Results tagged “design”

    

Check out the lipstick on this pig factory farm cow: McDonald's Corp. spokeswoman Danya Proud says this McDonald's location on Sixth Avenue between 14th and 15th streets is the first in the nation to get a so-called "urban redesign." It has free Wi-Fi and laptop outlets, upholstered vinyl chairs instead of seats bolted to the floor, subdued lighting, and all-black uniforms for employees. The metrosexual look is, naturally, de rigueur in Europe, but like something out of another world for us boorish Americans. One customer tells the Associated Press it's "beautiful" and more "like a lounge"—but with the same revolting "food."

The High Line only just opened to the public this past June, but already it's facing a $2 million lawsuit. We've been told by the NYC Park Advocates that "a basic design flaw that regularly causes pedestrians to trip has rendered the vast majority of the first section of the million High Line promenade a hazard."

We play tennis at McCarren Park a couple of times a week, so it's exciting to see someone trying to do something about those ridiculously busted old courts, which the Parks Department charges $100 a year or $7 an hour to use. But the folks involved with the McCarren Tennis renovation group aren't just demanding that the badly cracked courts get a long-overdue resurfacing, they've got much bigger plans. Those familiar with the park know that on weekends, the big concrete lot next to the courts is occupied by a crowd of, um, spirited softball players. Well, these fellows will be mighty interested to know that their tennis-playing neighbors have their eye on that lot, and are campaigning to have it turned into more courts! There is no way that happens without a riot, despite the fact that the entire area was originally devoted exclusively to tennis "once upon a time," as Brownstoner notes. We'll be sure to share that interesting bit of history with those softball gents this weekend, particularly the individual who inexplicably yelled, "HAMBURGER" over and over again for more than an hour during their game last Sunday.

For well over a century almost a thousand acres of prime Manhattan real estate have gone to waste, as thousands of roustabouts loiter daily on that great green monument to squandered potential: Central Park. But at last a group of visionaries are trying to turn this urban void into something the city desperately needs: an international airport! But what about JFK, you say? Let the Manhattan Airport Foundation explain:

Continue reading "Manhattan Airport Foundation's Bold Plan for Central Park"

The color of the Guggenheim's facade has been discussed over and over again, but did you know that Frank Lloyd Wright designed it to be red? More specifically, "Exterior: Red-marble and long-slim pottery red bricks."

       

The High Line is set to open on some closely-guarded secret date (though we hear it's around June 15th), and until then, it's the A list, the rich, and Kevin Bacon only! Curbed has some shots up provided by an insider at a special event that took place on the Line last night, and included guests like Martha Stewart, Barry Diller and Diane von Furstenberg. For the rest of us non-celebs, we'll have to be content with these various spy cam shots, and maybe this recent interview with the founders of Friends of the High Line, who teamed up all those years ago to save and re-purpose the defunct elevated train line.

      

In 2004 park officials retained landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates to design the new waterfront for Brooklyn Bridge Park. His solution to mute the traffic noise coming off the BQE was to erect a physical barrier between the roadway and the landscaped area, but some folks have declared that this current $7 million solution has numerous problems (most notably that it simply won't work).

Tropicana announced today that it will discontinue its new product redesign only a month after all of its orange juice containers were revamped. The Times calls the move PepsiCo's "own version of New Coke." We've heard quite a few grumblings around town about how generic-looking the new Tropicana cartons were and apparently some people took their gripes to the company itself. One customer asked Tropicana, “Do any of these package-design people actually shop for orange juice? Because I do, and the new cartons stink.”

New York, meet the bike rack of the future. Today the DOT announced that after a lengthy design competition, a jury of six—including sodden cyclist David Byrne—chose "Hoop" (pictured) out of the ten finalists. It's the work of two Copenhagen designers, Ian Mahaffy and Maarten De Greeve. "Constructed of cast metal, the design is elegant yet sturdy enough to withstand New York cyclists’ harsh treatment," the DOT said in a statement.

Brooklyn Brewery found themselves in an unlikely battle recently against the Trappist monks of Belgium. Who, apparently, you do NOT mess with. CityRoom reports that BB owner Steve Hindy started making a refermented ale called Brooklyn Local 1, which borrowed a method from the monks. But the problem was in the design of the bottle he used for it: "an amber bottle design featuring a double embossed ring at the base of the neck. It was not unlike the single-ringed bottle used by the Westmalle Abbey in Belgium and by the New Belgium Brewing Company of Fort Collins, Colo." First his friend Kim Jordan, owner of the New Belgium, warned him of her "protracted negotiations with the monks of Westmalle on the use of a ringed bottle in the United States...She told him it was her duty under the partnership to defend the trademark." Hindy soon backed down, took a loss of $60K and noted of the monks: “God is on their side." However, it looks like the press images that got out there still include the old design. Developing... like dark clouds of a wrathful God.

        

Transportation Alternatives announced three winners today in their "Designing the 21st Century Street," competition, which sought new visions for the heavily-trafficked intersection of 4th Avenue and 9th Street in Park Slope. The intersection is notoriously dreary and annoying, with pedestrians coming from the east forced to cross several lanes of traffic to get to the shabby elevated F station, which will be renovated someday maybe, the MTA swears.

Yesterday a team of designers, engineers, producers and economists came together at Brooklyn Borough Hall to launch "Imagine Coney," an initiative spearheaded the Municipal Art Society. Their goal is to restore Coney Island to its original splendor, as it's been on the decline for years.

          

The Department of Transportation's design competition for the next generation of bike racks entered its final phase yesterday with the installation of ten design prototypes around New York City. Nine of the ten finalists' prototypes were installed at Astor Place, and as of 6 p.m. yesterday they were almost entirely unused. It'll probably take a day or two before more cyclists discover the next-wave locking options in the Alamo island there, so for now it seems there's plenty of free parking.

Photograph by M.V. Jantzen on Flickr

File this one under unsurprising: The shiny new TKTS booth in Times Square that's supposed to finally open this month over 18 months late is also way over budget, the Post reports. The ambitious new discount theater ticket outlet, which features an all-glass skin with an amphitheater-style roof (pictured) and "a shimmering and floating carpet of color and light," has cost 100 percent more than its original $8 million estimate.

As if you needed any more reasons to choose Jet Blue over other airlines, Grub Street got their hands on renderings for the dining and drinking areas of the airline's renovated Terminal 5 at JFK airport, scheduled to reopen October 1st. While it does give one pause that the design is being done by ICRAVE, the same firm that unleashed Crobar upon our fair city, their vision is certainly a cut above most airport dead zones. Seen here is the rendering of the Deep Blue bar and Asian fusion joint, which doesn't seem like such a bad place to sit out an interminable flight delay.

         

Is there anything this city won't do for renaissance man David Byrne? The former Talking Head has been helping out with the DOT's search for new bike rack designs, and recently got inspired to sketch some imaginary bike racks named for New York neighborhoods and locations. Then, voila; David's dream is manifest, as he explains on his blog: "To my surprise, [the DOT] responded by saying, 'If you make these we'll put them up.' Holy Moses! I was over the moon — what happened to the legendary red tape and years of bureaucratic haggling I was supposed to go through?"

Yesterday the Port Authority unveiled designs from three architects competing to build a 1.3 million-square-foot skyscraper atop the dreary west side bus terminal's north wing. Officials say they’ll choose a winning design in the next couple months, and construction on the office tower could start next year, or maybe 2010; but what's the rush? Demand for office space in New York City isn’t exactly critical.

The ten finalists were announced today in the Department of Transportation’s search for new street bike rack designs. The city currently has nearly 4,700 boring old U-shaped "CityRacks" around town, but with a 75% ridership since 2000, that number’s not cutting it. The finalists will each receive an honorarium of $5,000 to produce two full-scale prototypes of their design. Whoever wins first place gets $5,000, and in exchange the city gets to keep the intellectual property rights to the design and start installing it. See New York's brave new world of bike racks here.

Transportation Alternatives [T.A.] has issued an open call for new designs for the heavily-trafficked intersection of 4th Avenue and 9th Street in Brooklyn, at the western edge of Park Slope. Called “Designing the 21st Century Street,” the competition is wholly theoretical and not part of any actual city plan, but the winning prizes are very real, ranging from $2,000 to $6,000.

Remember the plans for that fancy new TKTS theater ticket booth in Times Square that were unveiled back in Aught Six? Producer Ken Davenport (Altar Boyz) does, and the other day he was just wondering, you know, why the hell it’s not ready yet, since they originally said it would be open for business in just six short months. (The Times Square TKTS has been operating at the Marriot Marquis in the meantime.)

             

It's been three years since we've gotten a look at what the High Line park - currently under construction on what was once an overgrown elevated railway - will look like. Today the Friends of the High Line, who've come a long way in their crusade to turn the disused tracks into an easily accessible urban oasis, joined Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe to unveil the ambitious design renderings.

Last week the NY Times' House & Garden section took a look at the mysteries planted by an architect in a ritzy Fifth Avenue apartment. This week, The Hollywood Reporter and Variety report that Paramount has purchased the rights to the article for a feature to be produced by J.J. Abrams. Writers Maya Forbes and Wally Wolodarsky have already been hired to adapt the piece into a film.

The Empire State Building is going couture! Well, sort of. From a press release about the 300 newly-uniformed employees:

As part of a $500 million renovation to restore the Empire State Building’s 1930’s glory, new Art Deco-inspired uniforms are rolling out for staff this summer to kick off the season in style.

Continue reading "Empire State Building Uniform Redux"

   

The image below isn’t a rejected Rage Against the Machine album cover, but rather an ad campaign for a leading Brazilian business newspaper, Gazeta Mercantil. Designed by illustrator Pedro Izique for the São Paulo office of ad agency JWT, the print ad redesigns the Dollar, Euro and Yen with images of “some of the most important events of the last century.”

              

The Bronx houseboat, measuring in at only 250-square-feet, really should have cleaned up ship and entered this contest.

Over the past few weeks, the Museum of Arts and Design has revealed its update for 2 Columbus Circle.

150 years ago today the Board of Commissioners of Central Park chose the “Greensward plan” submitted by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux for the design of America’s first major urban public park. Except for the rock outcrops, the park is almost entirely man-made; the meadows were swamps until the designers had them drained and dumped tens of thousands of cartloads of soil to fill them out. And the bodies of water were created using the same water pipes that supplied city residents.

Earlier this week, the Landmarks Preservation Commission unanimously agreed to allow the main branch of the New York Public Library at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street to inscribe the name of a prominent donor, financier Stephen A. Schwarzman, multiple times on the library facade. The fabulously wealthy son of a grocer and co-founder of the Blackstone Group will have his name inscribed five times on the library’s façade as a shout-out for his $100 million unconditional gift to the NYPL.

A study revealed that a lack of secure bike parking was the biggest reason why people don’t cycle to work. So the Department of Transportation is cooperating with Cooper-Hewitt, Google and Transportation Alternatives to organize an international design competition for the next generation of city bike racks. More than $50,000 in honoraria to develop prototype bike racks and $15,000 in prizes will be awarded to the top designs.