Earlier this week, the EPA designated Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal as a Superfund site, much to the chagrin of developers and local group Clean Gowanus Now! (their punctuation, not mine), two groups that generally prefer Mayor Bloomberg’s faster, cheaper cleanup plan, which (because it is faster and cheaper) would allow for major development projects to proceed much more quickly.
But as [...]
One city just passed a measure to spend roughly $600 million over 20 years on its bicycling infrastructure; one city is in the midst of planning similar improvements that, if fully built out, would cost an estimated $230 million.
The substantial difference between the two figures might lead you believe two things: that the $600 million [...]
Manhattan’s Silverstein Properties could not have picked a better playground than the one it bought for a park next to a couple of its new development projects. Rather than installing a run-of-the-mill plastic playground, the developer bought Playground, a bronze Tom Otterness sculpture completed for a private party in 2007.
Tom Otterness’ work is consistently whimsical, [...]
As you may have read, Dubai’s over-heated real estate market recently underwent a forced, but necessary, cool down. Amidst the wreckage are thousands of designers who carefully drew up designs only to see their patrons’ financing evaporate in the Gulf’s dry heat.
Landscape architect Scott Martin is one such designer, but his post-Dubai income strategy is [...]
Philadelphia is still waiting for its own High Line, but at least it can bide its time with a new park across the Schuylkill River. The University of Pennsylvania just broke ground for the 24-acre Penn Park, part of which will transform 14 acres of United States Postal Service parking lots into riverfront trees, paths, and [...]
When I posted about former pro-football player Keyshawn Johnson’s new interior design gig, I assumed he was a pioneer out to prove that good fashion sense in post-game attire is indicative of design-ability. I also assumed Keyshawn’s love of interior design was about as deep as his love of the television show that supplied him [...]
Should the Gowanus Canal be declared a federal Superfund site by the Environmental Protection Agency?
As if PCBs, heavy metals, raw sewage, and brackish tidewater weren’t damaging enough, New York City’s Gowanus Canal won’t get an answer until the end of an on-going political battle among forces wielding nearly as much influence on its physical state [...]
Nearly every city with an interstate-freeway running through it has encountered a certain level of collateral damage. Typically, such damage takes the form of noise, air pollution, and sometimes, even more traffic congestion.
On land adjacent to such corridors, these and other usual suspects also tend to create psychological barriers that separate formerly united neighborhoods in [...]
Twenty years ago this October 17th, the Loma Prieta Earthquake disrupted more than the pre-game routines of the Oakland Athletics and San Francisco Giants, who were prepping to battle each other in Game Three of World Series. A few miles away, motorists on the Cypress Street Viaduct had the misfortune of either being crushed by [...]
Judging by the positive captions of the many protester-taken photos of the new green wall hanging at PNC Financial’s Pittsburgh headquarters, I think the G-20 security personnel surrounding PNC Plaza were unnecessary; apparently financial companies just need some greenery to direct the ire of their philosophical adversaries elsewhere.
Not that PNC’s new green wall isn’t good [...]