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Category Archives: Architecture
Homeless on Houston Street
Wednesday, November 19th, 2008
It looks like that torn up stretch of Houston Street between Broadway and Bowery, is finally coming to some construction conclusion. The perpetual homeless toll booth there is still going strong.
Bike Rack Prototypes
Tuesday, October 7th, 2008
G is flexible and covered with plastic, but it is not that flexible that it would increase usability that much. The plastic is likely to deteriorate, and I am not sure how resistant to tampering it would be. (update, Oct 11, it is broken already) B looks likely to jab a passing pedestrian in the crotch, and its painted finish is already peeling. A is way too low to the ground and I think it is likely to trip the unwary.
This is my favorite. It is sturdy, sleek looking, and if placed parallel to pedestrian flow, would not present much of a tripping hazard. From Ian Mahaffy and Maarten De Greeve
More on the competition from the Gothamist
nycityracks - finally-the-finalists
nyc.gov/html/dot/html/bicyclists/bikerack
Hotel Ludlow Top?
Wednesday, October 1st, 2008
For all I know they could be planning to raise a hasty spire like the Chrysler Building did. But it looks like their quest for the sky is reaching some sort of conclusion.
How many people can downtown Manhattan hold? The sidewalks in my neighborhood are getting that unpleasant moving-herd feeling of midtown, you know, that savory mix of stationary tourists and frantic commerce. The strain on the infrastructure (electricity, gas, water, sewage, transportation etc.) from these giant buildings, populating the spaces of former parking-lots and six-story tenements, must be huge.
And personally, having all these new eyes possibly staring down at my tenement apartment, from vantages only allowed before to birds and helicopters is unpleasant. But it is not all bad. I still have a six-story winter sunset horizon south of these buildings, something to cheer my early Winter evenings. And in the heat of Summer, sunsets are mostly blocked by these buildings, a good thing, considering the easy-bake oven factor of having west facing windows. Educationally, having these urban monoliths to use as astronomical reference is giving me visceral feel for the seasons. The coated glass and flat sides of The Ludlow (right in the photo) often grant me a rosy reflected dawn. But I’m not yet astronomer enough to know how often moonset now will be denied me.
Both shots, from my rooftop.
