Results tagged “robertmoses”

Another day, another Bridgeversary! This Saturday the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge turns a youthful 45 years old. The folks at Inside the Apple have a full history, noting that when it opened in 1964, it was the longest suspension bridge in the world. The bridge connects Staten Island to Bay Ridge (or Yellow Hook), and was the "last major arterial road in Robert Moses's grand plan to connect all of New York by automobile."

For some reason, this amazing contest from the Parks & Recreation Department escaped our attention until now! Parks officials want you to think of a mascot! This adorable (and nutty) image of a squirrel unzipping his fur (ew) to reveal a Parks logo is included, but don't let that stymie your imagination: "Is it Nutty the Squirrel, Hudson the Hawk, or Parker the Leaf? Is it another animal, person, or object, or a previously unknown creature that emerged from the depths of New York City’s 29,000 acres of parks, gardens, and forests?" Person? That means you could potentially suggest former Parks Commissioner Robert Moses! Still, keep this in mind: "Designs must be able to be produced into a costume that can be worn by an adult between 5’6” and 6’ in height and up to 180 pounds in weight. There may be some creative adjustments to your original design due to accommodations made for the human body." More details here.

Would a bridge by any other name, bring you to JFK Airport just as smoothly as the Triborough? In all likelihood, yes, but the big question here is should it be renamed after JFK's younger brother, former New York senator Robert F. Kennedy.

The engines fueling Jane Jacobs' legacy are at full throttle, with the Municipal Art Society's new exhibition, titled "Jane Jacobs and the Future of New York." The show, opening this week at the Urban Center Galleries, delves into how today's (and tomorrow's) city fits into Jacobs' ideas and also examines how the public can draw on her values, given the major developments and rezoning now in progress.

Above is a picture of the observation towers at the New York State pavilion of the 1964-65 World's Fair in Flushing Meadows, Queens. A flickr member scanned the picture, and many others, after he found a scrapbook on the street in Cambridge, MA. He believes that the photos were taken by a woman named Lillian Seymour, who visited the World's Fair in 1965.

Did you hear about the new arts and music venue opening in Fort Greene? Well, chances are that all of the blood, sweat, tears and money (over $1M) that went into it may have been for nothing. Amber Art and Music Space was being built out of an old liquor store at Fulton Street and Ashland Place by three friends who are now being told they can no longer develop the space.

All too often, we read (and write) about horrible instances of traffic fatalities when motor vehicles fail to yield to pedestrians with the right of way. There used to be a simple solution to this problem, and it was known as the Barnes Dance. Although NYC traffic commissioner Henry Barnes didn't invent the concept, it became named after him in the 1960s by a City Hall reporter named John Buchanan.

The United Nations is finally moving ahead with plans to renovate its headquarters on Manhattan's East Side. The organization selected Swedish contractor Skanska AB to head up the preconstruction phase of the $1 billion project. Never known for being quick on its feet, a U.N. renovation project has been talked about since the mid-90s and is scheduled to take place in three phases over seven years, starting in early 2008.

That big empty cement pool in Greenpoint has become a landmark. The recently rejuvinated (but still dry) McCarren Park Pool was designated such by the Landmarks Preservation Commission yesterday morning.

One casualty of MAS's proposal would be the Robert Moses Playground, home of the East End Hockey Association. The mostly featureless lot hosts the local roller hockey league, which is claiming that Robert Moses Playground is the only area of its type on the East Side that it can use. MAS is proposing that the playground be traded to the U.N., which would build a 35-story tower on the land, in exchange for waterfront access to complete the greenway.

The New York Times has an interesting story today on Sion Misrahi and the Lower East Side he helped transform. If you've walked down Rivington St. a few times, you've probably noticed the Misrahi Realty storefront business. Its owner is Sion Misrahi, who sold pants for his father in the neighborhood when he was fourteen. When it began to gentrify, he worked to classify the old bargain-shopping district as a landmark area. Then he decided to start marketing real estate in the neighborhood to nightlife businesses. The Times separates the changes into four parts: "shmattes to hipsters to bulldozers to tourists."

Four months after the opening of three much mulled-over Robert Moses exhibitions, the debate over his legacy shows no signs of waning. Yesterday’s NY Times delved yet again into the morass, this time wondering whether the two perspectives are simply creatures of their cultural moments – a city embroiled in decay vs. a city experiencing a growth spurt.

A look at some noteworthy television this week:

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a double shooting on St. Johns Pl. in Brooklyn, a collapse on Grant Ave. in the Bronx, and a barricaded emotionally disturbed person on 102nd St. in Queens.
• Like Robert Moses in reverse, Mayor Bloomberg wants highways to give way to housing by covering roads like the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, as well as rail yards, and constructing housing above them. New York's own Big Dig?
• Ricki Lake's documentary, which is debuting at the Tribeca Film Festival, includes scenes of her giving birth in the bathtub in her West Village apartment. She made her assistant clean the tub afterwards, because there's natural and then there's just gross.
• Attractive adult NYC virgins talk about their decisions to not go all the way in a slideshow presentation.
• NY1 political reporter Dominic Carter requested his mother's medical records after her death. Unbeknownst to him, Carter's mother was a paranoid schizophrenic who once choked him and thought about throwing him out a window when he was a child.
• A Brooklyn yeshiva is serving eviction notices to the residents––many elderly and disabled––of a property it owns to make way for a studyhall and more classrooms.
• 13 miles of mostly straight, flat NY highway that is the site of a disproportionate number of fatal crashes.
• NJ Governor Jon Corzine may just stay in bed and run the state better, faster, and without ribbon cuttings, via video. We have the technology.
• The City Council voted to override Mayor Bloomberg's vetoes on a metal bat ban and pedicab-limiting regulations.

There's a fun NY Times City section article about the Queens Museum of Art's Panorama Challenge. The Queens Museum of Art's panorama is a to-scale model of New York City: One inch equals 100 feet (the Empire State Building is 15 inches tall) and the model was originally designed for the 1964 World's Fair, as a "helicopter" ride over New York City. (And, yes, Parks Commissioner Robert Moses commissioned the panorama in 1964, just as he commissioned the Queens Museum of Art's building, the former New York City Pavilion for the 1939's World Fair.)

We love it when an itty-bitty concrete city park gets in the way of larger agendas, only because we hope that it results in the park's users receiving a totally overcompensatory parting prize. In what will be marked as one of the least ironic moves of New York development ever, the city wants to bulldoze the Robert Moses Playground on 42nd St. and 1st Ave. to construct a 35-story tower. So far, the primary interest group blocking the plan from progressing is a roller hockey league that's been using the park for decades and is unhappy with a proposed East River promenade as a replacement.

Interesting: The new United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon asked Mayor Bloomberg deploying NYPD officers on U.N. peacekeeping missions. The U.N. tells the AP that one of its priorities is to recruit international police for its peacekeeping missions, and a spokesperson said, "New York City has one of the most diversified police forces around."

The Rockefeller Foundation, which played a role in funding Jane Jacobs's pioneering research and writing 50 years ago, will now support her legacy by issuing two annual award grants in her honor. According to the NY Sun, one recipient will have made a lifetime contribution to urban design or theory, specifically in New York City, and the other will be on the cusp of a promising career. Each award is worth $200,000.

As the debate about the former Parks Commissioner rages on, Venerated newsman Gabe Pressman is cheerleading for Robert Moses. In an article posted on the WNBC web site, Pressman says that he knew the master builder.

As the world holds it's breath, teetering precariously on the cusp of the Superbowl (well, at least in America), the wheels of the -ists keep on turning.

Robert Moses’ legacy may be getting tweaked if organizers of three upcoming exhibitions have their way.

Untitled by Bruncerous.

The conflicting interests of Columbia University and the West Harlem community continue to spawn new polemics from both sides, as the university inches ahead with its proposed 17-acre, $7 billion expansion. As the land-use contest heats up, so has the quest to find the perfect metaphor. The high-stakes name game begins with the conflicting designations of the territory in question. While Columbia has used the term "Manhattanville" to describe the area, which lies between 125th and 133rd Streets, many community advocates resolutely refer to it as "West Harlem," emphasizing its connection to nearby residential and commercial districts. The Times recently called on Columbia to drop the archaic name and face up to the neighborhood's true character.

Well, Gateway National Recreation Area is right in our neck of the woods, extending in three New York City boroughs and into northern New Jersey. It is a good place to start your quest for the perfect patch of sand and cooling waters.

The Triborough Bridge is 70 years old today. As the MTA puts it, the bridge is "actually three bridges, a viaduct, and 14 miles of approach roads connecting Manhattan, Queens, and the Bronx." And traveling along it can provide some of the most beautiful views of the city -and the bridges themselves aren't bad. Today, the NY Times looks at the history of the bridge and its creator, Robert Moses. We liked this quote about Moses, the scarily powerful Parks Commissioner:

“He was a visionary,” said Robert Del Bagno, exhibitions manager at the Transit Museum in Brooklyn Heights, where “The Triborough Bridge: Robert Moses and the Automobile Age” is on display through next year.

Continue reading "Happy 70th Birthday, Triborough Bridge"

The NY Sun looks at Lincoln Center's redesign as the arts organization broke ground on the first part of their redevelopment plans:

The project is already underway, and the public will start to see evidence of construction soon. The Paul Milstein Plaza, which extends over 65th Street and is a hangout for Juilliard students, will be destroyed, and a temporary footbridge constructed between the Rose Building and the plaza level by Lincoln Center Theater. This will eventually be replaced by a translucent glass footbridge.

Continue reading "Lincoln Center's New Look"

A relaxing day on the beach became a 15-pound umbrella to the head for a Lower East Side woman six years ago. And yesterday, NY State agreed to pay $200,000 in damages to Phyllis Caliano-Bahaj over the incident at Robert Moses State Park. The "profession style" umbrella turned into a "flying torpedo in the air, like a missile" during strong winds - one lifeguard said it was about 20 feet in the air before hitting Caliano-Bahaj. She needed 13 stitches for a cut on her forehead - and now has permanent nerve damage to her neck.

Today's NY Times article about the current shaping of Hudson River Park and how it was inspired by the failed Westway project. Westway would have meant a landfill extension into the Hudson along the West Side Highway much like Battery Park City (and with its mix of residential and commercial space) - and the highway would have been built underground, as the highway was crumbling. New York Voices has a good site explaining it, and opposition grew because some people thought it might be the Lower Manhattan Expressway - the battle between Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs - on the West Side. An Talk of the Town piece from 2004 revisited the project:

[Craig] Whitaker [a Westway planner] talked about some of the places where the city has had the wisdom to run highways under riverfront esplanades—the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, Carl Schurz Park. “We thought New Yorkers would never accept sixty-five thousand cars passing daily between them and the waterfront,” he said. He nodded toward the six lanes of hurtling cars and trucks just outside the Pier 40 lobby. “But that’s what we’ve got out here. It was a tragedy for the city."

Could it be true? The New York Post is reporting that the DoT has approved a plan to build a 3.5 mile, $12.8 billion, seven lane tunnel under the Brooklyn waterfront, and then demolish the existing Gowanus Expressway. If funded, the project could be complete in about 15 years. Since Robert Moses approved construction of the expressway over a disused elevated rail in 1939, the highway has been a huge headache for the city. It's perpetually under-construction, traffic clogged, and worst of all, it cuts off all of Red Hook and the Sunset Park Waterfront from the rest of Brooklyn. Just as the Cross Bronx Expressway cut off the South Bronx from the rest of the city and caused it to spiral into decline, Moses' Gowanus project resulted in a crime-ridden, rubble strewn Brooklyn waterfront, where there could have been a vibrant neighborhood filled with puppies and parks and families. That bastard!

Jane Jacobs' death will be talked about for a while, because issues she questioned continue to be relevant today, and we expect many articles about her and influence to come. But, for now, here are a couple links on Jane Jacobs - and let us know about more: