By Colin Campbell 10/31/12 1:23pm

de-watering

Flooded. (Photo: Getty)

Army Corps to Begin Pumping Water Out of Lower Manhattan Tomorrow

According to Senator Chuck Schumer, the federal government will soon begin the arduous task of returning floodwaters back to the Atlantic Ocean after Hurricane Sandy’s surge flooded key transportation arteries earlier this week.

“In the past hour, I have received an update from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers about the federal de-watering efforts happening in New York City,” Mr. Schumer said in a statement this afternoon.   Read More

By Drew Grant 10/30/12 7:05pm

surveying the wreckage

5 Photos

Mark Seliger's studio

Weather Channel Exec Surveys Damage to Mark Seliger’s Studio, Battery Park


“I was joking with my friends from Seattle on Sunday,” The Weather Channel’s SVP of Marketing and recent New York transplant Eric Hadley told The Observer. “They kept asking what the weather was like, and I said, ‘It’s like a January day in Seattle.’”

The former Bing executive had a busy evening. First, “a little party” at the Standard Hotel from 6:30-8:30. (“Most guests didn’t show up,” he remarked.) When the lights went out, everyone went home, but Mr. Hadley had work to do, taking crews out to survey the destruction, including that of artist Mark Seliger’s Charles St. studio, which had its front completely obliterated by Hurricane Sandy. Read More

By Matt Chaban 9/12/12 3:38pm

Dizzying Designs

8 Photos

Hava Nagila: A Song for the People

Everybody Hava Nagilah! Groovy Installation Celebrates History of Judaism’s Favorite Song

Even if you’re not Jewish, you probably know the song “Hava Nagilah.” It is up there in the canon with “If I Were a Rich Man” and “The Chanukah Song.” Just thinking those words, hava nagilah, you’ve probably already started humming to yourself, clapping your hands, maybe even grabbing the nearest chair and hoisting it over your head. The point is, it is a powerful, meaningful song, rivaling the Macarena.

It is this popularity, this ubiquity that inspired a new exhibition/installation at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, Hava Nagila: A Song for the People. The show brings together the sights, sounds and spirit of the song, its rich temporal and psychic history, and fills them into a colorful, carpeted room at the museum designed by hot young Brooklyn designers Situ Studio and MTWTF. Read More

By Sarah Grothjan 6/29/12 2:40pm

Faux-gress

The sphere (Getty Images)

Neither Sphere Nor There: Port Authority Wants Sculpture, Just Not Sure Where

When it comes to anything World Trade Center progress moves at a notoriously glacial pace. But the decision of what to do with Fritz Koenig’s Sphere—damaged and dented, but still intact after the WTC attacks— has been excruciatingly slow, even by World Trade Center standards.

Still, as of Thursday, a small bit of progress was made when Pat Foye, executive director of Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, said he believes the sphere should be made part of the World Trade Center memorial, The Wall Street Journal reported. Read More

By Matt Chaban 4/09/12 10:42am

Road Rage

Curse those bikes!

Bikes Desecrate 9/11: Lane to Blamed for Moving Survivor Sphere

So the Battery Conservancy wants to move The Sphere, Fritz Koenig’s sculpture that survived the attacks and has called the park home for a decade. The conservancy defends the decision because it is holding up long-planned renovations to the park, which have taken place everywhere but on the site of The Sphere, the installation of which was always meant to be permanent.

The hope was the sculpture would be reinstalled at the World Trade Center site, but as that project has dragged on, and uncertainty continues, its fate is now uncertain. The sculpture moves to JFK this week, and will hopefully find a home at the site, possibly on a park planned for the space where the old Deutsche Bank Building used to stand.

Whose to blame here, though? Read More

By Chris Shott 3/04/08 9:39pm

Hotelier Sam Chang Snags Another Site

Voracious hotel developer Sam Chang has acquired yet another piece of Manhattan.

City records show that Mr. Chang’s Great Neck, N.Y., company has paid $27 million for a building at 6-12 Water Street.

According to PropertyShark.com, the 21,000-square-foot building includes a two-story McDonald’s — quite appropriate for the McSam gang.

By Matthew Schuerman 4/09/07 12:00am

Developers Say They Can’t Build Green

Despite the hype about green roofs; despite the rampant branding of luxury residences with names like the Solaire and Tribeca Green; despite the cachet that once-repulsive ideas have now garnered (waterless urinals! recycled rainwater!), technologies that allow buildings to generate at least a portion of their own power in a clean, efficient way are having Read More

By Matthew Schuerman 2/26/07 12:00am

This Guy Wants You to Love Atlantic Yards

"Americans are frightened of density. Europe is not.”

Laurie Olin, one of the most noted landscape architects in the country, was holding forth in his firm’s library in central Philadelphia. He wants to help us get over our obsession with personal space.

So Mr. Olin took on the task of designing the Atlantic Yards project Read More