slavin: “On a street in Brooklyn that takes you towards the river, where the cobblestones begin paving the road, there is a townhouse that deserves a second look. Despite its impeccable brickwork, number 58 Joralemon Street is not like the other houses. Behind its blacked out windows, no one is at home; no one has been at home for more than 100 years. In fact, number 58 is not a home at all, but a secret subway exit and ventilation point disguised as a Greek Revival brownstone.” (via The Fake Townhouses hiding Mystery Underground Portals | Messy Nessy Chic Messy Nessy Chic) NYTimes had a nice piece on 58 Joralemon a few years back.
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slavin:

“On a street in Brooklyn that takes you towards the river, where the cobblestones begin paving the road, there is a townhouse that deserves a second look. Despite its impeccable brickwork, number 58 Joralemon Street is not like the other houses. Behind its blacked out windows, no one is at home; no one has been at home for more than 100 years. In fact, number 58 is not a home at all, but a secret subway exit and ventilation point disguised as a Greek Revival brownstone.”

(via The Fake Townhouses hiding Mystery Underground Portals | Messy Nessy Chic Messy Nessy Chic)

NYTimes had a nice piece on 58 Joralemon a few years back.

nycgov: On Friday, R trains resumed service through the Montague Tube, which connects Brooklyn Heights with Lower Manhattan after more than a month of around-the-clock work in one of the most storm-ravaged sections of the MTA transit system.  Photo Credit: MTA New York City Transit / Marc Hermann Until you look at a photo like this, it’s sometimes easy to forget that the tunnels underneath NYC are proper hobbit-style tunnels.
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nycgov:

On Friday, R trains resumed service through the Montague Tube, which connects Brooklyn Heights with Lower Manhattan after more than a month of around-the-clock work in one of the most storm-ravaged sections of the MTA transit system. 


Photo Credit: MTA New York City Transit / Marc Hermann

Until you look at a photo like this, it’s sometimes easy to forget that the tunnels underneath NYC are proper hobbit-style tunnels.

Quote IconWho still uses pay phones anyway? New York City has announced a new plan to transform public pay phones into giant 311 touchscreens. The new iPad-like screens will provide information, emergency alerts, and local business deals, including coupons that can be downloaded to smartphones. In the event of a Hurricane Sandy–like disaster, the screens become distress devices that will allow citizens to call for help. Some of the screens are already active, and the city plans “a couple of installs per day” with the eventual goal of 250 screens throughout the five boroughs. And to deter potential vandals, a spokesman for the project said that the screens were “over-engineered for a reason” and that they can be easily sprayed clean.

NYC Replaces Pay Phones - The Daily Beast (via slavin)

Well that answers that.

transpondster: In Lower Manhattan, even now, a lot of buildings on and around Wall Street have huge gasoline trucks parked out front, supplying fuel to generators, because the power hasn’t come back on. Many 30-floor residential buildings are still completely dark, and, while it seems like some of them opened on Monday, some of the local businesses still can’t re-open. November 2012
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transpondster: In Lower Manhattan, even now, a lot of buildings on and around Wall Street have huge gasoline trucks parked out front, supplying fuel to generators, because the power hasn’t come back on. Many 30-floor residential buildings are still completely dark, and, while it seems like some of them opened on Monday, some of the local businesses still can’t re-open. November 2012
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transpondster: In Lower Manhattan, even now, a lot of buildings on and around Wall Street have huge gasoline trucks parked out front, supplying fuel to generators, because the power hasn’t come back on. Many 30-floor residential buildings are still completely dark, and, while it seems like some of them opened on Monday, some of the local businesses still can’t re-open. November 2012
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transpondster:

In Lower Manhattan, even now, a lot of buildings on and around Wall Street have huge gasoline trucks parked out front, supplying fuel to generators, because the power hasn’t come back on. Many 30-floor residential buildings are still completely dark, and, while it seems like some of them opened on Monday, some of the local businesses still can’t re-open. November 2012

Infrastructure. All four things in this photo are infrastructure of sorts, designed to create conduit for human activity. The utility pole, the power+data lines, the One Way sign, the flag. #infrastructure #rockaway (Taken with Instagram)
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Infrastructure. All four things in this photo are infrastructure of sorts, designed to create conduit for human activity. The utility pole, the power+data lines, the One Way sign, the flag. #infrastructure #rockaway (Taken with Instagram)

Next American City: When Highway Removal Works Since 1959, San Franciscans had to deal with the elevated Embarcadero Freeway cutting then off from the city’s eastern waterfront (and ruining their view of the Ferry Building). Nonetheless, voters kept rejecting plans to tear it down—until 1989, when an earthquake damaged it beyond repair and forced the city to consider alternatives. Now instead of an elevated highway, the Embarcadero is a six-lane boulevard flanked by pedestrian walkways 25 feet wide. There are street lights, palm trees and waterfront plazas. Thousands of residential units have gone up, increasing the housing stock by over 50 percent, and jobs in the area have grown by nearly a quarter. The Ferry Building now contains a farmer’s market and retail shops. Neighborhoods in the immediate vicinity have seen a revival, whether they the freeway used to isolate them directly (Rincon Hill) or simply held back the entire area from flourishing (South Beach). There’s something daunting about making changes, in any way, to a piece of infrastructure that serves anywhere from 20,000 to over 100,000 vehicles a day. Critics have a right to express understandable concerns about gridlock and economics when planners announce that they want to remove or convert a major thoroughfare in their city. It’s vital, then, for advocates to hold up examples of where highway removal has worked. The numbers exist to back up claims that the practice can restore a city’s social fabric and facilitate local development, all without severely impacting traffic or commerce. We just need to make sure our neighbors know that. 
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Next American City: When Highway Removal Works

Since 1959, San Franciscans had to deal with the elevated Embarcadero Freeway cutting then off from the city’s eastern waterfront (and ruining their view of the Ferry Building). Nonetheless, voters kept rejecting plans to tear it down—until 1989, when an earthquake damaged it beyond repair and forced the city to consider alternatives.

Now instead of an elevated highway, the Embarcadero is a six-lane boulevard flanked by pedestrian walkways 25 feet wide. There are street lights, palm trees and waterfront plazas. Thousands of residential units have gone up, increasing the housing stock by over 50 percent, and jobs in the area have grown by nearly a quarter. The Ferry Building now contains a farmer’s market and retail shops. Neighborhoods in the immediate vicinity have seen a revival, whether they the freeway used to isolate them directly (Rincon Hill) or simply held back the entire area from flourishing (South Beach).

There’s something daunting about making changes, in any way, to a piece of infrastructure that serves anywhere from 20,000 to over 100,000 vehicles a day. Critics have a right to express understandable concerns about gridlock and economics when planners announce that they want to remove or convert a major thoroughfare in their city.

It’s vital, then, for advocates to hold up examples of where highway removal has worked. The numbers exist to back up claims that the practice can restore a city’s social fabric and facilitate local development, all without severely impacting traffic or commerce. We just need to make sure our neighbors know that. 

Total Annual Building Energy Consumption for New York City The map represents the total annual building energy consumption at the block level and at the taxlot level for New York City, and is expressed in kilowatt hours (k Wh) per square meter of land area. The data comes from a mathematical model based on statistics, not private information from utilities, to estimate the annual energy consumption values of buildings throughout the five boroughs. To see the break down of the type of energy being used, for which purpose and in what quantity, hover over or click on a block or taxlot.
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Total Annual Building Energy Consumption for New York City

The map represents the total annual building energy consumption at the block level and at the taxlot level for New York City, and is expressed in kilowatt hours (k Wh) per square meter of land area.

The data comes from a mathematical model based on statistics, not private information from utilities, to estimate the annual energy consumption values of buildings throughout the five boroughs. To see the break down of the type of energy being used, for which purpose and in what quantity, hover over or click on a block or taxlot.

The view south from Park Avenue and 94th Street around 1882. Manhattan Street Grid at Museum of City of New York (NYTimes.com) Simeon De Witt, Gouverneur Morris and John Rutherfurd were entrusted with planning the city back in 1811. New York huddled mostly south of Canal Street, but it was booming, its population having tripled to 96,373 since 1790 thanks to the growing port. The planners proposed a grid for this future city stretching northward from roughly Houston Street to 155th Street in the faraway heights of Harlem. It was in many respects a heartless plan. There were virtually no parks or plazas. The presumption was that people would gravitate east and west along the numbered streets to the rivers when they wanted open space and fresh air, and not spend lots of time moving north or south. That partly explains why there were only a dozen avenues. In the abstract, the idea was really nothing revolutionary; grid plans went back to ancient Greece and Rome. But installing one in Manhattan was deeply subversive because, while still undeveloped, the island was already parceled into irregularly shaped, privately owned properties. This meant the appropriation of land and reconstruction. First, Manhattan had to be surveyed, a task that took years. Property lines had to be redrawn, government mobilized for decades on end to enforce, open, grade and pave streets. Some 60 years passed before the grid arrived at 155th Street. Streets were still “rough and ragged” tracks for a long while, as one diarist observed in 1867, describing a recently opened stretch around 40th Street and Madison Avenue as a mess of “mud holes, goats, pigs and geese.”
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The view south from Park Avenue and 94th Street around 1882.

Manhattan Street Grid at Museum of City of New York (NYTimes.com)

Simeon De Witt, Gouverneur Morris and John Rutherfurd were entrusted with planning the city back in 1811. New York huddled mostly south of Canal Street, but it was booming, its population having tripled to 96,373 since 1790 thanks to the growing port.

The planners proposed a grid for this future city stretching northward from roughly Houston Street to 155th Street in the faraway heights of Harlem. It was in many respects a heartless plan. There were virtually no parks or plazas. The presumption was that people would gravitate east and west along the numbered streets to the rivers when they wanted open space and fresh air, and not spend lots of time moving north or south. That partly explains why there were only a dozen avenues.

In the abstract, the idea was really nothing revolutionary; grid plans went back to ancient Greece and Rome. But installing one in Manhattan was deeply subversive because, while still undeveloped, the island was already parceled into irregularly shaped, privately owned properties.

This meant the appropriation of land and reconstruction. First, Manhattan had to be surveyed, a task that took years. Property lines had to be redrawn, government mobilized for decades on end to enforce, open, grade and pave streets. Some 60 years passed before the grid arrived at 155th Street. Streets were still “rough and ragged” tracks for a long while, as one diarist observed in 1867, describing a recently opened stretch around 40th Street and Madison Avenue as a mess of “mud holes, goats, pigs and geese.”

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