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June 29, 2006
Deis-El
Posted by jmarston at 09:23 PM
Ratners Bike Path
Posted by jmarston at 09:04 PM
June 23, 2006
Seafarers in Stone
Posted by jmarston at 11:38 PM
The Anti-Sit: Hooks & Sunk
Posted by jmarston at 07:07 PM | Comments (3)
The Anti-Sit: Mellow Yellow
Posted by jmarston at 06:52 PM
The Anti-Sit: Hedging
Posted by jmarston at 06:47 PM
June 22, 2006
Summer Read
Best new book for the summer reading season, Sense of the City: An Alternative Approach to Urbanism, published by CCA. An excellent collection of writings, photographs, and historical emphemera on the wholly understudied aspects of sensory city. Chapters include: Nocturnal City, Seasonal City, Sound of the City, Surface of the City, and Air of the City. Fantastic historical antedotes abound, such as New York's very own Society of the Suppression of Unnecessary Noise (SSUN), founded in 1906, by Mrs. Isaac Rice. The section I found most particularly interesting was Surface of the City. "A well-paved asphalt road is the greatest missionary of civilization at our disposal to-day" - Pedro Juan Manuel Larranaga 1926.
Surfaces in New York are a fascinating part of how different areas of the city are intuited sensorially. The sleek pitted slabs of granite, peppered with illuminated vault lights, and roughhewn cobblestone streets, all define SoHo's sensorial sophistication. The clanging of New York's ubiquitous steel sidewalk doors, the stickyness of a crosswalk on a hot New York summer day. Imagine the rural appeal of dirt roads in the West Village. Its mesmerizing to think about the variety of ways texture and surface are expressed throughout the city, and how they come to play upon our expectations. Some photographs of surface texture taken around NYC, all of which we feel with our feet.
Posted by jmarston at 12:00 PM
White Love
Rare, amongst the brown & brick of NYC. Shitty 60's white brick doesn't count.
Posted by jmarston at 11:40 AM
Lacks
Borough President of Manhattan Topographic Bureau
Watch short videos of different historic sites in Queens, from the Thirteen show, A Walk Through Queens with David Bartman and Barry Lewis. Includes the Riker Home (1654), the Quaker Meetinghouse (1694), and others. Map of Manhattan in 1767, complete with Kep's Bay. Greenhome NYC, helping New York City buildings go green. Preservationist fight over Crow House in Rockland County. Troll around on New York's Great Estates real estate service, comprehensive listings of some palatial, if not worn down, mansions. Miss Rep's smacking some down.
Narrow Larry's selected Folk Art sites in the United States. Visit the wonderful and extensive world of Bridgemeister, where "mostly suspension bridges" find their place in history. Photos, dates, and figures on all the suspension bridges of the world. ASU's New American City: Artists Looking Forward, opening in September. Arborsmith Studios documents the fine art of sculpting trees over time. The Yellow Chair stories; future scenarios. London's lowrise advocate Deyan Sudjic fights to save the Commonwealth Institute, in an regards to capital A-rchitecture, "The modernism with which Quinlan Terry has had to battle is, like the Taliban, a puritanical religion". Not to forget John McPhee's new book, Uncommon Carriers out on FSG.
From the History of Brooklyn (1857).
"Other and larger houses were now erected, and after the establishment of a brick-yard at New Amsterdam, by DeGraff and Hogeboom, in the year 1660, brick houses became the fashion with all who could afford the additional expense. Still, the best edifices of that day would be deemed extremely cheap, as compared with those of a more recent period, rarely exceeding $800, while those of an ordinary character were rated at from $200 to $500 of our present currency. Rents ranged from $25 to $100; and as barter was then, by reason of the want of a wellestablished system of currency, commonly provided for in all agreements, payments were frequently made partly in trade and partly in beaver-skins, which, in wholes or halves, then passed as a current medium of exchange, as regularly as bank-bills of the present day."
Posted by jmarston at 09:47 AM
June 21, 2006
The Anti-Sit: Guerilla
Posted by jmarston at 10:28 PM
The Anti-Sit: Slid
Posted by jmarston at 10:24 PM
The Anti-Sit: Sandstoned
Posted by jmarston at 10:21 PM
The Anti-Sit: Inside Job
Posted by jmarston at 10:18 PM
The Anti-Sit: Blocks
Posted by jmarston at 10:07 PM
June 20, 2006
Around the Circle
neat little number on 20th St, Brooklyn.
Much like Saturdays post, we found this buried in a Washington Post article on New York's quality of life campaigns under Bloomberg: "Manhattan has 25 percent more banks and 80 percent more national pizza chains than it had five years ago." The little known plans to build a superhighway parallel to I-35, a massive 4 football field wide ubermover connecting the NAFTA countries. New York's Scandinavia House is hosting a summer long exhibition on the building possibilites of wood, originally organized for the Venice Biennale. Interesting tour from the Independent of London's Southwark borough. New York's Center for an Urban Future releases a report urging Mayor Bloomberg to get behind plans to develop two government warehouses in Sunset Park, bringing 2 million sq ft of commerical space back online. Taskforce for Megacities release newsletter number 5. Toronto based Pugly Awards release the voting results on this years set of new buildings. The Cultural Landscape Foundations draws attention to a hithero unknown upstate New York site, Russel Wrights Manitoga in Garrison New York, where he designed and edited the natural landscape with great care over the course of many years. Robert J Shiller, of Yale, claims the current housing market is not only the biggest boom on record, but the only other true precedent is the 1890's. A consumer group goes pit bull on the real estate industry, citing a number of points that demonstrate how this 'cartel' manages to screw consumers. The teardown wars sweep across the States. ForgottenNY covers the Norwegian Day Parade in Brooklyn New York. Yes, us Scandanavians have some history in Sweet Brooklyn. The Scandanavian East Coast Museum in Brooklyn New York.
Posted by jmarston at 10:16 AM
June 19, 2006
Dear DOT
More bullshit from the DOT. Why on earth does 5th Ave Brooklyn need a municipal parking lot? They dont. Auction the lot and use the money to give the bike lane on 5th some damned continuity. Thanks.
Posted by jmarston at 01:40 PM | Comments (1)
June 18, 2006
Best Beach in Brooklyn
The BBB award for June.
Posted by jmarston at 03:04 PM
June 17, 2006
Flight Path Foolish
Whose bright idea was it to put 1 of the 2 flightpaths to LaGuardia, right over Prospect Park? Don't say it has to be, we all know how easily they changed the Manhattan flight patterns to LaGuardia in the months following Sept 11 '01. What a shame.
Posted by jmarston at 07:15 PM | Comments (3)
Below
Sometimes, buried in a glossy loft tour in the Times Real Estate section, you get nuggets of truth. This, about a couple who moved onto 29th St btw 6/7th back in the 1970's:
"She and her husband are somewhat less enthusiastic about the march of time in their neighborhood. The 27th Street flea market is gone, and a change in zoning laws about 10 years ago brought in its wake a raft of tall buildings and chain stores.
"It makes things feel very corporate," Ms. Fillin-Yeh said. "There are 17 drugstores and 53 banks. I don't love it."
Posted by jmarston at 05:53 PM
June 16, 2006
In the Fold
The National Trust reprinted a 2003 story that a developer planned to restore the Pauper Lunatic Asylum on Roosevelt Island, employing the CT firm Becker & Becker, as part of its 120 million development. The Asylum architect also designed lower Manhattan's landmarked Customs House. The Brooklyn Historical Society's 'Design Your Hood' opened June 10, showcasing high schoolers' take on Fulton Mall. Landmarks Conservancy's quarter page Times op-ad condemning the plan to move Madison Square Garden to the Farley Post Office. The 125th annual Architectural League meeting, June 26th. Christopher Gray's OMA story on the Dow Jones houses on the west side. New LPC designation on Staten Island, as reported by the Real Estate Observer. If New York could even apply a quarter of the energy Chicago has been towards its transporation and environmental policy, we might not be drowning in hostile motor vehicle traffic. Chicago is planning a 500-mile network of bike paths to be completed by 2015, thru the massive encouragement and support of Mayor Daley. What is New York's strategic 20 year plan for transportation policy, yea, burying the BQE.
A short interview with MVRDV, who ask: "“How can you beat them?”...“We have to compete with quite heavy opponents,” he continues. “New Urbanism in the US is highly politicised and very successful, and there’s the retro architecture in Europe which is like an oil spill going over the European landscape.” Reinventing the small apartment house in Toronto, one beautiful block at a time. From Foreign Policy, a short list of the biggest problems some of the worlds megacities face, and the likelyhood that these could be surmounted. ArchVoices wrap up of last weekends AIA convention in LA. Explore the beautiful medieval Medinas of Morocco. Archinect interview with Wes Janz, of One Small Project. A year long pilot study in London to air condition the steaming Tube stations.
Posted by jmarston at 12:33 PM
June 14, 2006
History of Fugly
Historians gathered in New York this week to decide if the period of style many have come to term Bubble, should indeed keep that name. Built mostly at the beginning of the 21st century, they were built quickly, cheaply, and without regard to style, taste, history, or context. They were then sold, during the Great Bubble of the early 2000's, at tremendously inflated rates. Soon, the shoddy craftsmanship, bad design, and lack of aesthetics caught up with the assessors, and values plummeted, sending neighborhoods dependent on Bubble architecture into foreclosure chaos. It was soon thereafter discovered that many of these structures had been given a pass thru the DOB permit process and shown the wears of time worse than the vagaries of taste. Many became structurally unsound in less than half-a-century of use. It was at this point, after much plodding, that the City of New York finally organized a Design Review Board.
Posted by jmarston at 09:11 PM
Brooklyn's Painted Ladies
Posted by jmarston at 09:06 PM | Comments (2)
40 Bond Street: Part Deux
The De Young masters Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron get a lovely (and deserving) write up in the Financial Times in anticipation of their Bond St project: "Rather significantly, 40 Bond is the Swiss team's first job in New York and it is the city that preoccupies them. "The question," says Herzog, "is how does the condo affect the city? I think it can have a huge effect. Ian has proved with his hotels that he can contribute to the culture of architecture with the creation of a type of hotel that didn't exist before. 40 Bond . . . is a very constrained project, in size and type, but sometimes the less latitude there is, the more freedom there can be. So we need to ask: 'how can you make architecture out of this?' We were interested in stacking two existing typologies: the brownstone town house [with direct access from the street] and the condominium."
Posted by jmarston at 07:15 PM
June 13, 2006
PP&F
Al-Suhaymi House, Cario Egypt, 1648 - from ArchNet
Some new links of note round here, linked themselves by their sectional perspectives on the city. Exploring Wilshire Blvd., LA-CA, great way to create perspective on the megalopolis. Excellent history of Jackson Heights, Queens, NYC. Beach Bungalow preservation in Far Rockaway, Queens, NYC. Bond St Manhattan, then & now. Pedestrian danger zones in Ft Greene, Brooklyn, NYC. Check out the ITE.
Speaking of pedestrian danger zones, more exciting work from our NYC based pedestrian advocates. Aaron Naparstek, who played host to some hot tempers after the parking picnic in Park Slope. All I've experienced over there years is that New York City drivers have got to be the most entitled mother fuckers in the whole of the 5 Boros. Yea, the city's yours, you misanthropic apes. There isn't a bigger single health issue facing this City than Motor Vehicle chaos. Wasn't it just last week the Daily News reported on the links between test scores and motor vehicle pollution in this City? A complete lack of traffic violation enforcement by our Police Dept (read: City Hall) and a reckless disregard for respectable speed limits have left us with Monday morning papers declaring the previous weekends Car murder. Take a peak at yesterdays Post if you find that hard to believe. In addition to Aaron's great spokesmanship on the veritable Suicide that is Grand Army Plaza Brooklyn, and Jan's redesign, Starts and Fits has been doing some nice posts on the explosive impatience many of us Pedestrian users of the city are feeling, as well as the formation of the New York Streets Renaissance Campaign, not too mention the always attentive, Transportation Alternatives. Bring back the Death o' Meter.
Since the retirement of London's double decker bus (but the View?!), the BendyBus/AccordianBus, has made its Ye Olde Debut, functionally interrogated with humour on Diamond Geezer. On deserted streets and the romance of running wild thru an empty London, from the Morning News. The London Architecture Biennale begins on June 16th. Experiment and Utopia in Architecture 1956-2006 begins June 15th at the Barbican in Londra. Finally, a hilarious and misguided screed from a fellow I normally find many things in common. The shoutdown, against the reclamation of roadspace by pedestrians and cars, spews this statist rant, "Like Leicester Square and Covent Garden, these mass confrontations between Leicester Square and bloated Tourists pickpockets, circus failures, and vunerable tourists plague what were quiet, nice, and respectable areas before all cars were banished, and the roads closed off. Now they are hell holes of litter and vulgarity in the day, and no-go drug haunts after midnight. Road closures like this are a big mistake, and have ruined many beauty spots."
Urban Forest Project coming soon, sponsered by Times Sq Alliance and the AIA New York Chapter. I'm all for Maples in Midtown?!?! Hilarious sketch of possible uses for the Brooklyn Detention Center, from Low Culture. So appropriate. Why can't we get ATM locations on every corner like Manhattan?! Why can't every new condo have a drug store and Chase outlet, like Manhattan?! We can, With Marty & Ratner!
Lifestyles of the Rich and Ugly in Palm Beach. Trendy modernist living, and filling in the arches of London. Historic preservation and revitalization in the American South. The Northeast still has the 'dumbest drivers'. Obviously, considering the Northeast issues the least amount of traffic violations in the country. Mayor Bloomberg's lovely little imagination at work again, SeaPlane! SeaPlane! A Brookings Institue study I missed on the old childhood friend, Mind the Gap: Disparities & Competitiveness in the Twin Cities. WQ review of the new book, Destruction of Memory: Architecture at War. Daily Dose tour of some sleek new rowhouses in Denver CO. Tropolism points to an exhibition on one my favorite architects, Alvaro Siza at the Santa Monica Museum of Art. Paris plans new skyscrapers, barracks are built, lines drawn. City Journal provides Larry Silverstein with oral sex for his building of 7 World Trade. Admittedly, it is a pleasant buiding, but I can't but help question the author's navel gazing when it comes to Larry jacking the process by inserting Child. More WTC memorial goodness from Miss Rep. My newest and most consuming passion, Adobe Rowhouses, from which the image below relates, originally found on the Vernacular Architecture Forum. Now, don't forget, Free Ferries to Governors Island All Summer, GovIsland! A fantastic PhotoTour of Baltimore City USA.
Posted by jmarston at 01:45 PM | Comments (1)
June 12, 2006
Chapter IV: History of Breuckelen 1628-1664
view of Brookland 1766
"Translation of a contract for the erection of a ferry-house, or tavern, on the Long Island side, for Egbert Van Borsum, the ferry-master, in 1655:
“We, Carpenters Jan Cornelisen, Abram Jacobsen, and Jan Hendricksen, have contracted to construct a house over at the ferry of Egbert Van Borsum, ferry-man, thirty feet long and eighteen feet wide, with an outlet of four feet, to place in it seven girders, with three transome windows and one door in the front, the front to be planed and grooved, and the rear front to have boards overlapped in order to be tight, with door and windows therein ; and a floor and garret grooved and planed beneath (on the under side); to saw the roof thereon, and moreover to set a windowframe with a glass light in the front side; to make a chimney mantel and to wainscot the fore-room below, and divide it in the centre across with a door in the partition; to set a window-frame with two glass lights therein; further to wainscot the east side the whole length of the house, and in the recess two bedsteads, one in the front room and one in the inside room, with a pantry at the end of the bedstead (betste); a winding staircase in the fore-room. Furthermore we, the carpenters, are bound to deliver all the square timber—to wit, beams, posts, and frame timber, with the pillar for the winding staircase, spars, and worm, and girders, and foundation tim. bers required for the work; also the spikes and nails for the interior work; also rails for the wainscot are to be delivered by us." “For which work Egbert Van Borsum is to pay five hundred and fifty guilders (two hundred and twenty dollars), one-third in beavers, one-third in good merchantable wampum, one-third in good silver coin, and free passage over the ferry so long as the work continues, and small beer to be drunk during work.
"It has often been claimed as a peculiar distinction of the Puritan settlers of New England, that their prominent aim, and chief care, in settling those desert regions, was the establishment of religious and educational privileges. Yet, although the settlement of New Netherlands was undoubtedly undertaken rather as a commercial speculation, than as an experimental solution of ecclesiastical and civil principles and government, we find that the Dutch were equally anxious and careful to extend and to preserve to their infant settlements the blessings of education and religion. It is true that, in the earlier years of roving and unsystematized traffic which followed the discovery of Manhattan Island, there seems to have been no higher principle involved than that of gain. But as soon as a permanent agricultural and commercial occupation of the country was undertaken by the West India Company, the higher moral and spiritual wants and necessities of its settlers were fully recognized."
All this juicy goodness lifted from CHAPTER IV: HISTORY OF BREUCKELEN 1628-1664, written in 1857.
Posted by jmarston at 09:25 PM
The Anti-Sit: Supposed
Posted by jmarston at 09:21 PM
June 11, 2006
Frisco File
Paris of the West, New Mexico of the North, Dear Old Sweet Natured San Francisco.
Nob Hill, taken by MisterSF
First, no visit is complete without a one on one with Mister SF himself! This gallery of San Francisco's hills, a little topo lesson of beautiful snapshots. The Church of Satan, Anton Levey's house, photographed before demolition. On over to the great urbanist site SF Cityscape, lots of interesting transit plans, maps, and docs.
Some fantastic panoramas, click to enlarge San Franciscco! These two images come from SF area photographer Ron Gilbert, his photos of Forestiere Underground. You know Forestiere in Fresno CA!
Highly rec'd read on the darker aspects of the Bay, Imperial San Francisco, by Gray Brechin.
Sudden plans for some 1000 ft skyscrapers in Downtown San Fran. UPDATE: Renzo Piano on board for first 'scraper in line, toping at 850ft, about the height of the Transamerica building. Lets see how he incorporates earthquake safety.
The most darling historical photos of sparkling ole San Fran, from the Potrero Hill Archives Project.
An circa 1900 Adobe home near 20th and De Haro present day San Francisco.
Posted by jmarston at 06:00 PM
June 08, 2006
Dear Burden: Parking Required?
All New York City Residential Zoning code districts Require on average that a minimum of 40% of the dwelling units have a parking space. Shoot me if 40% of my building has a car. Required parking per dwelling tops out at 85% in R5 districts.
Any wise interpretations on the benefits of this course, please say cheese. This is first in a series of hard hitting Zoning Questions for the Lady of City Planning, the lovely Amanda Burden.
Posted by jmarston at 09:37 PM | Comments (6)
June 06, 2006
Emergency Placement Planning Commission
Posted by jmarston at 08:12 PM | Comments (3)
Why Chase the Anti-Sit
This is why. Good Tidings to all the Sitters on the site. We dedicate this to the ladies below, holdin it down in the June afternoon.
Posted by jmarston at 08:05 PM | Comments (1)
The Anti-Sit: Luxury on the Bowery
Posted by jmarston at 08:02 PM
June 05, 2006
Fresh Faced
The UN, newly built.
scanned from a great book,
The Architecture of the Well-tempered Environment by Reyner Banham.
Posted by jmarston at 05:25 PM | Comments (1)
Liberty's First Apartment in Paris
Before the lady had a waterfront condo.
scanned from a great book,
Paris, Capital of Modernity by David Harvey.
Posted by jmarston at 05:11 PM
Tycoon Living!
Martijn de Waal's wonderfully fractured photos of real estate adverts in China.
Posted by jmarston at 04:19 PM
Fantastical Urbanism
Fantastical imaginations of our cities are so often littered with outmoded science fiction fantasies, dystopian nightmares, or technocratic asylums. Rarely, it seems, are we are much concerned with a magical realist portrait of our imagined cities. Take the city Galvez, by Oscar Guzman, and his small smattering of images. There is something in the texture, mood, and lighting of these CADs that tells a different story than most Futures.
Posted by jmarston at 02:52 PM
June 03, 2006
The Newest Luxury Future Primitive!
"Plywood! Do you hear me Fabrice, we are tastemakers and this is soooooo Brooklyn!!" -overheard on Ledgers Berry.
Posted by jmarston at 12:16 AM | Comments (2)