Posts tagged with "Manhattan":
Just when we need it most, a new map charts social justice history in lower Manhattan
To ring in 2017 right, a New York–based preservation advocacy group has created a map that could change the way we see lower Manhattan. The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP) this week debuted its Civil Rights & Social Justice Map, an interactive tool that reveals key downtown sites where women, LGBT people, immigrants, Latinos, and African-Americans have fought for equity, dignity, and representation. Covering its home base, Greenwich Village, as well as the East Village and Noho, the map features places and short blurbs about homes of well-known activists, streets, gathering spaces, and houses of worship. The map draws on the success of the recently-declared Sullivan-Thompson Historic District, which the GVSHP advocated for vigorously. Preservationists are the first to say that the district, also referred to as South Village, is architecturally rich, but its cultural history is just as important. In its designation the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) noted that the rowhouses and tenements illuminate the Italian-American immigrant experience in New York, among other group. The new map, below, pins 100 locations and counting: In addition to famous sites like the National Register–listed Stonewall Inn, the map depicts some of the city's first African-American churches, anarchist Emma Goldman's house, and the Charas-El Bohio Community Center, which served Puerto Rican residents and which neighbors are trying to revive once again. GVSHP intends to update the map "regularly"—if an important site is not listed, readers can email info@gvshp.org with information and sources for consideration.
Discover what your Manhattan block looked like in 1609
Welcome to New York City, 1609. Building upon a decade of research by the Wildlife Conservation Society for the Mannahatta Project and Eric Sanderson's book, Mannahatta: A Natural History of New York City is Welikia: an online mapping database that lets visitors view what Manhattan was like more than 400 years ago. But the Welikia Project aims to go further than the book and original study to map the ecology of the other four boroughs. Welikia gets its name from the Native American Lenape tribe where the word (pronounced "way-LEE-kee-uh") means "my good home." As stated on their website, Welikia aims to provide "the basis for all the people of New York to appreciate, conserve and re-invigorate the natural heritage of their city not matter which borough they live in." The interactive map allows users to locate a block in Manhattan and check out what was (or wasn't) going on in 1609 before Europeans arrived. For example, at Times Square—43rd Street and 44th between Broadway and 7th Avenue—one can find out how likely it was a mountain lion once roamed the area. In this scenario sadly, the probability of this is very small (but there's still a chance) while the odds of a savage meadow vole are much higher. Aside from mammals, the chances of seeing birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and plants are also detailed. Like the meadow vole, hawks were reasonably commonplace too it seems—more so than pigeons. How times have changed. Or perhaps they haven't. From Welikia's map, we can see that Mannahatta was a place thriving with biodiversity. Now, Manhattan is now a place celebrated for its diversity in a cultural sense. As Welikia points out, Mannahatta had more than 55 different ecological communities, giving Yellowstone and Yosemite National Parks a run for their money. Welikia though isn't satisfied with just focusing on Mannahatta. Their project aims to measure the modern biodiversity of New York City. Looking back 400 years ago, they hope to look at the ecologies that have prevailed, what has been lost and what can be improved. This information, Welikia says, can be used for educational purposes too. The "Manhattana Curriculum" has been created for schoolteachers, park rangers, and environmental educators. Welikia also encourages people to contribute to the database. This can be done by visiting the online map and becoming a "Landscape Ecology Insider," and gaining access to "unique resources about the current and historical ecology of your borough."
Snøhetta's Times Square revamp is finally complete
Last week, in that languid time between Christmas and New Years', the City of New York celebrated the completion of a major public works project—not the Second Avenue subway, but an above-ground reconstruction of one of the world's busiest intersections. Almost eight years ago, the NYC Department of Transportation (DOT) unveiled plans to dramatically transform Manhattan's Times Square. The $55 million vision, conceived by New York–based Snøhetta, replaced car-clogged streets with pedestrian plazas on Broadway in Times Square between West 42nd and West 47th streets. The project, which spans 85,000 square feet of former roadway, broke ground in 2013. Officials praised the improvements at a December 28 ceremony. "Being able to carve out two acres of new space for pedestrians in one of the world's most popular plazas is a remarkable gift to the tens of millions of people who visit the 'Crossroads of the World' each year," said Department of Design and Construction (DDC) commissioner Feniosky Peña-Mora, in a statement. "Times Square is now equipped with more resilient sewer systems, wider sidewalks, ample seating, and an emphasis on pedestrian safety that will serve generations to come." Changes to the "bowtie" were first spearheaded by former DOT commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan. Now tourists and New Yorkers (if there are any who go willingly) can enjoy new benches, chairs, and tables dotting the five plazas, wider sidewalks, as well as a raised bike lane along 7th Avenue. "With the changes unveiled today, Times Square is now a safer and more welcoming place for the millions of residents, commuters and tourists who visit and pass through it every day," Mayor Bill de Blasio emphasized. "I am so proud that our agencies could come together and finish their incredible work before the new year, ending the disruption that invariably comes with big and complex construction projects."
A life in the shadows: Take a look at some of Manhattan's darkest and brightest streets
A comprehensive shadow study of Manhattan has been done by the New York Times. The analysis plots average shadows over the course of the year from every building in Manhattan shedding light (or rather shade) on New York's gloomiest and brightest streets. By hovering over areas of the map, one can find out how much a certain street spends its time in the shadows. This data is presented as a percentage of daylight hours and is split in three to account for different times of year: Summer, Winter, and Spring/Fall. The amount of time a particular area is shadowed is written as a unit of time. For example, the intersection of Broadway and Murray Street spends on average: Four hours and 35 minutes in shadow during the Summer (38 percent); two hours and 34 minutes in shadow during Fall/Spring (29 percent) and two hours and 47 minutes in shadow during the Winter (46 percent). This information changes pretty drastically at the slightest movement of your cursor due to the nature of shadowing. However, the most consistently shadowy areas on the Manhattan grid is the Financial District (FiDi). Much of its narrow streets were designed by the early Dutch settlers of "New Amsterdam," and thanks to the hefty clump of skyscrapers now in the vicinity, they seldom see natural light. One location in particular that this author spotted was Exchange Place. In this dark corner of FiDi, sunlight only gets through three percent of the time in Summer, while the narrow street lies in shadow for the whole of Spring, Fall, and Winter. How cheery. Today, as some may know, is the winter solstice. After rising in the southeast at 5:44 a.m. this morning, the sun will set in the southwest at the depressingly early time of 4:22 p.m. this afternoon. During the Summer months, this will change. Days will be longer, the sun will rise and set farther north, and most of Manhattan's shadows will be shorter. This is due to New York's longitude: by being closer to the North Pole, the city has access to more daylight during the Summer and less in the winter—hence the dramatic shadow interplay.
"One of the beauties of Manhattan, particularly in spring or fall, is that the grid is about 30 degrees off true North," said New York–based architect and shadow consultant Michael Kwartler in the New York Times. "That means the intersections tend to be very bright because the sun is going diagonally across them at lunchtime." Speaking of these intersections, Kwartler added that they "tend to be brighter than the streets in between, so it creates this really fabulous rhythm in Midtown of light-dark, light-dark."
The study in detail can be found here. Those interested in learning about how density, FAR, and vertical development enables—or blocks—sunlight can explore this map from the Municipal Art Society.
At long last, City Council approves St. John's Terminal–Pier 40 development
Yesterday the New York City Council approved a massive Manhattan air right transfer that allows the controversial St. John's Terminal–Pier 40 development to move forward.
The development of St. John's Terminal, which occupies a three-block area along the West Side Highway across from Hudson River Park, is made possible by the transfer of air rights from the park's stewards to the developers, Westbrook Partners and the Atlas Capital Group. The firms will pay the Hudson River Park Trust $100 million for 200,000 square feet of air rights; in return, they can build five buildings to replace the aging terminal. The exchange allows the Trust, which is self-funding, to repair the pier, which hosts a parking garage, much-needed playing fields, and offices. City Councilmember Corey Johnson, whose district includes the project area, has been negotiating the quid-pro-quo for three years. Despite weaker allowances for affordable housing, many elected officials, preservationists, and residents say they already see its benefits. Part of the deal included a bid to designate the Sullivan-Thompson Historic District (also called the South Village Historic District), a 40-block zone in Soho bounded by five other lower Manhattan historic districts. The Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) approved the district two days before the City Council's vote. At that public hearing prior to the LPC's vote, preservationists and South Village citizens testified to the "spirit of the neighborhood": "safe and clean," "neighbors know each other," and its "wonderful lifestyle and cityscape." Besides protecting the social and cultural history of the neighborhood, the designation of the 160-building area will prevent outsize construction within its mostly low-rise boundaries. Preservation advocacy group the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP) spearheaded the decade-plus campaign to landmark a downtown area that includes over 1,250 structures. The two-million-square-foot St. John's project includes 500 units (30 percent of the total) of housing that will be offered to qualifying households at a range of below-market rates, but the rates are not as low they should be under current law. Typically, projects like St. John's Terminal that benefit from upzonings must comply with the city's Mandatory Inclusionary Housing program, which says at least 30 percent of a development's units must go to households making 80 percent of the area median income. This time, though, Johnson, Borough President Gale Brewer, and the community board okayed the upzoning because of the millions going to park upgrades. On Thursday, two council members voted no on the plan, with one abstention, to protest its lowered affordability requirements. Despite the size and ambition of the approved development, the community bargained for provisions that try to keep its character. The deal includes a restriction on future air rights transfers from Hudson River Park within Community Board 2, as well as a ban on big box (most stores over 10,000 square feet) and destination retail to prevent an odious amount of traffic.
Renderings revealed for OLIN's Manhattan Pier 26
Last night landscape architects from OLIN debuted their designs for Manhattan's Pier 26. The plans brim with programming but are intended, for the most part, to provide space for quiet relaxation.
At a presentation last night to Manhattan Community Board 1 (CB 1), the Philadelphia-based firm and its client, the Hudson River Park Trust, debuted their conceptual pier plans before an eager audience. Extending almost 800 feet from shore, renderings depict a Pier 26 shaped by an angular, elevated walkway that draws visitors above the waterline to take in views up and down the shore, sit quietly among native scrub, or galavant on an abstracted play-forest—a special habitat for New York children.
Based on meetings last year with Tribeca and lower Manhattan neighbors, OLIN teased out a need for open recreational space and native habitat but combined those wants with an even stronger desire for contemplative, relaxing outdoor spaces, into what the firm hopes will be an "iconic destination," explained partner Lucinda Sanders. "We really tried to think of a place for you, not for tourists." The pier, which sits south of Canal Street between Hubert and North Moore streets, juts almost 800 feet into the Hudson, a canvas of possibility on a blank concrete slab.
The plans hope to fill gaps in the offerings on other west side piers. In addition to standard-issue ballfields around the pier's midsection, OLIN proposed a netscape—a pliable mesh surface that sags and bounces as people get on but brings everyone as close as possible—or legally feasible—to the water's edge. Farther out, stadium-style seating could double as outdoor classrooms, while closer to shore, a large lawn could hold movie nights for 750-plus people. Migrating birds would have an exclusive, biped-free resting spot at the pier's tip, while recreational boats could dock alongside the structure.
"There's a whole hell of a lot of programming—but it's fantastic," said CB 1 member Bruce Ehrmann, echoing the room's appreciative oohs and aaahs.
Wind turbines could power the pier's estuarium (to be designed by New York's Rafael Viñoly Architects) or other functions, but there was unexpectedly strong pushback from the assembled on the turbine's potential noise and bird-killing capabilities. The board also worried about the cellphone-gobbling potential of the mesh nets. Sanders noted the firm is looking at ways to mitigate the loss of phones and keys, perhaps with a sub-net.
All told, the Trust estimates Pier 26 will cost $30.7 million. All of the funds are secured. There's no plan for the foreseeable to transfer air rights to facilitate nearby development, a la Pier 40, so the area's spaciousness will be preserved.
NYU reveals design for major mixed-use student and faculty complex
New York University released renderings yesterday of the new Davis Brody Bond and KieranTimberlake–designed 23-story building (dubbed 181 Mercer) on the corner of Houston and Mercer streets, where the Cole Sports Center once stood. Bordering I.M. Pei's University Village, the tessellated glass building will be 735,000 square feet and includes plans for 58 new classrooms, 50 practice rooms, 20 music instruction rooms, a 350-seat proscenium theater, 10 multi-use rooms for the performing arts, an orchestral ensemble room (the university's first), and housing for approximately 420 freshmen students and at least 30 faculty. This will make it NYU's largest classroom building. Additionally, it will include common areas, such as an athletic facility with a lap pool, basketball courts, and other fitness areas that collectively will serve as the new hub of the NYU sports facilities. Both firms have worked on collegiate campuses such as Columbia University, University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Cornell as well as many others, and wanted this building to be a visual departure from the Cole Sports Center, which was described as opaque and monolithic. The architects opted to only use 80 percent of the permitted square footage to create a sense of permeability and keep the structure open to the public. Greene Street will be extended as a pedestrian walkway between the building and the University Village to create an open feel on campus. Fostering a sense of lightness and transparency was key to the design, which incorporates green roofs, glass panels, outdoor terraces, and common areas and pushes circulation spaces to the perimeter. The project has been in the works since plans were filed and approved by City Council in 2012. Construction is set to begin February 2017 and will be completed in 2021. The projected cost is $1.b million.
Renderings revealed for Foster + Partners' new tower at Hudson Yards
Today the developer of Hudson Yards has revealed designs for the Far West Side's newest tower.
Related Companies and Oxford Properties Group unveiled the icy cloudbuster for 50 Hudson Yards, designed by global firm Foster + Partners. The 985-foot, 58-story structure covers an entire city block.
"50 Hudson Yards is envisaged as a vertical campus in the heart of Manhattan that is eminently readable at city scale with three distinct blocks stacked one above the other," said Nigel Dancey, Foster + Partners' head of studio, in a statement. "Crafted from a simple palette of white stone and glass, the building's primary structure has been pushed to the edges to create large-span flexible floorplates. It aspires to define the workplace of the future, bringing to the fore the practice's values of innovation and creativity by producing a positive work environment that seeks to fulfill the needs and expectations of a demanding workforce."
When complete, the 2.9 million-square-foot building at 33rd Street and 10th Avenue will be the city's fourth largest office tower. When the building opens in 2022, principal tenants like the financial company BlackRock will enjoy outdoor terraces and private "sky lobbies," as well as access to 30 Hudson Yards' outdoor observation platform.
The New York Times reports that New York State is giving Blackrock, a company with more than $5 trillion in assets, a $25 million tax break to stay in the state and move into the shiny new tower.
Construction is expected to begin next year on the white stone– and glass-clad building. In the renderings, glass windows are framed by stone while dark-outlined floors peek out from behind the glazed facade. Column-free floorplates that span a minimum of 50,000 square feet per floor are able to accommodate 500-plus people, and workers on some floors will enjoy expansive outdoor spaces, the result of periodic setbacks.
"Covering a full city block, the building is highly permeable at ground level, allowing it to engage fully with its urban location," Norman Foster, founding principal of Foster + Partners, said in a statement. "Designed for a sustainable future, the building makes an important contribution to the regeneration of the far west side of Manhattan."
What's new with the BIG U?
Four years after Hurricane Sandy, New York City is one major step closer to flood-proofing its shores. The Mayor's Office of Recovery and Resiliency (ORR) and the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) have officially selected three firms to collaborate on the second phase of resiliency measures planned for lower Manhattan. AECOM, Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), and ONE Architecture will work on the Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency (LMCR) Project, a flood-proofing and park-building measure that extends from the Lower East Side up to the north of Battery Park City. "The project is landscape architecture as public realm, design as policy, and urban planning on an architectural level," said Kai-Uwe Bergmann, partner at BIG. In concert with heavy-duty resilience measures, the LMCR project, he said, aims to improve access to the waterfront and augment green space in the neighborhoods it will traverse. The 3.5-mile-long project will extend from the northern portion of Battery Park City to the Lower East Side's Montgomery Street to pick up where its sister initiative, the East Side Coastal Resiliency (ESCR) Project, leaves off.
Like the ESCR, the LMCR visioning process will begin with extensive community engagement to figure out what, exactly, neighbors want to see on the rivers' edge. The firms plan to take lessons from the ESCR, now in its final stages of design, to this one. Besides the resiliency measures that provided the impetus for the construction, Bergmann said the East Side ESCR constituents expressed a strong desire for more green space, open space, and recreation areas.
Initial renderings for the ESCR depict sinuous parks, lighting to illuminate dark and foreboding highway underpasses, and novel play spaces that bring citizens close to the waterway. BIG and ONE Architecture are working in concert to design the 2.5-mile strip, which costs an estimated $505 million, in collaboration with local, state, and federal agencies. Construction is expected to begin in 2018.
For that project and for the LMCR, Bergmann says there's no one design solution that fits all of the waterfront, especially the working waterfront. What Bergman called the LMCR "pinch points"—the tighter areas beneath the raised FDR Drive, or the Staten Island Ferry Terminal—present distinctive design challenges, though he said it's too early to speak to specific solutions. Public meetings began this summer, and with the next set of meetings planned for February, "we hope the community can see there is traction and movement forward from a devastating event like Hurricane Sandy."
The city says that by 2018 the LMCR team is to deliver an actionable concept design for the project area, with design and implementation to follow.
The plan, as its realized in stages, differs from the original BIG U, the sexy proposal that wowed both architects and the bureaucrats at HUD. When it first debuted, the floodproofing infrastructure extended all the way up to West 57th Street. "My hope," Bergmann said, "is that the vision will reach its full intention because that completely protects the entire lower Manhattan area."
The only component that's fully funded is the ESCR, so in order to realize both components—and possibly the whole BIG U vision—government at every level would need to open their budgets. Although Trump's infrastructure plan seems like it will focus on prisons, pipelines, and border walls, maybe the president-elect will put aside his climate change denial for a moment to help out his hometown?
WeWork opens offices next to Fulton Center's Sky Reflector-Net
Today, coworking office purveyor WeWork opened up their latest location on the third floor of the Fulton Center in Downtown Manhattan. The office pays homage to both old and new (a hallmark of WeWork's office interiors) integrating the Fulton Center's iconic Rotunda and the Corbin Building, which was built in 1889.
The project is WeWork's 15th office in a landmarked site (the Corbin Building was landmarked in 2015) and its eighth in New York City. Cautious of eradicating the 127-year-old building's history, WeWork kept new design interventions to a minimum. Existing elements in the Corbin Building, including an eight-story bronze and marble staircase, along with Guastavino tiles in the arches of the doorways (which form part of the French Gothic detailing found throughout the building and on its facade), were renovated.
Light permeates the space courtesy of the conical atrium which the office wraps around on the third floor. Officially known as the Sky Reflector-Net, the dome structure is the work of James Carpenter Design Associates, Grimshaw Architects, and engineering firm ARUP. The office area comprises places to read, conference rooms, a reception, and hot desks. A pantry and range of common areas operate as stand-alone areas. From inside, occupants can peer through the structure's complex of perforated optical aluminum panels, tensioned cables, high-strength rods, and stainless steel elements down onto the 300,000 transit users that pass through the center every day. The narrow space within the Corbin Building, meanwhile, will provide space for functions and office events. Bridging old and new, a 3D art installation by local artists, The Guild, is located on the threshold between the Corbin Building and Fulton Center and aims to unify them through material and color. In a statement emailed to The Architect's Newspaper, WeWork said:
WeWork Fulton Center is uniquely positioned across both the landmarked Corbin building and a new major transit hub. We have a history of breathing new life into historic buildings, and we're proud to help give new futures to iconic pieces of the city's history.
Also appearing this week within the Fulton Center is a new artwork installed by the MTA Arts & Design program. Titled New York Dreaming and by artist Anne Spalter, the kaleidoscopic video installation on show for the holiday season.
Hudson Park River Trust moves closer to selling $100 million of air rights to St. John's Terminal development
Today, the non-profit Hudson River Park Trust (HPRT) organization won approval to sell its Pier 40 air rights to the St. John's Terminal redevelopment on 550 Washington Street. The subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises voted in favor of the idea to transfer the $100 million of air rights from Pier 40 on the Hudson River to the 1.7 million-square-foot development; revenue from the deal will allow the trust to carry out vital repair work to the pier. The subcommittee voted five to one in favor of the air rights sale with council member Jumaane Williams voting against. Williams argued that the affordable housing program within the St. John's Terminal scheme "did not go deep enough" and fully tackle the affordable housing issue within the area. Speaking to The Architect's Newspaper (AN) after the vote, Council member for the 3rd District Corey Johnson said he was "excited" for the future of the St. John's Terminal redevelopment. "This project has been going on for years and it's got better and better throughout the process and I think we achieved an extraordinary amount for the community," he said. 25 percent of the housing units within the development (reportedly, 1,500 in total) will be "permanently affordable" while Johnson also said that the project will bring a "much needed" supermarket shopping facility to the far west side. Pier 40's revenue—mostly generated by the almost 2,000 vehicles that use the pier for parking—currently accounts for approximately 30 percent of the HPRT's funding. Writing for AN, architect and critic Michael Sorkin described this as a "truly idiotic use for one the city's most wonderful sites." The site does, however, host a well-used and much-cherished array of sports fields (all located on one area of artificial turf) where soccer, football, baseball, lacrosse, and rugby are all regularly played. Conditions on the site, though, are deteriorating with field lighting and markings as well as structural piles for the pier in need of repair. Later in the day, the Land Use Committee also approved the project twelve to one, with Williams again voting against. Williams argued that more needed to be done to combat inequality and homelessness in light of Ben Carson's selection to lead Housing and Urban Development (HUD); the former neurosurgeon once described public housing as a "mandated social-engineering scheme," and a policy of a "communist" country.
Meanwhile, Hudson River Park President and CEO Madelyn Wils said in a statement emailed to AN:
Pier 40 is a treasured community resource and an important revenue generator for Hudson River Park. Today's votes move us one step closer to ensuring that the urgently needed repairs to the pier's piles will be made, and the pier will stay open. Under a newly strengthened deal, the full $100 million will be guaranteed to the park before the developer can pull the special permit.
Once the funding is secured, we must also make sure Pier 40 serves as a revenue generator for the entire park. We thank the City Council for acknowledging today that the remaining development rights on Pier 40 should be used on the pier itself in a future redevelopment.
Thanks to Council Member Johnson, all of our local elected officials, the de Blasio administration and Community Board 2 for their hard work and leadership over the past year on this critical issue for Hudson River Park.
The full city council will vote on the matter on December 15.
Major affordable housing developments coming to East Harlem and the Bronx
New York City is set to get hundreds of new units of affordable housing in the Bronx and Manhattan. On Tuesday, Mayor Bill de Blasio's office welcomed news that the City Council had approved four developments in the Bronx and East Harlem. Lawmakers had previously rejected rezonings that would've allowed affordable developments in Sunnyside, Cobble Hill, and Inwood, three major blows to the mayor's plan to build or preserve 200,000 units for low- and middle-income households over the next decade. In the Bronx, the biggest project is the redevelopment of the Lambert Houses, a $600 million initiative that will bring two elementary schools, a renovation of a local park, and $12.3 million in transit infrastructure improvements to the West Farms neighborhood. All units at the other Bronx developments, Morrisania's Melrose Commons and West Farms's Second Farms, will be completely rent-regulated. At East Harlem's Lexington Gardens, 20 percent of the units will be let for more than median rents, Politico reports. The complex, designed by Curtis + Ginsberg Architects and developed by L+M Development Partners and Tahl Propp Equities' Lexington Gardens, is a 400-unit development bounded by Park Avenue, East 108th Street, and East 107th Street. Retail, parking, and space for nonprofits will occupy a 15-story, 411,725-square-foot structure. The building is zoned for Mandatory Inclusionary Housing (MIH), which ensures that units will remain permanently affordable. 20 percent of the Lexington Gardens apartments will be available to households making one-third of the area median income (AMI), which is $24,480 for a family of three, while an additional 30 percent will be offered to those making half of the AMI, or $40,800 for a three-person household. The full-block development portends residential construction elsewhere in the neighborhood: The pending East Harlem rezoning could bring 3,500 units to the area in the coming years.