Kimmelmania

This'll do. (City Review)

We Need More Zoning

Michael Kimmelman returned to the public realm for this week’s column, where he all but declared what appears to be his raison d’etre going forward: “We’ve been so fixated on fancy new buildings that we’ve lost sight of the spaces they occupy and we share,” he wrote in the Sunday Times. But instead of Zuccotti Park and protest spaces, this time Mr. Kimmelman turns his attention on Midtown, where he ambles about with the esteemed planner (and mayoral soothsayer) Alexander Garvin.

Together, they argue that the city needs to do more to plan these spaces, which are largely designed ad hoc, if at all, by the developers who own the properties. They point to Holland, that godhead of urban enlightenment, as a prime example from which to learn: Read More

For 'Ultimate Insider,' It's Sunnyside Up

A behind-the-scenes political insider could become the city’s next big development kingpin, if Mayor Michael Bloomberg pursues a plan to put a platform over the Sunnyside rail yards in Queens and open it up to developers.

Michael Bailkin, who is known as the best go-to guy if you’re a company looking for a tax Read More

For ‘Ultimate Insider,’ It’s Sunnyside Up

A behind-the-scenes political insider could become the city’s next big development kingpin, if Mayor Michael Bloomberg pursues a plan to put a platform over the Sunnyside rail yards in Queens and open it up to developers.

Michael Bailkin, who is known as the best go-to guy if you’re a company looking for a tax break Read More

It’s Alex Garvin’s Town; You’ll Never Live In It

Alex Garvin has been Dan Doctoroff’s favorite urban planner for about seven years now, ever since the deputy mayor came across Mr. Garvin’s book, The American City: What Works, What Doesn’t, in a Barnes & Noble.

His brand of urbanism with a free-market conscience appealed to Mr. Doctoroff, who was then just another investment Read More

The Early Stages of the Future

Far from being in the early stages, as his people like to claim, the team drafting Mayor Bloomberg’s Strategic Plan had commissioned a study by Alex Garvin (Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff’s Olympics designer) on housing, which was completed in May. The list of projected housing platforms is far longer than we reported yesterday, Read More

The Man Who Is Almost There

When Berlin-based American architect Daniel Libeskind unveiled his plan for the World Trade Center site last month to members of families still grieving the loss of loved ones in the Sept. 11 terror attack, several of them wept.

Unlike any of the competing proposals, Mr. Libeskind’s plan did something that had profound meaning for the Read More