  Shinya Suzuki via Flickr

March 16, 2018

Coney Island boardwalk likely to be landmarked

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Image:  Shinya Suzuki via Flickr After repeatedly declining to protect the celebrated walkway–even as its wooden planks become increasingly replaced with concrete and plastic as a result of Superstorm Sandy repairs–the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) has agreed to add the historic Coney Island Boardwalk to the agency's list of properties to consider for protected status, according to remarks made at a LPC hearing Thursday, Crain's reports. LPC chair Meenakshi Srinivasan said the boardwalk–its official name is the Riegelmann Boardwalk–could be protected as early as this spring or summer.
It could happen in time for summer
New York women tell their real immigration stories in a new photo exhibit

Daniela, from Colombia © Dru Blumensheid

March 9, 2018

New York women tell their real immigration stories in a new photo exhibit

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6sqft’s series The Urban Lens invites photographers to share work exploring a theme or a place within New York City. In this installment, Dru Blumensheid shares some images from the Queens Museum's new exhibit Real People. Real Lives. Women Immigrants of New York. Are you a photographer who’d like to see your work featured on The Urban Lens? Get in touch with us at [email protected]. "Statistics do not tell the story of immigration. People do. Women do." This was the impetus behind the new photo and video exhibit at the Queens Museum, "Real People. Real Lives. Women Immigrants of New York." A partnership between New Women New Yorkers, NYC's only non-profit dedicated to empowering young immigrant women, and artist Dru Blumensheid aka BUMESI, the exhibit features photos and videos of 16 young immigrant women taken in iconic locations such as the Brooklyn Bridge and Chinatown, all as a way to show "a nuanced and multi-layered picture... of the barriers and isolation they experience, and of the hopes, dreams, and talents they bring with them." In celebration of Women's History Month, 6sqft chatted with Dru Blumensheid about her personal inspiration behind the project, what she learned from the experience, and how she hopes all New Yorkers can benefit from hearing these stories.
Hear from Dru and see her beautiful photos and videos
All of New York City’s Saint Patrick’s Day parades

Photo via Richie S/Flickr

March 5, 2018

All of New York City’s Saint Patrick’s Day parades

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Some cities are lucky to have a single St. Patrick's Day parade, but New York City is blessed with a whopping nine parades dedicated to the holiday. While Saint Patrick's Day is not until March 17, three communities have already celebrated: Staten Island held its annual parade on Forest Avenue and Queens held its 43rd Saint Paddy's parade in Rockaway, as well as its LGBT-friendly St. Pat's For All in Woodside. No worries, though: There are still six other St. Patrick's Day Parades coming up, including NYC's biggest, in Manhattan.
Here's where and when to attend the remaining five
15 female trailblazers of the Village: From the first woman doctor to the ‘godmother of punk’
March 1, 2018

15 female trailblazers of the Village: From the first woman doctor to the ‘godmother of punk’

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Greenwich Village is well known as the home to libertines in the 1920s and feminists in the 1960s and '70s. But going back to at least the 19th century, the neighborhoods now known as Greenwich Village, the East Village, and Noho were home to pioneering women who defied convention and changed the course of history, from the first female candidate for President, to America’s first woman doctor, to the "mother of birth control." This Women’s History Month, here are just a few of those trailblazing women, and the sites associated with them.
Learn all about these amazing women
Local artists will bring 10 public art installations to NYC parks this summer
February 28, 2018

Local artists will bring 10 public art installations to NYC parks this summer

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New York City's parks department will bring art installations to 10 designated parks across the five boroughs this June. As part of "Art in the Parks: UNIQLO Park Expressions Grant Exhibit," public art will be displayed in parks that currently lack cultural programming. Japanese clothing company UNIQLO, as the initiative's sponsor, will give grants worth $10,000 to 10 emerging artists for the installations. The city's Art in the Parks program began in 1967 and is responsible for bringing over 2,000 public pieces of art to the city's parks.
Details this way
Elizabeth Jennings: The woman who helped desegregate NYC streetcars

The corner of Pearl and Chatham streets, where Jennings hailed the bus. Photo via New York Historical Society

February 28, 2018

Elizabeth Jennings: The woman who helped desegregate NYC streetcars

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In 1854, 99 years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to white passengers in Alabama, another brave African American woman forever changed local transit with her bravery. Elizabeth Jennings is not a household name, or even well-known, but her brave refusal to cow to 20th-century America’s racist customs and fight for her rights is historic, and the results of her actions have rippled down over the decades.
The whole history
Support women-led restaurants in New York City with this new map from Grubhub
February 27, 2018

Support women-led restaurants in New York City with this new map from Grubhub

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What could go better together than feminism and food delivery? Thanks to Grubhub, the online takeout service, hungry New Yorkers can now easily order from women-run restaurants. The company on Tuesday launched an app called RestaurantHER that aims to empower and promote women chefs and owners, who are often underrepresented and underpaid in the restaurant industry. Available nationwide, the app includes a map that looks similar to Grubhub's typical page, but only highlights restaurants owned or co-owned by a woman or a kitchen led by a woman executive chef.
Learn more
Stream 30,000 free movies from the NYPL; East End Avenue’s building boom

NYPL via Wiki Commons (L); East End Avenue via CityRealty (R)

February 27, 2018

Stream 30,000 free movies from the NYPL; East End Avenue’s building boom

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Have a library card? You can now stream 30,000 films for free from the New York and Brooklyn Public Libraries. [Time Out NY] What it’s like living in one of NYC’s turrets. [NY Mag] NYC now has 7,500 tech companies employing 120,000 people, 60% more than a decade ago. [Crain’s] A new children’s book tells the story […]

Taylor Swift has ‘bad blood’ with her Tribeca neighbors; Inside David Adjaye’s Midtown spy museum

Google Street View of 155 Franklin Street; Taylor Swift via Eva Rinaldi/Flickr; Spyscape photo by Scott Frances

February 20, 2018

Taylor Swift has ‘bad blood’ with her Tribeca neighbors; Inside David Adjaye’s Midtown spy museum

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Taylor Swift’s Tribeca neighbors are not happy about her recent real estate hoopla, even posting “Taylor Swift Can Go F–k Herself” signs. [NYP] A proposed law would force NYC businesses to accept credit cards for transactions over $10. [Time Out NY] See inside David Adjaye’s Spyscape museum of espionage in Midtown. [Dezeen] New York state has 400 breweries, breaking […]

The Panorama Challenge is back! See if you can answer past years’ toughest trivia questions
February 16, 2018

The Panorama Challenge is back! See if you can answer past years’ toughest trivia questions

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For the 11th year, the City Reliquary, Queens Museum, and The Levys’ Unique New York! have partnered for the Panorama Challenge, considered the ultimate NYC trivia. On Friday, March 2, using the Panorama of the City of New York at the Queens Museum – a room-sized scale model of the entire city, a relic from the 1964 World's Fair – teams will answer questions in categories that may include McKim, Mead, & White sites; the Grammys; the movie Wonderstruck; and the Museum's Never Built New York exhibit. In anticipation of the event, quizmaster Jonathan Turer is testing 6sqft readers with five (one for each borough!) of past years' toughest clues.
Test your knowledge!
Six things you didn’t know about the Lower West Side

59-81-Washington-Street ca. 1935, via NYPL

February 14, 2018

Six things you didn’t know about the Lower West Side

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This post is part of a series by the Historic Districts Council, exploring the groups selected for their Six to Celebrate program, New York’s only targeted citywide list of preservation priorities. The Lower West Side may not be a neighborhood name used by brokers, but for those involved with preservation efforts in the area, it's a neighborhood very much unique from the surrounding Financial District. Encompassing the area west of Broadway from Liberty Street to Battery Place, it was originally home to Irish and German immigrants, followed by Little Syria, the nation’s first and largest Arabic settlement, from roughly the 1880s to 1940s. But the construction of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel and World Trade Center "nearly wiped the neighborhood off the map." There are still several buildings remaining that serve as a connection to the past, however, and Friends of the Lower West Side is working diligently to make sure this history is not lost, expanding its oral history program, offering walking tours of the area, and appealing to the Landmarks Commission to designate a small historic district.
Find out six little-known facts about this amazing district
The long-awaited Bayonne boom: Transit options, adaptive reuse, and affordability
February 8, 2018

The long-awaited Bayonne boom: Transit options, adaptive reuse, and affordability

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Bayonne, located on the southern peninsula of New Jersey’s Gold Coast, is ripe for a construction boom. That being said, it has been awaiting this boom for over 18 years - since the light rail system was installed. As Newport and Jersey City’s markets are on fire, Bayonne hopes that development momentum is headed their way. But with its Hudson River location, city views, access to Manhattan via light rail and the PATH (it is about 30 minutes to take the light rail to the PATH to the World Trade Center), Bayonne has taken its future into its own hands and massively revised its master plan for the first time since 2000. Bayonne considers its proximity to New York City and lower prices its greatest assets. The average home sales are around $400,000 versus $800,000 in Jersey City. The new master plan aims to transform Bayonne into a walkable, bikeable, mixed-use community with densely settled areas (which they call “transit villages”) around the light rail stations. The town’s 22nd Street Light Rail stop connects residents to the rest of the Gold Coast and PATH trains running to Manhattan. Bayonne City Planner Suzanne Mack is quoted as saying, “Our assets are our charm and home life...We’ve moved from being an industrial giant, an oil tank farm basically, into more of a bedroom community with a lot of community resources.”
Find out more
12 artsy and offbeat things to do in New York City for Valentine’s Day
February 5, 2018

12 artsy and offbeat things to do in New York City for Valentine’s Day

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Whether you’re loved up or flying solo, Valentine’s Day brings a bevy of creative events and exhibitions to New York, with a soiree for every taste. Architecture buffs can spend an exclusive evening at One Barclay with the Art Deco Society; art lovers can go back in time with jazz master Michael Arenella at the art-filled Norwood Club; and urban explorers can tour the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant's digester eggs.
Details on these events and more this way
Staten Island is getting a massive rooftop farm; Waterline Square’s tallest tower gets glassed

Brooklyn Grange via Wiki Commons (L); Construction at Waterline Square via CityRealty

January 31, 2018

Staten Island is getting a massive rooftop farm; Waterline Square’s tallest tower gets glassed

By

Brooklyn Grange is opening a 40,000-square-foot organic rooftop farm in Staten Island. [Untapped Cities] Ikea is experimenting with renting out and buying back their own furniture. [Curbed] The fascinating and tragic history of the Wythe Hotel. [Greenpointers] KPF’s Two Waterline Square, which will be the complex’s largest tower, is starting to get its reflective blue skin. [CityRealty] […]

The scrapped plan to build a 77th Street bridge over the East River to Queens

Courtesy of the NYPL

January 31, 2018

The scrapped plan to build a 77th Street bridge over the East River to Queens

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At one point in New York history, it looked very likely that the city would get a brand new bridge across the East River between Manhattan and Queens by way of Blackwell’s (now Roosevelt) Island. This was back in the 1870s, as the Brooklyn Bridge began rising to the south. According to Ephemeral New York, this would have been the second bridge to link Manhattan to Long Island, and plans were just getting off the ground. Though an 1877 newspaper article got the location of the bridge wrong--as it wasn't going to Brooklyn--it explained that the proposal process was moving right along: "The projectors of this proposed bridge over the East River, between New York and Brooklyn at 77th Street, by way of Blackwell’s Island, have, in response to the invitation sent out, received ten separate designs and estimates from as many engineers," it said. "Ground will be broken as soon as a plan shall be decided on."
Here's why it never happened
INTERVIEW: Flank Development’s Mick Walsdorf on bringing timber construction back to NYC

360 Wythe Avenue, courtesy 320 and 360 Wythe/Flank

January 31, 2018

INTERVIEW: Flank Development’s Mick Walsdorf on bringing timber construction back to NYC

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Last November, news broke that Manhattan-based firm Flank Architecture + Development would construct two mid-rise office and retail buildings made of timber in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the first to be built in New York in over a century. Located at 320 and 360 Wythe Avenues, they are currently rising three and five stories, constructed from raw Canadian wood, which will be engineered into nail-laminated timber panels. The timber structure will rise above the concrete foundation, then it'll be covered by a brick facade. Flank co-founder Mick Walsdorf has said the ambitious project "will expand the limits of traditional construction and usher in a new era of sustainability-minded building practices." The firm has grown significantly since Walsdorf and Jon Kully were studying together at Columbia's Graduate School for Architecture, envisioning the possibilities of a joint architecture and development firm. Since then Flank has tackled the development and design of residential and commercial projects across the city, from The Boerum condominium in Brooklyn to the condo conversion at 40 Walker Street in Tribeca. With 6sqft, Mick discusses the history of the firm and the benefits of tackling both the architecture and development side of a project in New York City. He also gets into detail about why Flank decided to take on timber construction, and how construction is expected to unroll this year.
Keep reading for the full interview
Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe’s one-time Clinton Hill townhouse is $8,000/month

Photo fo Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe via Rena Silverman/Flickr

January 29, 2018

Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe’s one-time Clinton Hill townhouse is $8,000/month

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The second floor of this Clinton Hill townhouse at 160 Hall Street once housed punk legend Patti Smith and her then-boyfriend, photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. The year was 1967, and the rent was $80 a month. As the New York Post points out, that translates roughly to about $600 a month today. Now, the completely renovated townhouse dating back to 1901 is on the market for a whopping $8,000 a month. And it's far from "aggressively seedy" as Smith once described it.
Take a look around
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