There’s More to Public Art than Sculptures and Statues

In By the City / For the City many residents spoke up for the need to beautify New York through color, light, and other non-traditional (read: not-a-sculpture-in-a-plaza) public art. One resident wants people to find new ways to add beautiful color to their neighborhoods.Leni in the West Village hopes that strategically located vacant lots could be filled with light. Laura simply wishes that art could be freely exhibited, so that the city could be “full of life and expressive of the people using such spaces.” Together, these ideas provoke the consideration of new and inventive ways of incorporating art into the cityscape.

The Storefront for Art and Architecture’s latest exhibit, Painting Urbanism, showcases the favela paintings with which the artistic duo Haas&Hahn has blanketed slums of Rio de Janeiro over the last several years, transforming dense blight into beauty. The exhibit hopes to inspire a similar color-intervention in New York City. Creative lighting is growing in popularity as an effective art form in both large and small-scale installations. Nuit Blanche New York is having an October showcase called Bring to Light, and longer lasting installations have popped up in parks around the city. Physically unobtrusive as well as being relatively cheap to install and maintain, light is an ideal artistic medium for the city. Art in Odd Places functions on an even more ad-hoc scale, promoting small installations, performances, and a variety of un-categorizable artwork in places where they are perhaps most unlikely to exist. Art can adapt to any environment, complementing or contrasting spaces which otherwise would not have caught the attention of passersby.

Some of the most prominent examples are publicly funded. The NYC DOT recently held a design competition for a temporary re-think of Times Square while a more permanent re-design for the pedestrian plaza there is being developed by IfUD Fellow Craig Dykers’ firm, Snøhetta. The winning design, “Cool Water, Hot Island” by artist Molly Dilworth, involved painting the street with a splashy sequence of blues. This project not only adds beauty and color in an unexpected place but has a utilitarian function too: separating pedestrian from transportation space. Another initiative spearheaded by the city is Arts for Transit, an MTA program that funds projects that create links to neighborhoods with art that echoes the architectural history and design context of the individual stations. The art makes use of non-traditional spaces like subway station walls, gates, windscreens, as well as ad space in the trains and buses themselves, resulting in projects like the bronze statues that inhabit the 14th Street ACE station.

Public Art runs the gamut of scale, and the opportunities for implementation are endless. One resident wants to see the passage along 138th Street under the Grand Concourse in the Bronx made more open, inviting, and colorful. Cat in Bushwick wishes the Unisphere base was painted with Murals by local artists so it wasn’t just a massive aqua blue circle. Finding clever places to add art to the cityscape is both a creative and practical challenge, but the result can be the creation of a meaningful place where there wasn’t one before.

Want to take on the challenge of adding art to New York City? Click here to register for the By the City / For the City design competition today! Entries are due by midnight (EST) on Sunday, July 31st, 2011. We can’t wait to see what you come up with!

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Better Buses: Going Where the Subway Won’t

In 1998, Mayor Giuliani proposed a $1.2 billion package that would build an airtrain to JFK and extend a subway line to La Guardia. The airtrain surived; the N line connection to La Guardia was scrapped. By 2003 the project had been shelved: short on funds, the city succumbed to “Not Above My Backyard” opposition from residents and local political leaders who organized to block elevated track construction. Even those residents, however, acknowledge that better access to the airport should be one of the top priorities in transportation planning. Tali in Astoria shared her idea for addressing this issue through By the City / For the City: a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) line between Manhattan and La Guardia.

New York is projected to add another million residents by 2030, straining an already overworked and overcrowded public transportation system. While some subway extensions are in the works, the MTA’s limited capital resources will likely prevent them from keeping pace with passenger demand. BRT provides a proven option that can be quickly implemented with lower capital costs and integrated into an already existing network: our streets. There are no tunnels to be dug, no track to be laid. With dedicated transit lanes, green-light traffic priority and off-board fare payment, these express buses can maintain a fast and steady rate of transportation and represent a very viable alternative to trains.

The BRT transportation system was conceived in Curitibia, Brazil. In response to burgeoning population growth, Jamie Lerner and a team from the Universidade Federal do Paraná developed the Trinary Road System, which placed adjacent express bus-only lanes between those for regular traffic. The Rede Integrada de Transporte opened in 1974, and BRT was quickly replicated and implemented in cities all across the Americas. In Curitibia 75% of the population uses the system to commute to work.

New York City is in the middle of Phase I of its Select Bus Service pilot program - routes are running on Fordham Road in the Bronx and on Manhattan’s First and Second Avenues; the Nostrand avenue line will open later this year. The MTA is already claiming that the East Side bus lines have sped up trips by 19%. Initially met with a little public resistance and confusion over new payment systems, the Select Bus Service is now poised to alleviate some of the burden on the city’s subway system. BRT is cost-effective, an environmental improvement over old bus systems, and unobtrusive to the neighborhoods through which it runs. Best of all, it offers a reasonable, feasible way to make new transit connections around the city.

Have a brilliant idea for implementing BRT in NYC? Click here to register for the By the City / For the City design competition today! Entries are due by midnight (EST) on Sunday, July 31st, 2011. We can’t wait to see what you come up with!

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Grand Concourse: Remembering the “Park Avenue of the Middle Class”

French-American engineer Louis Aloys Risse first conceived of the Grand Concourse in 1890, basing the design on the Champs-Élysées in Paris as the City Beautiful Movement swept the US. During the public crowdsourcing phase of By the City / For the City, Ace from Pelham Parkway called for “More Hotels in the Bronx. Why not make one of those beautiful old buildings on the Grand Concourse into a Hotel AND in its lobby, create a museum to the Concourse of old!!!”

The Concourse, a broad, four-mile-long thoroughfare, connects the North and South Bronx, ending at the 138th Street Bridge to Manhattan. Originally populated by Jews and Italians escaping tenement life on the Lower East Side, White Flight in the 1960s and 70s led to a dramatic population shift, and this area of the Bronx is now home mostly to Latino and Black residents. Unfortunately, due to widespread neglect and blight in the Bronx-is-Burning 1980s, it has been a long time since the Grand Concourse has been referred to as the “Park Avenue of the Middle Class.”

But that is currently changing, as more attention is being paid to this stretch of the cityscape that tells a remarkable story of the Bronx’s history and culture. The Municipal Art Society and the Landmarks Preservation Commission are both advocating for the designation of a proposed Grand Concourse Historic District, which would secure about 73 buildings in this area that are exemplary of the Concourse’s history as a center for Art Deco and Art Moderne architecture. The Bronx Museum and the Design Trust for Public Interest have also focused their attention in the area, hosting a design competition for the future of the Grand Concourse and the greater Bronx several years ago on the 100th anniversary of the street’s opening.

Locals are also taking notice of the great value that their street has. The creation of a dynamic museum focusing on the history of the Grand Concourse, as suggested by Ace, could ensure public engagement, and allow people to celebrate a potentially forgotten  history. This museum could also strengthen the center of gravity for tourism in the Bronx by connecting the Concourse to the Zoo, Botanical Gardens, the Poe Cottage, and other important cultural attractions to the east. A hotel could draw fresh attention to the architecture masterpieces that line the Concourse and benefit local shops, restaurants, and other businesses. The area is prime for development and deserves to be restored to its once-grand status.

Want to take on the challenge of designing a hotel & museum on the Grand Concourse? Click here to register for the By the City / For the City design competition today! Entries are due by midnight (EST) on Sunday, July 31st, 2011. We can’t wait to see what you come up with!

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New York’s Industrial Past: The Foundation for a Smarter City

Around every corner, under every bridge, and in your community, New York City’s industrial history can still be seen and felt. Many New Yorkers asked architects to develop more innovative, adaptive, functional strategies for reusing these old industrial spaces so they can match the social, ecological and economic climate of today.

The students at CUNY’s Spitzer School of Architecture couldn’t be more spot on when they said they wanted to see “the degraded industrial infrastructure around the city reclaimed, remediated and re-utilized for a civic purpose, activating a new social, spatial, and ecological awareness.” Their proposed site is Gowanus Canal and its areas in proximity. Another entry submitted by Brendan calls attention to the Aqueduct Walk in the neighborhoods of University and Morris Heights. He thinks the aqueduct path should be “renovated to create a beautiful new linear park.” Michelle in the Upper West Side thinks, “The 69th Street Transfer Bridge along the West Side Highway could become a part of the park that residents can access” in an effort to create “a dialogue between cutting-edge, new forms and what has come before.” Lastly, Regina wants to see the armories all across the city used for “arts and cultural activities, like the one on Park Avenue.” 

The adaptive reuse of these and other industrial sites will allow us to celebrate and understand the value and importance industrialization played in the rise of New York City while at the same time creating a more aware, more innovative city from those lingering spaces.

Have a great design solution for one of the ideas listed above? Click here to register for the By the City / For the City design competition today! Entries are due by midnight (EST) on Sunday, July 31st, 2011. We can’t wait to see what you come up with!

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Social Equity: We’re All in This Together [Part II]

New Yorkers concerned with increasing Social Equity often spoke about increasing the richness of the public realm: bringing communities together more frequently and in a more concerted fashion, and creating more opportunities for sharing with their neighbors. The kinds of community spaces and what they wanted to share differed by borough.

  1. BRONX: Residents of the Boogie Down want to see more safe & nurturing spaces for young people in their neighborhoods. Bronxite Ashlee wants teen centers featuring affordable classes and recreational activities around Bainbridge or Gun Hill Roads, while another suggests the Fordham and Norwood neighborhoods as ideal spots. Sheridan from Van Nest thinks a similar arrangement would increase safety and neighborhood appreciation in her corner of the borough, too. Prudence from Grand Concourse would like to see more YMCAs in the northernmost borough. Brendan wants to see the city develop library parks with ample community program, like those in Medellín, Colombia, in the South Bronx and other neighborhoods that are “used to disinvestment and neglect.”
  2. MANHATTAN: Sharing underused spaces to promote cross-cultural exchange is a priority for Manhattanites. Lydia from the Upper West Side wants artists to be allowed to take over empty storefronts and stalled developments to create publicly-accessible studio space. In East Harlem, one resident wished that there were more gastronomy festivals and events to celebrate the Latino community. Steven from Harlem would like there to be a graffiti park where street artists could go to show off their best work. Nearby, Sheryl suggested that an outdoor movie theater be set up on the blank side of a building next to an empty lot. And in Washington Heights, someone called for the forlorn Audubon Terrace to become a more vibrant public space.

[Click here to read Part I, which focuses on citywide trends in Social Equity.]

Have a great design solution for one of the ideas listed above? Click here to register for the By the City / For the City design competition today! Entries are due by midnight (EST) on Sunday, July 31st, 2011. We can’t wait to see what you come up with!

Beauty: Making New York Easier to ❤ [Part II]

Especially given the current public debate on the merits and drawbacks of historic preservation, it was interesting to see that many New Yorkers equated historical architecture with Beauty. We noticed an especially-high level of interest in the preservation and re-use of historic structures in two boroughs: Queens and the Bronx.

  1. QUEENS: In Astoria, Michael wished for someone to come up with a dynamic public use for the Italianate Steinway Mansion, which is currently on the chopping block. In Jackson Heights, Rosemary hoped that an old house along 34th Avenue could become a community asset. In Bayside, Kelly expressed dismay about the demolition of older homes and the lack of “respect for maintaining the unique beauty of Queens neighborhoods.” Just to the east, Michael suggested the restoration of the historic Bayside Hills neighborhood.
  2. THE BRONX: Ace from Pelham Parkway suggested the re-use of some of the larger apartment buildings along the Grand Concourse to add more hotel space in the South Bronx, and noted that one of their lobbies could serve as a wonderful museum on the history of the borough’s main thoroughfare. Glenn from Pelham Bay called for the restoration and celebration of the Bathhouse at Orchard Beach. Brendan wished for a High Line-like renovation of the Aqueduct Walk, a linear park that follows the original path of the Croton Aqueduct. Fazal from Yorkville proposed the commemoration of Concrete Park’s industrial heritage with the installation of a restored train.

[Click here to read Part I, which focuses on citywide trends in beauty.]

Have a great design solution for one of the ideas listed above? Click here to register for the By the City / For the City design competition today! Entries are due by midnight (EST) on Sunday, July 31st, 2011. We can’t wait to see what you come up with!

The Borough Breakdown

While yesterday’s post looked at categorical trends across the city, today we’ll dig a bit deeper to examine unique conditions in each of the five boroughs. Is green space on the top of the list for concrete jungle-residing Manhattanites? Are the good people of Brooklyn as achingly unorthodox as the blogosphere seems to portray them as? Read on to learn about how each borough stacks up…

Manhattan attracted a plurality of the ideas submitted—221, or 45.7% of the total—but differed from overall categorical norms in some surprising ways. Green Space and Recreation were both considerably less popular in the most densely-populated borough than they were across the city, by five and seven percentage points, respectively. The most common categories in Manhattan were: Transportation; Streetscapes; Culture/Public Art; Green Space; and Other.

The 115 ideas submitted in Brooklyn(23.7% of the total) follow the categorical breakdown for overall results most closely; only Safety/Health differs by more than three percentage points from the overall city-wide averages. In fact, Brooklyn is the only borough in which this category broke the top five. The most common categories here: Transportation, Streetscapes, Safety/Health, Green Space, and Other.

Queens residents shared 87 ideas for their borough (18% of the total). With 24 of those ideas relating to Recreation (31.5% of all ideas in that category), this was one of the only issues where an outer borough captured the largest percentage of ideas across the city. The top five categories across Queens were: Transportation; Green Space; Streetscapes; Recreation; and Culture/Public Art.

45 ideas were submitted in the Bronx (9.3% of the total). These were most commonly categorized as: Culture/Public Art; Transportation; Recreation; Retail/Commerce; and Green Space. The Bronx’s preference for ideas dealing with leisure and enjoyment of the city was uniquely strong. Bronxites were also most likely to categorize their ideas as impacting things at the Block-level (40%).

Staten Island received just 15 ideas (3.1% of the total). Staten Islanders were most likely to identify their ideas as relating to the Neighborhood scale (a full 93%). The top five categories here were: Transportation, Recreation, Retail/Commerce, Streetscapes, and Waterfront—making this the only borough where Waterfront was a top five issue.

Click here to register for the By the City / For the City design competition today! Entries are due by midnight (EST) on Sunday, July 31st, 2011. We can’t wait to see what you come up with!