Two months after Zuccotti Park was forcibly evicted by the NYPD, the metal barricades and constant security presence remain, making the space less like a public park and more like a frozen zone. Today the NYCLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the NLG fired off a letter [pdf] to Department of Buildings Commissioner Robert LiMandri asking him to "ensure that Zuccotti Park is open and accessible to all members of the public on an equal basis." more ›

Creative Time always has some pretty cool stuff going on, their latest is Paul Ramirez Jonas's Key to the City, a citywide public art project that allows everyone to explore open spaces in all five boroughs (which was kicked off today by Mayor Bloomberg himself, and will run through June 27th). The CT team tells us, "The key eloquently connects the disparate sites to create a kind of poem of place, and asks how public is the public space of the city?" more ›

Like many, whenever we traverse any streets along Grand Army Plaza, we basically run (or bike) for our lives. more ›

Police arrested 16 year old Francisco Baez for the murder of Taishawn Bellevue. Bellevue was killed during an shocking Wednesday afternoon brawl in the Union Square Greenmarket, where about 50 teens convened with belts, bats, bricks and more. The fight may have been prompted by some students feeling insulted by others, which then led to groups of students from nearby Washington Irving High School and Brooklyn's Science Skills High School to meet. more ›

documentary seen on YouTube and myspace shows redesign architect George Vellonakis saying that the decrease to the park's central plaza will be just "5 percent" while in actuality, plans were showing decreases of much more. more ›

Interesting - the Post has a sorta followup to yesterday's Daily News story about Fashion Week being at Bryant Park next February. Though yesterday's Daily News article had Vogue editor Anna Wintour saying that Mayor Bloomberg would support fashion - and tents in Bryant Park - in spite of the park's desire to keep the ice rink up, the Post says Diane Von Furstenberg couldn't convince Bloomberg to keep the tents there. Von Furstenberg, designer and president of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, made a "personal appeal" to ask Mayor B to prevent the tents' eviction, but "instead he'll work toward finding another suitable location," according to a CFDA executive that told the Post. So, the locations that may see the Spring shows next February: Javits Center, Lincoln Center, and Chelsea Piers. more ›

The sun was almost shining yesterday when we headed over to Pier 40 for a behind-the-scenes, work-in-progress glimpse of a new exhibition as it was being installed for its end-of-the-week opening tomorrow. more ›

Yesterday, there was a press conference to herald the formation of the Grand Army Plaza Coalition, which will help improve Brooklyn's Grand Army Plaza for pedestrians. According to Transportation Alternatives, is coalition is "made up of civic associations such as the Park Slope Civic Council, the Prospect Heights Parents Association and the Eastern Parkway Cultural Row Association...cultural institutions such as the Prospect Park Alliance, the Brooklyn Public Library and the Heart of Brooklyn Cultural Partnership...advocacy organizations such as the Project for Public Spaces, Transportation Alternatives, and the Open Planning Project." Jan Gehl, an urban quality consultant from Denmark, will be "re-envisioning" the plaza, told NY1, "These great opportunities have completely been cut off in little islands where people, like Eskimos, have to jump from one ice floe to another. The middle here where you have fountains and other nice things, there are no one." more ›

Jane Jacobs, the urban activist whose influential book The Death and Life of Great American Cities reshaped thinking about urban communities, died overnight in Toronto. Jacobs, who lived in Canada since 1968, faced down NYC Parks Commissioner Robert Moses, arguably the most powerful man in the city at the time, in the 1960s, most famously stopping an expressway from being constructed downtown. more ›

February 22: From Disaster to Dessert – the Fate of New Orleans Food more ›

Imagine Manhattan streets with less cars, buses and exhaust and catered more towards pedestrians. It sure would have made walking around during the transit strike a bit nicer. Tonight Livable Streets: A New Vision For New York opens. The exhibit aims to explore new concepts for our city streets, such as turning them in to pedestrian-friendly public spaces. On display at the Urban Center, the exhibit launches the New York City Streets Renaissance Campaign — a collaboration between The Open Planning Project, Transportation Alternatives and Project for Public Spaces. more ›

Psych - it's April Fool's Day! The Project for Public Spaces has issued its April Fool's newsletter, which includes a faux-Christo project that would involve gating city sewer grates in New York (photo, above). Gothamist loved this "quote" from the Mayor:

"The Gates raised so much money we couldn't believe it. We've got to capitalize on this wrapping craze fast if we're going to fund the MTA's capital budget AND build the Jets stadium."

Shin-pei Tsay, Plainclothes urban geographer more ›