Category Archives: Current
Car Free Brooklyn Bridge – photos and drawings
A Car-Free Brooklyn Bridge Is Possible Images and Illustratons AFTER: Aerial view looking east towards a car-free Brooklyn Bridge. Centre Street and Park Row next to the Brooklyn Bridge are reimagined as an extension of City Hall Park. © 2020 … Continue reading
“Big Real Estate’s Continuing Stranglehold Over New York City”
Recently, the Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times about the causes of unaffordable housing in New York City. He blamed the crisis on a few things, including a powerful financial “monoculture” in the city, NIMBYs, … Continue reading
“My Open Letter to NYC DOT Commissioner Rodriquez”
Dear Commissioner Rodriquez, I’m writing to you because I just signed up for a workshop to improve Canal Street that your department is running tonight. I met you when you were a Councilman. I know you care deeply about making … Continue reading
Why GoDaddy’s Microsoft Exchange Email for Mac Users S*cks
After three years of unreliable, expensive email service from GoDaddy and Microsoft, I’ve reluctantly concluded that I have to find a new service for my domain name email. For reasons I won’t go into here, that’s a problem. GoDaddy is … Continue reading
Take Back The City
On a recent episode of Billions, the New York Attorney General stands on the roof a car in the middle of a New York City street with a bullhorn. Why? Vecause he’s positioned himself near a meeting on the Highline … Continue reading
MSG
Two MSG quotes: “In animal studies, injecting high doses of MSG into the brains of rats made them fat.” – Wikipedia “Through Pennsylvania Station one entered the city like a god…. One scuttles in now like a rat” [under Madison … Continue reading
Spoke Up at the Hotel Pennsylvania
CNU NYC is a member of the Empire Station Coalition that opposes Governor “Demo Dan” Cuomo’s plan to declare the blocks around Pennsylvania Station “blighted,” as part of an urban removal scheme for the area. Yesterday, several members of the … Continue reading
TikTok Urbanism
TikTok Car Free Brooklyn Bridge Car Free Brooklyn Bridge Uncropped
We Built This City To Walk And Stroll
“What if we treated historic districts historically, making the cars accommodate the city, rather than the other way around?”
My Recent Op-Eds
New York Times New York Daily News (print) Crain’s New York Business (print) Streetsblog NYC City Limits Many others in local papers and publications like the Berkshire Record and The Patent Trader. For a complete list, click here. Bonus: Two … Continue reading
“I feel like it’s 1968,” says every reporter on CNN and MSNBC watching the protest marches.
In another, less grave context, I wrote about one of my favorite Harvard professors, who back in the 1980s talked about what he thought were connections between the 1960s and the 21st century (see below). Today, like the reporters on … Continue reading
A Chicane Is Not A Shared Space Place
A space is only a place if people want to be there. The chicane shown above is for traffic calming, not placemaking. Putting that another way, it’s a product of traffic engineering, not a piece of urban design. I understand … Continue reading
Architecture Is Frozen Music
Imagine the following scenario. There are some problems with it, but you’ll get the point. The Berlin Philharmonic has the only sheet music for Mozart’s Requiem. One day, a fire destroys the last 10 pages. Angela Merkel announces that the … Continue reading
Philip Johnson Quote of the Day
Philip [Johnson] was always a perfect gentleman of the old school. But once I saw his wit and grace take an almost grandfatherly form. It was at the end of a splendid fall day that I had spent with him … Continue reading
My New York Times Op-Ed: “There Are Better Ways to Get Around Town”
New York City Streets for People After the Congestion Zone May 15, 2018 (link) The debate continues over how to make New York City’s streets less crowded, safer and better for people as well as cars. Some, like Gov. Andrew … Continue reading
NYC Needs You
New York City’s Historic Districts and Landmarks Are Under Siege Have you noticed how many ideas and movements from the 1960s are back in a big way? Feminism. The civil rights movement. Streets for People, which was the title of … Continue reading