Vanishing New York Backup

From her downtown office, Peg Breen, President of the New York Landmarks Conservancy , looks out over historic buildings that the Conservancy had a hand in preserving--Ellis Island, the 1886 fireboat station at Pier A, the U.S. Customs House/National Museum of the American Indian. They remind her of what can be accomplished--and what is at stake in this age of rampant over-development. A proposal is right now sitting on the desk of the New York State Assembly. If it passes, the city will become a radically different place. Breen wants to stop it. The Conservancy is celebrating its 45th year of advocating for and funding the preservation and restoration of what Breen calls "the best of New York," from the Olmsted House and the Picasso Curtain , to neighborhood brownstones and houses of worship. "Buildings tell stories," says Breen. "And all the different layers in New York tell our history. They tell migration patterns. They give you a sense of con...

Sal Albanese wants to shake up the system. “Some people say I was Bernie Sanders before Bernie Sanders,” he says, sitting in the famous White Horse Tavern on Hudson Street in Greenwich Village. It’s a hot, muggy summer day and Albanese is sipping a cold bottle of beer. Dressed in pressed khaki pants and a crisp, blue button-down shirt, he hasn’t broken a sweat. A Democrat and former City Council member from Brooklyn, this is his third time running for Mayor of New York City and he’s hoping three’s a charm. The odds—and the mainstream media—are stacked against him. “I got ripped today by the Post ,” he says, referring to an article by Steve Cuozzo claiming that Albanese needs to get a firmer grip on why so many storefronts in the city are sitting empty, an epidemic that has become known as “ high-rent blight .” The problem, as Albanese sees it, is caused by big landlords who collect buildings; hike commercial rents, effectively evicting small businesses; and then leave the storef...

Jonny Aspen , Associate Professor at the Institute of Urbanism and Landscape in Oslo, Norway, coined the term " Zombie Urbanism " in 2013 to describe the way many urban environments are being designed today. I like the term, so I got in touch with Aspen and asked him about it--and how it applies to the redesigning of New York City, including the High Line, Hudson Yards, Times Square, and the new Astor Place. Astor Place Q: Can you give a definition of what you call "zombie urbanism"? A: I’ve coined the concept in order to encircle what seems to be an increasingly more prevalent, and increasingly more worrying, phenomenon in contemporary urban development, namely the cliché-like way that many developers and designers talk about and deal with urban environments in general and public areas and places more specifically. On the one hand I use it as a reference to what seems to have developed into an increasingly more homogeneous discourse, globally speaking, on...

From Park Slope to Key West: Everett Quinton’s Incredible Journey guest post by Tim Cusack Everett Quinton, former lead actor and artistic director of the Ridiculous Theatrical Company, is famous for his cross-dressing performances, and he’s currently starring in one of the juiciest of his career with Drop Dead Perfect at the Theatre of St. Clements in Hell’s Kitchen. As Idris Seabright, a 1950s Key West housewife with artistic aspirations, Quinton’s assured hand at the wheel drives this vehicle like a classic Ford Thunderbird hurtling down the Eisenhower interstate system. So it comes as something of a surprise to learn that he never had a “drag mother” to teach him the skills of gender illusionism. “That’s why my makeup is so lousy. I don’t paint up pretty,” he wisecracks. We’re having lunch at Krolewskie Jadlo , which is Polish for “The King’s Feast” and the kind of place that fits so perfectly into its Manhattan Avenue block in Greenpoint. But then he grows serious: “I was s...

Romy Ashby writes the blog Walkers in the City , which you should know about if you don't already. She has just published a novel called Stink . The book tells the story of a young person who flees to a mysterious New York-like city for a series of occult adventures. I asked Romy some questions--about dreams, books, farts, and gentrification. JM: Your book starts with a dream. Do you remember your dreams? Do you write them down? RA: Usually I don't dream and/or don't remember. I never write them down. I had a wonderful series of dreams once over several years about a beautiful cast-iron train. I'd see it in the distance and marvel, and whenever I would have a new dream about the train, I'd think, oh, it's this dream! Then I finally had a dream of a funeral procession with old men in uniforms carrying a large framed portrait through the streets. I asked what the procession was, and one of the old men said: “This was the conductor of the train you always dre...

I chatted via email with DW Gibson , author of the recently published book The Edge Becomes the Center: An Oral History of Gentrification in the Twenty-First Century . Filled with the real voices of New Yorkers, from both sides of the gentrification fence, it’s a must-read for anyone interested in what’s happening to our city in this era of rapid displacement, runaway development, and socioeconomic injustice. Just before our virtual chat, Gibson had come from moderating a conversation on art and gentrification out on Governor’s Island. That got us started on our own conversation. JM: I was out in Bushwick this weekend for the Open Studios event. It gets bigger every year, and the demographic is shifting--more Greenwich housewife types and financiers in alligator shirts. Near the center of this event, on Grattan Street, a local family had set up a barbecue. Right nearby were all these kids doing performance art. I wondered: What is the relationship between these two groups? Do they...

While I'm in the fight to stop the spread of big, national, global chain stores in the city, I am no purist. As I've said here before , for me, it's about moderation. But even if you want to avoid the chains completely, it isn't easy. As they proliferate, they destroy the alternatives, taking away our ability to choose. Writer and urbanist Matt Falber has taken on the challenge to shop only local in New York City. He's blogging about it on his site. So far, quitting the chains cold turkey hasn't been easy. I asked Matt a few questions about his endeavor. Matt at his local pharmacy Q: What made you take this on? A: I was volunteering at a town hall a few weeks ago. People were contributing ideas about how to improve quality of life and I was writing them on a whiteboard. One man said to me, "We need to learn from what's happened to the West Village and Chelsea and keep it from happening to other neighborhoods." I knew what he meant imm...

Who says New York is dead? ( Dying , I say, not dead .) Historic preservationist Kyle Supley (he helped get new homes for the Moondance and Cheyenne diners) is running a Kickstarter to preserve and showcase all that is still cool about New York City, and he needs your help to make it happen. I asked Kyle a few questions about Kyle Supley's Out There ! Q: What inspired you to launch this project? A: I'm making "Kyle Supley's Out There!" to showcase what's great about New York City, along with the New Yorkers making it happen. Having lived in New York for 13 years, I've met incredible people, visited amazing places, and experienced one-of-a-kind things in this city that are too cool to keep to myself. I have been a collector of antiques since I was young and have always been intrigued with preserving stories as well as things. Recently I realized that the people I know in New York are just as important, if not more so, to showcase and preserve fo...

Nicolas Heller is the creator of " No Your City ," an episodic documentary film project that captures the special characters that keep New York City's street life, well, alive. In this post-Bloombergian age of sterilized sidewalks and fussily manicured parks, the street character is a vitally important citizen--and a vanishing breed. We used to see them everywhere. Today, less and less. But a few remain. From Larry the Birdman to colorful Ms. Colombia, they're getting their close-up in Heller's lens. I asked Nic a few questions: Q: First off, why the NO in "No Your City"? A: Ah, the first question everyone asks… There is no deep meaning behind it, I just wanted to keep the NYC acronym so I could use the subway token as a logo. Q: You grew up in New York. What characters do you remember from way back? A: I grew up on 16th and 5th in Manhattan. Union Square was my backyard, so most of the people I remember were from there. Te’Devan the 6’ 7”...

The following is a guest post by Romy Ashby, who runs the excellent blog " Walkers in the City ." The Henry Street Settlement - Abrons Art Center has the best Christmas show in town right now with Joey Arias: Christmas with the Crawfords , dazzling audiences with a fabulous cast in the gorgeous old theater on Grand Street. When Joey, who has spent a lot of time on that stage, was asked not long ago to do something at Abrons this December, he suggested doing the show, which was recently summed up this way by The New York Times : “Joey Arias joins up with San Francisco's Artfull Circle Theatre to make NYC's Yuletide ever so gay in this all-singing, all-dancing, holiday extravaganza. Based on the infamous Christmas Eve radio broadcast from the Crawford family's Brentwood mansion, Christmas With the Crawfords features Joan, the children, and a stellar line up of Hollywood icons in a hilarious parody of -- and homage to -- the ‘Golden Age’ of Hollywood.” Followin...

The following is a guest post by Romy Ashby For a long time, New York City was a treasure box of rarities and uncommon beauty, where no two blocks were alike. The ambiance of each neighborhood was made of all kinds of things and the many colorful people—the oddballs, iconoclasts, the funny intellectuals—who populated the streets. So many of those colorful people have disappeared with the relentless scaling up of the city, and usually nobody notices what happens to them. I feel sad when I come across the contents of someone’s life out on the street for the trash. A pervasive nightmare scenario in New York is the one of being poor, no longer young, and alone, and then losing one’s apartment. This happened to the artist Kasoundra Kasoundra in a terrible way. I would like to see her situation reversed, because it can be, but not without help. Kasoundra, 2006, photo by Romy Ashby Kasoundra lived for many years in a rent-controlled Upper East Side apartment. It was full of art and in...