The house where Dennis Harris lived, at 857 Riverside Drive, is worse for the wear of many decades, shorn of its dignified shutters and cupola. Yet the rich history the house holds and the life story of Harris, the man who owned this Greek Revival-Italianate place in Washington Heights, are important to keep alive even […]
Entries Tagged as 'cities'
Renewal On Track At Newark Penn Station
April 12th, 2021 · No Comments · Beyond Gotham
Newark has its own Pennsylvania Station – and it’s getting a renewed lease on life. On the day that the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) opened its new, spacious, and grand Pennsylvania Station in Newark, on March 23, 1935, dignitaries, railroad executives and workers, and some 5,000 people gathered for a ceremony of much fanfare. Those on […]
Tags: architecture·cities·New Jersey
Tour and Learn in New York, Virtually
November 22nd, 2020 · No Comments · Explore New York
It was just the kind of peek into a dark brick hallway that Joseph Mitchell would have appreciated, a glance at a crooked passageway on an upper floor of 6 Fulton Street, at South Street Seaport. But now we were doing it virtually, through a screen. In fact, with a trace of excitement in her […]
Honoring the Landmark IRT Powerhouse
January 9th, 2018 · 10 Comments · Explore New York
It may be the most underappreciated major historic building in New York City. Finally, however, the magnificent powerhouse that generated electricity for New York City’s pioneering rapid transit subway system when it first opened in 1904 is a protected city landmark. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission’s (LPC’s) recent action to designate the IRT […]
Tags: architecture·cities·historic preservation·manhattan·midtown·new york·terra cotta
A Subway Powerhouse Speaks To Today
March 11th, 2017 · 4 Comments · Beyond Gotham
Sometimes a message of resilience can come in an instant, and often not predictably. The IRT Powerhouse on 11th Avenue isn’t giving a speech or waving a flag, and it’s not a talking head seeking to shout a point of view at passersby or boast of its strength. Yet, the sight of this 1904 building […]
Tags: architecture·cities·historic preservation·manhattan·midtown·new york·terra cotta
The Power of Facts in the Time of Trump
January 19th, 2017 · 12 Comments · Be a Mindful Activist
Finding and stating facts is an act of resistance in the age of Donald Trump. The Trump campaign already had stirred a strong sense that facts were under threat, besieged by a candidate who told untruths in both significant and casual ways, as Daniel Dale of the Toronto Star and others documented and compiled. Since […]
Tags: cities·Presidents
Cleveland’s Streamline Station Survivor
March 6th, 2015 · 4 Comments · Beyond Gotham, Columns and Features
Let’s play word association: Think of the word “Greyhound.” Chances are, the terms “sleek,” “aerodynamic,” and “futuristic” are not likely to jump to mind. Decades ago, however, they may well have. Not too long after the automobile and road travel gained wider public acceptance, Greyhound was one of the forward-looking companies seeking to captivate those […]
The Enduring Wonder of the Rookery
December 30th, 2013 · 1 Comment · Beyond Gotham
One could be forgiven for thinking that one of the crows in terra cotta on Chicago’s Rookery building depicts a current leader of the U.S. Congress. Some of our greatest buildings possess an expressiveness that speaks not only of the time period in which architects and builders created the structure but also to today. The […]
Tags: architecture·Chicago·cities·historic preservation·landmarks
Walking With the Haitian People
January 15th, 2010 · 3 Comments · Be a Mindful Activist, Beyond Gotham
The images are almost beyond belief, the damage and the suffering beyond comprehension. An earthquake gauged at 7.0, the first rumble striking Tuesday evening and lasting at least 35 seconds, destroyed an entire swath of Haiti, particularly much of its capital and largest city – Port-au-Prince. The scenes have been horrific. Bodies are lying strewn […]
Tags: architecture·cities·international
Seven Joys Amid NYC’s Holiday Mayhem
December 22nd, 2009 · 7 Comments · Explore New York
“Children laughing, people passing, meeting smile after smile”…so go the lyrics of “Silver Bells,” the classic Christmas song from the 1950s that paints an idyllic scene of the holidays in the city. This picture of New York City at the holidays lives within many of us. Its images are of softly falling snow, carolers, bright […]
Taking In the Subway’s Old Powerhouse
August 10th, 2009 · 4 Comments · Be a Mindful Activist, Explore New York
It was on the perimeter of a legendary slum that back then fit its name, Hell’s Kitchen. Yet it was conceived and designed by men in suits who believed that fine, grand civic buildings served to reflect the great accomplishments and ambitious aims of a city crossing a threshold. The Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) […]
Tags: architecture·cities·historic preservation·manhattan·midtown·new york·terra cotta
Mindful Walker: A Chat With New Colonist
June 19th, 2009 · 2 Comments · Be a Mindful Activist, Explore New York
We met through Twitter and had our first real conversation for a podcast. What a world! Eric Miller is passionate about creating great and healthy cities and other communities, and so am I. He is the editor/publisher of The New Colonist, a site where he and Richard Risemberg chronicle the return of many from life […]
Tags: architecture·cities·Coney Island·historic preservation·Pittsburgh·smart growth·suburbs
The Place That Powered the Subway Lines
March 29th, 2009 · 4 Comments · Explore New York
Its architecture and ornate decoration reflect the City Beautiful movement, in which public buildings were expressions of a city’s beauty, order, and harmony. Yet it had a belly-of-the-beast interior containing massive boilers, conveyors, engines, steam pipes, and seven bunkers capable of holding up to 18,000 tons of coal. The Interborough Rapid Transit (IRT) Company Powerhouse […]
Tags: architecture·cities·historic preservation·manhattan·midtown·new york·terra cotta
Coney Island’s Off-Season Vibe
March 8th, 2009 · 3 Comments · Explore New York
Scrawled on the cornice of a dilapidated building on Coney Island’s Surf Avenue is “Shore Hotel. Nature’s Paradise By the Sea.” But paradise this isn’t. On Coney Island’s main thoroughfare, it sits in the midst of a mish-mash of garish-colored patches of buildings, “Stores for Lease” signs, boarded-up windows, and neon that heralds “Eldorado Auto […]
Tags: Brooklyn·cities·Coney Island·new york
Whose Dreams Will Revive Coney Island?
February 27th, 2009 · 81 Comments · Be a Mindful Activist, Explore New York
Say the words “Coney Island” to New Yorkers, especially of a certain age, and you may well get a dreamy kind of pause and a vivid memory: feeling the sensation of a drop on the Cyclone roller coaster, seeing the steel top on the gigantic Parachute Jump from the distance, riding the fast Steeplechase horses, […]
Lists: Ten Actions for Sustainable Cities
February 20th, 2009 · 2 Comments · Be a Mindful Activist, Beyond Gotham
Gas prices are at an average of $1.96 per gallon, far below the $4-plus they hit last year. The price of oil amid a global recession that has sharply curtailed demand declines to $35 per barrel on Feb. 20. People are fearful as many lose jobs and others go through foreclosures. In such an environment, […]
Vertical Cities: Hong Kong and New York
January 29th, 2009 · 8 Comments · Explore New York
Sometimes in a sea of numbers, it takes just one stat to astound you into getting the picture: In one of the New Towns of Hong Kong, Tseung Kwan O, some 350,000 people live within four square miles. They live in towers that vary from 57 to 62 stories. Here’s another stat: 80 percent of […]
Tags: architecture·Asia·cities·international·manhattan·museums·new york
Prayers and Peace at St. Francis
January 6th, 2009 · 8 Comments · Explore New York
Outside, it was a post-Christmas, rush-hour frenzy, throngs crowding near the revolving doors and the holiday windows of Macy’s or walking speedily to Penn Station. Inside St. Francis of Assisi Roman Catholic Church in New York in the midst of all of this, you’d never know it. Two men were slowly and carefully placing flowers […]
Tags: architecture·art·cities·landmarks·manhattan·midtown·spiritual places·terra cotta
Still Missing McHale’s
November 30th, 2008 · 25 Comments · Explore New York
In some ways, buildings are like people. They have a birth and a prime of life. As they age, they either wear well or not. They’re either cherished and well cared for, or neglected. The lives of some buildings are cut short way too soon. Others seem to thrive year upon year upon year. Still […]
Tags: cities·historic preservation·manhattan·midtown·new york·taverns
