Passing by the Jacob Riis Houses of Manhattan’s Lower East Side in the summer of 1966, an observer would have seen not the empty concrete plaza and fenced off patches of green lawn common to public housing projects, but a vibrant adventure playground populated with gaggles of ...
New York City is often spoken of as if it were a week from collapse or a year from becoming a new Zion. It depends on who’s talking. New York governor Kathy Hochul recently declared her intention to “not only rebuild from the pandemic, but also to unlock New York’s ...
My mother’s family comes from a small village in Transylvania, a province horseshoed by the Carpathian Mountains and smack in the center of Romania. A shallow, purling river, the Sebeş, flows down from the foothills, cutting the village in half. With cemeteries at the edge ...
Biography at its best may only manage to capture the fanny packs and Groucho glasses of an author’s inner world, but sometimes there comes a telling quirk that gives the game away. To wit: a habit peculiar to Donald Barthelme—the legendary square-bearded author of nine short ...
A building is considered “ultra-thin” when its width-to-height ratio is at least 1:10. For context, the Empire State Building is about 1:3. The old World Trade Center was close to 1:7.
The new 111 West 57th is about 1:24. This super-luxury project designed by SHoP Architects ...