By Jessica Roy 11/02/12 4:10pm

Clean Up

(Photo: NYC Architecture)

Hear That Boom? FBI Reportedly Detonating Explosives Damaged by Sandy on Ellis Island

If you’ve heard a series of loud explosions over the last hour, don’t panic. Twitter users initially worried that the electric grid may have blown in lower Manhattan again, but the loud noises are actually due to a series of controlled detonations reportedly orchestrated by the FBI.

According to NBC News, the “FBI says they will help US Parks police safely explode damaged explosions after #Sandy 6X over next 30 minutes on Ellis Island.” ABC and MSNBC’s Contessa Brewer also reported the incident. Read More

By Jess Schiewe 6/07/12 4:23pm

Making History

This hospital gives us the creeps, but apparently it's worth saving.

Give Us Your Tired, Your Weary Buildings: Ellis Island Named to Endangered Building List

Plants and animals aren’t the only things that are endangered—buildings are, too! Or so says the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

And although the number of endangered historic buildings is nowhere close to the whopping 2,000 endangered plant and animal species, endangered anything is never a good thing, which is why the Trust releases a list of the top 11 endangered historic buildings each year.

Since the annual list was started 25 years ago, only seven New York sites and buildings have been classified as endangered—thanks to the city’s Landmarks Law, in part—though that seventh was just added this year. Read More

By Hilton Kramer 7/19/04 12:00am

European Painters Spurred Evolution Among the Americans

Nowadays, when auction prices for paintings by the modern masters, both American and European, are zooming into the stratosphere and even the work of some quite mediocre modernists enjoys a lively market and fetches amazingly flattering reviews in the mainstream press, the old controversies over the influence of the European avant-garde on American art seem Read More

By NYO Staff 4/28/03 12:00am

Community Boards

Zap! Battery Park to Get

Much-Needed Recharging Battery Park, the largest open public space in downtown Manhattan and one of the city’s most historic areas, is undergoing a renaissance of sorts. The park’s 200-year-old Castle Clinton, built before the War of 1812, is scheduled for a long-overdue face-lift that will restore it to the grand Read More