There's a new secret garden downtown! Well, sort of. Richard Pasquarelli has just installed the first portion of his Secret Gardens public art project, a 5-foot-high, 1,000-foot-long vinyl mesh installation of “secret” backyard and garden scenes. This a a joint project by the New York City Department of Transportation's Urban Art Program and the Downtown Alliance’s Re:Construction program, which installs temporary artworks at construction sites throughout Lower Manhattan. Beats looking at blue construction walls! Check it out along the site of the Chambers Street road reconstruction project, between West and Greenwich streets, as well as a more recently unveiled stretch from Greenwich Street to West Broadway. more ›

Over the past few weeks, the City Council has been moving from City Hall into temporary offices on Broadway, because a $106 million renovation project is being conducted on the 198-year-old building (it was completed in 1812). The AP, which calls it "one of the nation's oldest continuously-used city halls," reports that during a smaller renovation project a few years ago, "Officials found widespread failings and alarming decay: cracks through the trusses that support the roof, a rotting basement floor, wiring that was known to spark and dangerously sagging ceilings." more ›

Downtown Alliance's Re:Construction initiative has been going on for a couple of years now, and they continue to use construction sites as canvases. Today and tomorrow, two new art projects—Rainbow Conversation and Botanizing on the Asphalt—are being installed in separate Lower Manhattan construction sites (Louise Nevelson Plaza and Hudson River Park along West Street, respectively). more ›