By Kim Velsey 3/26 4:55pm

Historic Sites

The Bowery Mission

The Bowery Boys Push Back: Preservation Effort For Manhattan’s Historic Thoroughfare Gathers Steam

“This is a street that predates Manhattan. It has been one of the finest addresses in the city and it has been skid row, and now it’s changing again,” said Bill Wander, offering an extremely brief history of the Bowery.

We were standing with Mr. Wander, historian for McSorley’s Old Ale House (yes, McSorley’s has a historian), in the Bowery Hotel, surrounded by other historians, preservationists, punk rockers, poets, Italian bakers and many a downtown bar veteran who had gathered to celebrate the Bowery’s recent listing in the National Register of Historic Places. Read More

By Matt Chaban 1/08 9:12pm

Critical Mass

Huxtable, everlasting. (Getty)

Architecture Immemorial: Ada Louise Huxtable

“Whatever Philip Johnson’s legacy turns out to be, it will not rest on his buildings,” Ada Louise Huxtable wrote in her obituary of “the king’s architect” in The Wall Street Journal eight years ago. Mr. Johnson had once told Ms. Huxtable of his desire to work for royalty. Not finding any, Ms. Huxtable concluded, he crowned himself king and kingmaker. In his way, he reshaped the world, and so too has she.

Ms. Huxtable, who died in Manhattan on Monday at the age of 91, may not have set out to be the people’s writer, but that is what she became. She just wanted to share her ideas about the city where she was born, what was wrong with it and how it ought to be made right, but probably never would be.

“She was extraordinarily proper and quiet and dignified,” said Paul Goldberger, her protégé and successor as the Times’s architecture critic, a job she created and held for two decades, winning the first Pulitzer for criticism along the way. “She loved to get together and talk, and she was not above a certain amount of gossip, but at the end of the day, what you remember her for was her writing, which is how she wanted it to be. She was not a sort of quirky, unusual character about whom you would tell stories until the end of time. She wanted to be remembered by her work, and she is.” Read More

By Dana Rubinstein 5/16/08 8:01pm

Architecture Enthusiasts Crowd Gehry Buiding for MAS Awards

Livable-city activists celebrated the latest, coolest additions to the city’s urban landscape on Thursday inside the stark white interior of Frank Gehry’s first building in New York City, the IAC headquarters on 11th Avenue.

The occasion was the Municipal Art Society’s 2008 MASterwork Awards, which, according to the program, “honor the year’s top projects Read More

By Staff 11/29/06 4:27pm

It Ain't Over 'Til It's Built

In an otherwise critical sound-off on Atlantic Yards, Municipal Art Society head Kent Barwick tells StreetsBlog that there is still, in his eyes, hope for the mega-complex.

“I don’t think this project is substantially designed in its later phases,” he said, pointing out that it could be a decade before construction begins on much Read More

By Staff 9/29/06 8:30am

Friday: New York and Zwirner and Pritzger Jury All Expand; M.A.S. Kicks Shins!

  • The Times profiles the Municipal Art Society’s Kent Barwick, painting a rich portrait of Manhattan realty’s professional “shin” kicker. What does Mr. Barwick think about this era of supersaturated condos and hondos and bloggers and Yardage? “There hasn’t been a time, at least not in my lifetime, where New York City has seen so much Read More

    • By Staff 4/07/06 1:39pm

    M.A.S. Responds (to Ikea’s Response)

    The Municipal Art Society’s president for communications passes on this communique from Kent Barwick, president of the M.A.S. (with spellin’ lessons–our bad).

    “The Municipal Art Society did indeed develop two alternative site plans for the Ikea project that would meet their publicized program needs while preserving the rich history of the site. And, it is Read More

    By Staff 4/06/06 1:51pm

    Historic District To-Do

    Preservationist group Save the Chelsea Historic District is sponsering a free symposium tonight, “Preserving the Integrity of the Historic District,” at 7:30 p.m. at the German Evangelical Lutheran Church of St. Paul (315 West 22nd Street). Speakers include Kent Barwick, former chair of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission and president of the Municipal Read More