Thumbs up. (Morphosis)

The public review process known as ULURP, through which most every large-scale development in the city must pass, is rarely an easy one. New York created the NIMBY, and ULURP is about the only way Joe Public can even pretend to influence such projects as Columbia or NYU's new campuses, the Hudson Yards redevelopment, Riverside South, the Kingsbridge Armory, Chelsea Market... the list of contentious projects goes on and on. A better acronym for the Uniform Land-use Review Process might well be DIVISIVE.

That is what makes CornellNYC, the upstate university's Roosevelt Island tech campus, such an interesting anomaly. After beating out Stanford in a breathless deathmatch for Mayor Bloomberg's blessing to build the campus, the project has so far sailed through ULURP with nary a protest. Back in December, the campus was approved by the local community board (typically a bastion of browbeating), and now Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer gave the new campus his enthusiastic thumbs up.

"I am proud today to announce my recommendation for conditional approval of the Cornell NYC Tech, which will help integrate this important economic development project with the local community,” Mr. Stringer said in a statement. “I believe the modifications agreed to today will bring this proposal further in line with sound planning and community preferences.”

His conditions are strikingly limited. Rather than asking for a reduction in the size of the buildings or promises of affordable housing or partnerships with local kindergarteners, Mr. Stringer is requesting a number of transportation tweaks and construction mitigation measures. From his announcement:

Mitigate construction by actively pursuing barging, and agreeing that if it is not feasible, protocols will be developed to limit noisy deliveries; to have independent monitoring and air quality monitoring through demolition and excavation; and pursue a construction remediation plan for potential soil contaminants;

Increase Red Bus service on the island through construction, develop programs to encourage its employees to use mass transit; and study pedestrian access improvements to the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge;

Ensure the proposed open space on the campus remains open until 10 PM, cannot have private café seating, and its design will be informed by a new community advisory committee;

Continue to work on potential parking impacts, conduct a study of potential parking impacts from the hotel and corporate co-location building, create a new certification process to evaluate parking impacts if no parking is created,

Commit that all new laboratories will comply with all performance standards outlined in the zoning resolution for M1 zoning districts to minimize impact on surrounding residents.

One of the reasons the project has met so little conflict is it is actually expected by locals and planners to have less of an impact, not more, than the hotel that is already on the south end of the island. (Techies are far more likely to ride the subway than nurses coming in from the Bronx or Long Island.) Also, the project is green, both in terms of sustainable development and in opening up the southern portion of the island with generous public space.

"Borough President Stringer has been a true leader in supporting and guiding the growth of New York's tech sector and we're extremely grateful for his support of Cornell Tech," Cornell President David Skorton said. "Cornell Tech will help drive economic development in New York for years to come, but we know the campus will only be a success if we are good neighbors."

At 1133 Sixth Avenue, the Durst Organization is merging these two currents, popular public art and a sparkling new lobby, into a striking whole. The centerpiece of a new Gensler-designed lobby is an installation by light artist Leo Villareal, Volume (Durst). At 90-feet long, 12-feet high and 6-feet deep, the dazzling sculpture is Mr. Villareal's largest three-dimensional work yet. Floating near the top of the lobby, it not only enlivens the space but the avenue, as well, fully visible through the two-story windows facing out on the plaza between the International Center for Photography on one side and a bank on the other.

"I love the chance encounter," Mr. Villareal said at an opening reception for the lobby Tuesday night. "I love seeing people stopping in front of it, talking to their friends about, pointing." Even in the freezing cold of the past week, the sculpture, which morphs through organic shapes, was stopping people in their tracks.

Like many of his sculptures, Mr. Villareal created a custom computer program to control the play of lights through blocks and walls and circles and other forms, all inspired by early organic forms—it is digital art climbing out of the primordial soup. The program is set up so that the shapes and durations are random and will never repeat. "It's not on a loop, which is what I think makes it art," Mr. Villareal said.

The sculpture is comprised of 900 thin mirrored-stainless-steel blades that hang 12 feet down from the ceiling, each with 96 LEDs—86,400 in total, Mr. Villareal points out, more than he has used in any other piece. The high polish on the blades makes the piece sparkle from throughout the space, though it is truly best viewed from the street. That is where Mr. Villareal spent all weekend fine-tuning the program controlling the piece, parking his car out front as a refuge from the cold as he spent hours tweaking each strand, each form. During the opening, his laptop sat casually on the lobby's new onyx-fronted desk, whirring away with the new program.

Nearby Times Square is also an inspiration. "It's only a block away, so I wanted it to be reminiscent of the lights and the billboards, but to also be more refined and classy," Mr. Villareal said.

"It's fabulous," Douglas Durst told The Observer. "He did an incredible job and we're thrilled with it."

Mr. Villareal, who lives in the city, has seen his profile on the rise, especially in public, in the past year. His Bucky Ball was selected as the marquee piece for Madison Square Park in 2012, and a ceiling piece caps the recently opened connection between the Lexington and Sixth Avenue lines at Bleecker Street. His largest piece ever, on the Bay Bridge in San Francisco, flips the switch this spring. The artist has also done similar, though less large, corporate work at the Time Warner Center and a number of properties in Washington, D.C.

Volume (Durst) is paired with the new lobby for the 1970s building built by Douglas' father Seymour Durst. The lobby was last refreshed in 1993, but very much in the style of the time, with dark terrazzo floors and almost blindingly polished travertine walls. Redoing the space is not unlike buying a new suit after a decade or two. The suit still looks nice, but the lapels are maybe a little big and outmoded, the hems a bit threadbare.

This being the Durst Organization, sustainability was important, so rather than rip everything out, the design team at Gensler hit upon a clever solution where they honed the travertine walls and put down a new epoxy on the floor, brightening and softening all the surfaces, creating a cleaner, smoother more modern look. Gaudy pendant lights were replaced with recessed lamps, and new elevator bays and cabs were added, trading dark wood for polished glass.

"We wanted to make the lobby feel like a gallery, make it feel clean and bright," Gensler designer E.J. Lee said. And it will feature art beyond Mr. Villareal's, hanging a rotating selection along the walls on the way to the elevators.

The biggest change was moving the security desk back and facing it and the wall behind it in back-lit onyx instead of wood. The security gates are now off to the side, rather than at the center near the desk, easing the flow of workers into the building. It is a benefit for the building's tenant, which is one of the biggest reasons for the new lobby.

The 1 million-square-foot tower, which is home to Bank of America, ACE Insurance and Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler, among others, is about to lose its biggest tenant, the GSA, which has 300,000 square feet on floors 2 through 10, which will empty out at the end of 2014. The Durst Organization will begin marketing the space this fall and hopes the new lobby will help entice tenants into this better looking building.

"It's a whole new building," Mr. Durst said. "For the third time now, it's a completely new building."]\

It is also meant for those who may never even set foot in the building.

"Some people may look at this from the street and think, 'Oh, it's just a light thing,'" Mr. Villareal said. "But then they find themselves transfixed, it's changing, it's a seductive thing. Suddenly you're coming back, you're bringing your family back, your coworkers, and you're all staring at this lobby. I've seen it happen already."

Currently, it is illegal to build a new apartment smaller than 450 square feet, but the new program seeks comfortable, attractive housing units between 250 and 375 square feet. The city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development received 33 different entries for the project, which will be built on a city-owned site in Murray Hill.

The winning design came from Monadnock Develpment in partnership with the Actors Fund for Housing Development and Capsys, a modular housing builder based in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The design is by New York firm nArchitects. It will be constructed on a plot at 335 East 27th Street, which the city is selling for $500,000.

The project will also be the first modular development in Manhattan, following on the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, which suggests that prefabricated construction may indeed take hold as a new model for housing development in the city, at least on the low end. Some 40 percent of the units will be set aside for low- and middle-income tenants, with prices ranging from $940 per month to $1,800 per month.

"We've chosen Manhattan because more than three-quarters of its homes are one or two person households," Mayor Bloomberg said. "We already have the population seeking housing for a small number of people, we just don't have the apartments to house them."

(We'll have more details shortly, as the unveiling has just wrapped up, but The Observer is well aware that all you, dear reader, care about, is what these apartments actually look like, so here they are.

The same morning, 200 miles away in Washington, the mayor was delivering the same message to The World Bank.

In a conversation with the president of the global organization, the mayor discussed a number of topics, including the way his administration has reengineered the city's streets, particularly along Broadway in Manhattan.

"Now that it's been there for three or four years, I think it'd be hard pressed for anybody to ever turn it back," the mayor said, according to Capital New York.

It is an interesting message to be delivering in Washington, considering how few cities in the country have the pedestrian densities of New York. Outside of the nation's capital and perhaps Portland or San Francisco, it seems turning roadbed back into pedestrian space would be a scarce project, given the national dependence on cars. And globally, Europe and parts of the developed world never got away from walking, so they already know the lessons New York is just discovering.

You can watch the mayor's entire speech below.

Willoughby Plaza was one of the very first asphalt strips formerly dedicated to cars that was closed to vehicles, taken over and transformed into a space for pedestrians, helping to inaugurate the city’s popular if occasionally controversial NYC Plaza Program. Before Times Square and the Broadway Boulevard, before the new Grand Army Plaza or Fordham Plaza, before Janette Sadik-Khan even became DOT commissioner, there was Willoughby Plaza.

And now it is permanent, a thoughtfully designed, well-integrated piece of the streetscape rather than a bastardized piece of roadbed dressed up as well as DOT and the local business groups could manage. This is the dream for all 50 (and counting) of the city's new temporary plazas, and 16 finished spaces are already in the works. But standing in the freezing cold with Commissioner Sadik-Khan and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz trading barbs, one wonders how many more plazas might be in store for the city.

"It's a pleasure when the commissioner and I can be on the same side of a project," the Beep said, a veiled reference to his disputes with DOT over the Prospect Park West protected bike lane, among others.

Past disputes aside, both agreed this was not only a boon for pedestrians but also shopkeepers and landlords.

"You saw the frenzy of new interest from retail stores and restaurants like Shake Shack and Panera Bread, and it's just a wonderful sign of the energy that's coming to the downtown streetscape," Commissioner Sadik-Khan said. "It doesn't take an economics degree to understand just how much pedestrian space can contribute to the bottom line of local businesses."

"This is a new landmark for Brooklyn," she added.

Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez, who helped secure federal funds to pay for the project, concurred. "This has already become a destination for people walking and biking over the Brooklyn Bridge from Manhattan, and this new plaza will bring more people here to stay," she said.

After the ribbon cutting speeches—which lasted all of seven minutes, no doubt due to the frozen ears everyone was suffering from—Design and Construction Commissioner David Burney pointed out to The Observer that this is about much more than pedestrians, but involved a full overhaul of sewer and utility pipes and lines under the street. "It's an infrastructure improvement as much as anything, and this is just the cosmetic side of it," Mr. Burney said, gesturing around the plaza, which had new planting beds and christmas lighting strung from the trees but was otherwise little more than a very large and generous 14,000-square-foot sidewalk.

Inside Shake Shack after the event, Commissioner Sadik-Khan spent a few minutes discussing the future of the plaza program with The Observer. First off, why had it taken so long for this plaza to go from temporary to permanent? Five years is actually the average time for city capital projects to get approved and built, Ms. Sadik-Khan explained, once all the various agencies and approvals, contracts and designs are factored in.

She stressed that lots of community outreach, something she has emphasized with every one of these projects, as adding time, but time worth taking. Contrary to popular belief, the plazas are only installed after a community group or local business improvement district requests them.

"It depends on what the construction season looks like, but pretty soon, these are going to be popping up all over town," Ms. Sadik-Khan said.

Various surveys, reports and community board votes have shown widespread support for most of these plazas. Still, some politicians have vowed to reverse the mayor and his street reshapers once he leaves City Hall. Is this program established enough to continue once Ms. Sadik-Khan and her cohort is gone?

"This is set in stone," Ms. Sadik-Khan said, pointing out the window. "And all across town, the public is setting it in stone. If you look at the demand, at the applications that are in the door, there's just no end in site to the number of communities that want more pedestrian space and more space to meet and sit down and create a more livable community."

And it was not just local residents pushing for these new plazas. "You have to understand, the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, working on behalf of the business community down here, has been pushing for this for years," Ms. Sadik-Khan said. "And we're seeing the same push all across the city. Businesses get it. They get that additional foot traffic is better for business."

"It's not only a safety project, it's not only a livability project, it's an economic development project," Ms. Sadik-Khan added. "So it's really a triple-bottom-line win for communities all across the city."

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Messrs. Novogratz and Pietrantone enjoying the park. (FHRP/Flickr)

The Friends of Hudson River Park have traded a real estate big for a Wall Street one.

Today, the West Side park booster group announced that Michael Novogratz, head of Fortress Capital, will take over from Douglas Durst, the former board chair, who left last month over a dispute about the future of Pier 40 and the direction of the trust that overseas the park.

Mr. Novogratz has been a board member of Friends for some time now, and an announcement calls him "an avid user of the park." After all, the hedge fund manager and city's foremost wrestling booster lives around the corner in a multimillion-dollar compound he has assembled at 110 Hudson Street in Tribeca.

Mr. Novogratz said he will continue to focus on expanding the donor base at Friends, among the controversial moves that drove off Mr. Durst. Previously, it has been more of an advocacy and oversight group, but increasingly it has been called upon to raise funds for the money-hungry waterfront oasis.

“I am excited to serve as the new Chairman of the Friends,” Mr. Novogratz said in a statement. “The next few years will be a critical time for the Park as we work together to combat the substantial financial and infrastructure challenges we face. My focus will be on expanding the number of donors for the Park’s operations and raising capital funds so that we maintain its status as one of New York’s premier parks.  We also need to make sure that this park, which is so important to the west side community, gets completed in a timely fashion."

The Friends also announced that A.J. Pietrantone, executive director of the Friends of Hudson River Park, will be stepping down, having successfully completed the new integration between the group and the trust. “I am confident that Mike will help to further strengthen and grow our assets, while ensuring a smooth transition for staff leadership as well," Mr. Pietrantone said.

“The Trust and the Friends enter this new phase of cooperation more aligned than ever,” said Madelyn Wils, director of the trust.