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Image of the first Christmas tree in City Hall park in 1913; via Library of Congress In 1912, the nation's first public Christmas tree went up in Madison Square Park and sparked a new trend that would soon spread to parks across the city and beyond. The following year, acting Mayor Ardolph Kline initiated a similar tradition when he asked a young boy to help him light a Christmas tree in City Hall Park. By 1934, tree lighting celebrations became a citywide effort, with the Parks Department putting up 14 fifty-foot Norway Spruce trees throughout the city. Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia dedicated the trees from City Hall Park and broadcasted the ceremony to sites across the city.
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Photo ©AMNH/ R. Mickens

December 23, 2019

Where to celebrate Kwanzaa 2019 in NYC

On Thursday, the week-long holiday Kwanzaa kicks off as a celebration of African American culture and heritage in the United States. From Dec. 26, through Jan. 1, New Yorkers can learn about the seven principles of Kwanzaa, or Nguzo Saba, through traditional music and dancing, kinara lighting, African folklore storytime, and a bar crawl featuring only black-owned businesses. Ahead, find the best places in NYC to celebrate Kwanzaa, from family-friendly arts and crafts and lectures at the Brooklyn Children's Museum to live performances at Harlem's iconic Apollo Theater.
The full list, ahead

Events & Things To Do

A 266-unit affordable senior housing complex with focus on health and wellness to open in Brooklyn

Rendering courtesy of Dattner Architects

December 16, 2019

A 266-unit affordable senior housing complex with focus on health and wellness to open in Brooklyn

A medical center in Brooklyn will be developed into a mixed-use complex with affordable housing, on-site counseling service, fitness programs, and integrated health care. Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced last week plans to transform the current Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center North Campus, located between Prospect Lefferts Gardens and East Flatbush, into Kingsbrook Estate, a three-building development with 266 units of affordable housing. Designed by Dattner Architects in collaboration with landscape architecture firm terrain, the development falls under the state's Vital Brooklyn plan, created in 2017 to bring more housing and jobs to the Central Brooklyn area.
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Affordable Housing

Bedford Union Armory redevelopment project in Crown Heights breaks ground

Rendering courtesy of BFC Partners.

December 11, 2019

Bedford Union Armory redevelopment project in Crown Heights breaks ground

The New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) along with Council Member Laurie Cumbo, BFC Partners and community members today celebrated the groundbreaking of the redevelopment project finally underway at the historic Bedford Union Armory in Crown Heights. The new community hub will offer affordable space for local non-profits, recreational space for youth and hundreds of units of affordable housing as shown in new renderings. The road to this latest milestone has been a long and storied one since community leaders first envisioned the massive armory as a multi-use gathering space for the Crown Heights community.
New renderings of the redeveloped armory, this way

2019 holiday gift guide: The best gifts for kids in New York City

Photo by @lordmaui via Unsplash

December 10, 2019

2019 holiday gift guide: The best gifts for kids in New York City

Nobody appreciates a great gift like a child, but New York City kids are a tough audience. They've already got the world at their feet, even if they're not possessed of a pile of material goods. Fortunately, there are lots of options for cool presents for your favorite pint-sized architects, athletes, fashionistas and foodies as well as the Big Apple babies on your list. Check out our list below for a handful of gift ideas for New York City kids.
Great gifts for NYC kids, this way

New map shows over 600 languages spoken in NYC

Screenshot of the NYC language map courtesy of the Endangered Language Alliance

December 4, 2019

New map shows over 600 languages spoken in NYC

More than 600 languages are spoken in the New York metropolitan area, making it one of the most linguistically diverse regions in the world. The Endangered Language Alliance (ELA), a non-profit that aims to protect endangered languages across the city and New Jersey, released this week a comprehensive map of the area's 637 languages and dialects at nearly 1,000 sites. As first reported by Gothamist, the map coincides with the 2019 International Year of Indigenous Languages, declared by the United Nations in 2016, as well as the upcoming 2020 census.
Explore the map

City Living

The 100-year history of New York’s settlement house collective

United Neighborhood Houses’ Rally for the Bury the Slums Campaign in 1936

November 22, 2019

The 100-year history of New York’s settlement house collective

By Emily Nonko

Look back to early 1900s New York and you’ll find a city not only transformed by an influx of immigrants from around the world, but a movement to improve their living conditions. As newcomers to the city increasingly faced poverty, hunger, disease, crime and unsafe housing, community hubs like churches and synagogues began advocating for better living conditions. Settlement houses also played an important role in this movement for social justice. Their initial purpose of bringing more privileged, outside “settlers” into immigrant communities could be controversial, but it also forged bonds between different classes of New Yorkers who fought for issues like housing protections, stronger labor laws, and city sanitation efforts. Exactly 100 years ago, an organization emerged to better coordinate the efforts of settlement houses and ensure their advocacy into the future. United Neighborhood Houses was the city’s first umbrella organization for settlement homes with the goal to fight for equality and social change. Today the organization exists as one of the largest human service systems in New York City, holding up the city’s still-robust collection of settlement houses. The history of United Neighborhood Houses tells a larger story of the evolving role of settlement houses in New York: why they were introduced, how they integrated — with some bumps — into impoverished communities, and how they’ve grown into community hubs still servicing New Yorkers today.
The full history ahead

History

City’s new homeless outreach program will utilize 18,000 municipal employees

Photo by Zachary Shakked on Unsplash

November 14, 2019

City’s new homeless outreach program will utilize 18,000 municipal employees

By Dana Schulz

"Mass surveillance" or massive outreach effort? The verdict seems to still be out on Mayor de Blasio's new initiative to help solve the homelessness crisis in New York City. In a press release today announcing the new Outreach NYC program, the city says it will "mobilize thousands of frontline City Agency staff to request outreach assistance via 311 when they observe individuals experiencing unsheltered homelessness" as a way to help them into shelters. To be exact, the total number of city employees who will receive this training is 18,000. But the Coalition for the Homeless feels that the plan merely implements "mass surveillance of homeless New Yorkers" without making investments in solutions.
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Policy

13 places to volunteer in NYC this holiday season

Photo by Rommel Demano for God’s Love We Deliver

November 11, 2019

13 places to volunteer in NYC this holiday season

The winter holiday season is a time of overflowing bounty for so many. While giving thanks and exchanging gifts, it's a fine opportunity to share the wealth, good cheer–and extra time off–with fellow New Yorkers in need. There are hundreds of ways to volunteer from now through the New Year (and beyond), and we've rounded up 13 ways to help this year, from meal delivery to serving Thanksgiving dinner to preparing your own putlock dish.
The list, this way

November 7, 2019

10 events in NYC that celebrate Native American Heritage Month

It’s impossible to truly know the history of New York City without understanding the experience of the Native Americans who first inhabited the five boroughs long before Dutch settlers arrived. In November, we celebrate Native American Heritage Month as both a way to learn about the culture and contributions of indigenous people and to reacquaint ourselves with the often distorted history surrounding Thanksgiving. From live performances from Ojibwe artist Kelsey Pyro to enjoying a Lenape Harvest in the city's largest concentration of forest, these events, festivals, and exhibits help New Yorkers understand just how significantly Native Americans shaped our city.
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Events & Things To Do

Designs revealed for Phillips auction house’s new home in 432 Park Avenue’s white cube base

Rendering by studioMDA

October 30, 2019

Designs revealed for Phillips auction house’s new home in 432 Park Avenue’s white cube base

British auction house Phillips will move its headquarters into the white cube base of the supertall at 432 Park Avenue next year. As first reported by the New York Post, architecture firm studioMDA has been tapped to design the 55,000-square-foot auction house and will replace the ground floor the existing space with a sunken mezzanine. The new Billionaires' Row spot will open in the summer of 2020.
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Architecture And Design

Plan to honor historic black settlement Seneca Village with statue in Central Park faces backlash

Photo by Si B on Flickr

October 24, 2019

Plan to honor historic black settlement Seneca Village with statue in Central Park faces backlash

As part of the city's plan to diversify public art and recognize figures overlooked by history in New York City, Central Park is getting another statue, as the New York Times reports. The privately-funded monument will commemorate Seneca Village, the predominantly black community that was thriving until the 1850s in what became Central Park. Once again, however, the city's commemorative statue planning has fallen afoul of historians. The proposed structure won’t be located at the site of Seneca Village, which for nearly three decades stretched between West 83rd and 89th streets in Central Park. Instead, the monument’s home will be in the park, but 20 blocks to the north on 106th street.
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D.C.’s Newseum is closing, but it won’t give WTC Antenna to 9/11 Museum

Photo by Sagie / Flickr

October 22, 2019

D.C.’s Newseum is closing, but it won’t give WTC Antenna to 9/11 Museum

By Dana Schulz

The Newseum in Washington D.C. will close for good at the end of this year due to financial issues, and when it does, it will put a piece of the World Trade Center antenna in storage instead of giving it to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum here in New York City, as Gothamist reports. The 360-foot television and radio antenna, which was located on the North Tower, has been part of the Newseum's September 11th exhibit since it opened at its current location in 2008.
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Events & Things To Do

Prospect Park will host first-ever ‘bike day’ this weekend

Citi Bike cyclists in Prospect Park; photo courtesy of CitiBike

October 18, 2019

Prospect Park will host first-ever ‘bike day’ this weekend

Does your child want to ditch the training wheels? Need a new helmet? Head to Prospect Park this weekend for the park's first annual "Bike Day." Hosted by the Prospect Park Alliance with Citi Bike and Bike New York, the free event on Sunday, Oct. 20 hopes to encourage a more diverse group of New Yorkers to take up biking by offering demonstrations, classes, prizes, and a one-month free trial of Citi Bike.
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Events & Things To Do

Photo by Tim Rodenberg on Wikimedia

October 18, 2019

NYC Council approves plan to replace Rikers Island with four new jails

The New York City Council on Thursday approved a plan that would close the notorious Rikers Island complex and replace it with four smaller jails across the city. The nearly $9 billion proposal, released by Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2017, pledges to shutter Rikers in 10 years by dramatically reducing the city's jail population. It involves housing inmates in new facilities in Lower Manhattan, the South Bronx, Downtown Brooklyn, and Kew Gardens that are better integrated with the surrounding communities, as well as located closer to court systems.
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Policy

Second round of Transit Tech Lab accelerator launches with emphasis on accessibility

Photo by Shinya Suzuki on Flickr cc

October 16, 2019

Second round of Transit Tech Lab accelerator launches with emphasis on accessibility

The MTA and the Partnership for New York City have announced the second round of the Transit Tech Lab accelerator program that launched earlier this year. The inaugural run selected six finalists to participate in an eight-week program dedicated to developing innovative, private sector solutions for the challenges facing our subway, bus, and rail services. Of those six, four companies have already started piloting their products with the MTA. The new round of submissions is specifically seeking entrepreneurs with products that improve accessibility (a major component of the MTA’s recently unveiled capital plan), enhance traffic coordination, or create new sources of revenue. Submissions are open through November 30.
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New MCNY exhibit highlights the Native American community in NYC

Artists from the exhibition, Women of Sweetgrass, Cedar and Sage, friends and community members outside the American Indian Community House Gallery, 1985. Photo by Jesse Cooday. Courtesy of MCNY

September 26, 2019

New MCNY exhibit highlights the Native American community in NYC

By Lucie Levine

In honor of the 50th anniversary of New York's American Indian Community House on the Lower East Side, the Museum of the City of New York's newest exhibit, "Urban Indian: Native New York Now" will feature contemporary art, documentary film, and community memorabilia from Native American New Yorkers. While New York's Mohawk community is famous for having helped build many of New York's most iconic buildings, the Native American community in NYC is exceptionally diverse (the American Indian Community House counts 72 different tribal affiliations amongst its members.) Accordingly, the exhibit puts "shared authority, self-representation and collaboration" at its center.
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Events & Things To Do

Sou Fujimoto will design co-living complex at former Slave Theater site, his first New York project

Renderings courtesy of The Collective and Artefactorylab

September 25, 2019

Sou Fujimoto will design co-living complex at former Slave Theater site, his first New York project

Days after filing building permits for 1215 Fulton Street in Bed-Stuy—the site of the former Slave Theatre—London-based co-living startup The Collective has announced it will be partnering with renowned Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto on the design, his first in New York. The 10-story structure will span over 240,000 square feet and be comprised of three buildings connected by an expansive “ground-floor hub” designed to feel like “an extension of the street.” The project aims to create “a new idea of how a community can come together in a building,” as the architects explained in a design statement.
Take a first look at the renderings

Eat your way into Fall at one of these upcoming food festivals

Image courtesy Taste of Gramercy Neighborhood

September 6, 2019

Eat your way into Fall at one of these upcoming food festivals

As summer days begin to wane this month, we're looking forward to a lineup of food festivals that offer New Yorkers a chance to enjoy the (slightly) cooler weather and discover all sorts of culinary treasures throughout the city's neighborhoods. With many food events slated to take place throughout the Fall season, here's a roundup of three, block party-style festivals that will get things started over the coming weekends in Carroll Gardens, Williamsburg, and Gramercy Park.
There'll be something for every craving

Events & Things To Do

Photo courtesy of the Dorrance Brooks Property Owners and Residents Association

September 4, 2019

Dorrance Brooks Square: A Harlem enclave with World War and civil rights ties

By Historic Districts Council

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. By many accounts, Dorrance Brooks Square is considered the first public square named for a black soldier. The little Harlem park, just east of the larger St. Nicholas Park, was dedicated in 1925 to honor African-American infantryman Dorrance Brooks for his bravery during WWI. Prior to that, the area was very much associated with the Harlem Renaissance, home to jazz musician Lionel Hampton and sociologist and civil rights activist W.E.B. DuBois, among others. Later, it became a key location for social and political gatherings and speeches during the Civil Rights era. Today, the quaint neighborhood is home to an incredibly intact collection of late 19th-century rowhouses, built at the time for upper-middle-class professionals, as well as four culturally and architecturally significant churches. For all these reasons, the Dorrance Brooks Property Owners and Residents Association is advocating for an official landmark designation of the Dorrance Brooks Square Historic District, which would run up Edgecombe Avenue between West 136th and 140th Streets. To give 6sqft more information on this history of this neighborhood, the Association has mapped out the six most significant sites.
Learn all the history right here

History

For $595/night, you can go glamping in a 300-square-foot cabin on Governors Island

Photos courtesy of Collective Retreats – The Outlook Shelter, Collective Governors Island

August 29, 2019

For $595/night, you can go glamping in a 300-square-foot cabin on Governors Island

A well-rounded urban camping experience is a new summer option on Governors Island. Campers can choose an activity-packed agenda complete with private boats, dining, kids’ activities and wellness programs, and a chance to sleep under the stars surrounded by New York skyline views and 1,500 thread count sheets, private en-suite bathrooms and decks, electricity, and WiFi within. For modern design lovers, the island's cozy Summit and Journey tents from Collective Retreats will be joined by new Outlook shelters. These modular hotel rooms resemble tiny modern cabins with 225 square feet–plus 75 square feet of deck space–of indoor architecture that "seamlessly compliments outdoor grandeur with fully sheltered structures." And for this unique experience, prices will start at $595/night.
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NYCHA residents and SNAP recipients can get a free Citi Bike membership this month

Image via Flickr

August 19, 2019

NYCHA residents and SNAP recipients can get a free Citi Bike membership this month

To celebrate the one-year anniversary of its Reduced Fare Bike Share program, Citi Bike is now offering a free month of membership to NYCHA residents and SNAP recipients, amNY reports. The reduced fare program aims to increase accessibility to the popular bike share—which received criticism for its initial rollout in more affluent NYC neighborhoods—by offering no-commitment $5 monthly memberships for any NYCHA residents and SNAP recipients. The program has 3,400 active riders, just a small fraction of Citi Bike’s 150,000 annual members.
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Transit

August 14, 2019

A first look at Walker House, Newark’s historic Bell Telephone Building conversion

The first images of the finished Walker House in Downtown Newark have been released, giving us a peek inside the restored Art Deco masterpiece at 540 Broad Street. Designed by renowned architect Ralph Walker in 1929 as the corporate headquarters for the Bell Telephone Company and entered into the National Historic Register in 2005, the 21-story building has been redeveloped into a mixed-use building comprised of 264 apartments (a mix of market-rate and affordable units), amenities, offices, and retail space, including a brewery, a coffee shop, and Newark's first climbing wall.
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New Developments

August 7, 2019

Our 700sqft: See how two musicians (and their instruments) make it work in Greenpoint