Download or read book The New York Waterfront written by Mary Beth Betts and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Created by a team of architects, historians, teachers, and students, The New York Waterfront is an unprecedented documentation of the rise and fall of the waterfront's architectural, technological, industrial, and commercial existence over the past 150 years. This densely illustrated book vividly presents and preserves the waterfront's development. Superb watercolor, ink, and pencil drawings-some specially created for this publication-as well as rare historic pictures, aerial photographs, and maps culled from a wide variety of sources and reproduced here for the first time, make this book the most comprehensive study on the subject. Newly commissioned photographs by Stanley Greenberg supplement this already rich array of images, often bringing out the melancholy beauty of the waterfront in its present derelict state. Also seen here are many major modern sites-the Red Hook Water Pollution Control Plant, the Port Authority Grain Elevators, the Fresh Kills Landfill, and the Brooklyn Navy Yard-capturing the nameless, inhospitable tracts whose only landmarks are the rusting remains of a once vital commercial life. This illustrative material, together with a series of informative texts written by critics and scholars, reveals a complete picture of the New York waterfront through contemporary projects and visionary proposals, environmental plans and master-planning, built and unbuilt waterfront structures (pier warehouses, recreation piers, markets, and ferry terminals), in addition to a meticulous analysis of a variety of documents and records. The New York Waterfront offers a unique perspective on waterfront building so that the lessons of the past can inform decisions about the future. This publication also inspires us to strive for an equivalent greatness when designing the urban fabric of the twenty-first century, the kind of greatness in public works that has in the past distinguished New York City.
Download or read book Beyond the Edge written by Raymond Gastil and published by Princeton Architectural Press. This book was released on 2002-10-25 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through an insightful look at projects from around the world and at the current design proposals for New York itself, the author paints a portrait of redevelopment that is both pragmatic and visionary, one that holds the promise of reconnecting New Yorkers to their waterfront as a vital place of work and of public life."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book The Big U written by Neal Stephenson and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times Book Review called Neal Stephenson's most recent novel "electrifying" and "hilarious". but if you want to know Stephenson was doing twenty years before he wrote the epic Cryptonomicon, it's back-to-school time. Back to The Big U, that is, a hilarious send-up of American college life starring after years our of print, The Big U is required reading for anyone interested in the early work of this singular writer.
Download or read book Waterfront Manhattan written by Kurt C. Schlichting and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2018-05-15 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Nature provided New York with a sheltered harbor but the city with a challenge: to find the necessary capital to build and expand the maritime infrastructure. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the city's government did not have the responsibility or the fiscal resources to develop needed port facilities. To build the infrastructure, the government awarded "water-lots" to private individuals to build wharves and piers, surrendering public control of the waterfront. For over 250 years private enterprise ran the waterfront; the city played a peripheral role. By the end of the Civil War chaos reigned and threatened the port's dominance. In 1870 the city and state created the Department of Docks to exercise public control and rebuild the maritime infrastructure for the new era of steamships and ocean liners. A hundred years later, technological change in the form of the shipping container and jet airplane rendered Manhattan's waterfront obsolete within an incredibly short time span. The maritime use of the shoreline collapsed, mirroring the near death of the city of New York in the 1970s. Ships disappeared and abandoned piers and empty warehouses lined the waterfront. The city slowly and painfully recovered. The empty waterfront allowed visionaries and planners to completely reimagine a shore lined with parkland. Along the new waterfront, luxury housing has transformed the waterfront neighborhoods where the Irish longshoremen once lived. A few remaining piers offer spectacular views of the city's waterways, now a most precious asset. The rebirth has been driven by complex private/public partnerships, with the city of New York playing only a peripheral role. The contentious question of private vs. public control of the waterfront remains a continuing issue in the 21st century"--
Download or read book Battery Park City written by David L. A. Gordon and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-11-12 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Battery Park City in Manhattan has been hailed as a triumph of urban design, and is considered to be one of the success stories of American urban redevelopment planning. The flood of praise for its design, however, can obscure the many lessons from the long struggle to develop the project. Nothing was built on the site for more than a decade after the first master plan was approved, and the redevelopment agency flirted with bankruptcy in 1979. Taking a practice-oriented approach, the book examines the role of planning and development agencies in implementing urban waterfront redevelopment. It focuses upon the experience of the central actor - the Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) - and includes personal interviews with executives of the BPCA, former New York mayors John Lindsay and Ed Koch, key public officials, planners, and developers. Describing the political, financial, planning, and implementation issues faced by public agencies and private developers from 1962 to 1993, it is both a case study and history of one of the most ambitious examples of urban waterfront redevelopment.
Download or read book Manhattan Water Bound written by Ann L. Buttenwieser and published by Syracuse University Press. This book was released on 1999-08-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of Manhattan from the 17th century to the present. The second edition of this text includes two additional chapters that encompass the changes that have taken place in the areas of restoration, legislation, and within the new movements in environmental consciousness during the 1990s.
Download or read book The Floating Pool Lady written by Ann L. Buttenwieser and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2021-05-15 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why on earth would anyone want to float a pool up the Atlantic coastline to bring it to rest at a pier on the New York City waterfront? In The Floating Pool Lady, Ann L. Buttenwieser recounts her triumphant adventure that started in the bayous of Louisiana and ended with a self-sustaining, floating swimming pool moored in New York Harbor. When Buttenwieser decided something needed to be done to help revitalize the New York City waterfront, she reached into the city's nineteenth-century past for inspiration. Buttenwieser wanted New Yorkers to reestablish their connection to their riverine surroundings and she was energized by the prospect of city youth returning to the Hudson and East Rivers. What she didn't suspect was that outfitting and donating a swimming facility for free enjoyment by the public would turn into an almost-Sisyphean task. As she describes in The Floating Pool Lady, Buttenwieser battled for years with politicians and struggled with bureaucrats as she brought her "crazy" scheme to fruition. From dusty archives in the historic Battery Maritime Building to high-stakes community board meetings to tense negotiations in the Louisiana shipyard, Buttenwieser retells the improbable process that led to a pool named The Floating Pool Lady tying up to a pier at Barretto Point Park in the Bronx, ready for summer swimmers. Throughout The Floating Pool Lady, Buttenwieser raises consciousness about persistent environmental issues and the challenges of developing a constituency for projects to make cities livable in the twenty-first century. Her story and that of her floating pool function as both warning and inspiration to those who dare to dream of realizing innovative public projects in the modern urban landscape.
Download or read book Magnetic City written by Justin Davidson and published by Random House. This book was released on 2017-04-18 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From New York magazine’s architecture critic, a walking and reading guide to New York City—a historical, cultural, architectural, and personal approach to seven neighborhoods throughout Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx, including six essays that help us understand the evolution of the city For nearly a decade, Pulitzer Prize–winning critic Justin Davidson has explained the ever-changing city of New York to his readers at New York magazine, introducing new buildings, interviewing architects, tracking the way the transforming urban landscape shapes who New Yorkers are. Now, his extensive, inspiring knowledge will be available to a wide audience. An insider’s guide to the architecture and planning of New York that includes maps, photographs, and original insights from the men and women who built the city and lived in it—its designers, visionaries, artists, writers—Magnetic City offers first-time visitors and lifelong residents a new way to see New York. Includes walking tours throughout Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx • the Financial District • the World Trade Center • the Seaport and the Brooklyn waterfront • Chelsea and the High Line • 42nd Street • the Upper West Side • the South Bronx and Sugar Hill Praise for Magnetic City “An intimate, seductive guidebook.”—The New York Times “An enthralling new book makes clear that I’m not alone in my home-town infatuation . . . lends nuance, texture and historical perspective to my impression that New York City has never been so appealing or life-affirming as it is today.”—New York Post “[Davidson] combines a keen intelligence, experience, observational skills, expertise (especially but not solely architectural), and an elegant writing style to make this beautifully produced book indispensable.”—Booklist (starred review) “A street-level celebration of New York City in all ‘its perpetual complexity and contradiction’ . . . a worthy companion to Alfred Kazin’s A Walker in the City and the American Institute of Architects guides to the architecture of New York as well as a treat for fans of the metropolis.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Justin Davidson does more than direct our feet to New York’s hidden monuments. He explains the structure of the city with a clarity that would be bracing even for a Gotham habitué, but more than that, he finds the meaning in every building and byway.”—Andrew Solomon, National Book Award-winning author of Far from the Tree “Mr. Davidson’s exceptional knowledge of our beloved city is inspiring. Magnetic City is now my official chaperone.”—Patti LuPone “Justin Davidson has a mind alive to every signal, and his brilliant prose style transmits that electricity in black-and-white type. He is thus born to the task of capturing the chaotic splendor of New York City on the page.”—Alex Ross, author of Listen to This “Justin Davidson’s beautiful tours of New York City invoke and redouble our love of the metropolis.”—Jerry Saltz, senior art critic, New York
Download or read book Brooklyn Bridge Park written by Joanne Witty and published by Fordham Univ Press. This book was released on 2016-09-07 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A major social and political phenomenon of how a community overcame overwhelming opposition and obstacles to build the Brooklyn Bridge Park. Stretching along a waterfront that faces one of the world’s greatest harbors and storied skylines, Brooklyn Bridge Park is among the largest and most significant public projects to be built in New York in a generation. It has transformed a decrepit industrial waterfront into a new public use that is both a reflection and an engine of Brooklyn’s resurgence in the twenty-first century. Brooklyn Bridge Park unravels the many obstacles faced during the development of the park and suggests solutions that can be applied to important economic and planning issues around the world. Situated below the quiet precincts of Brooklyn Heights, a strip of moribund structures that formerly served bustling port activity became the site of a prolonged battle. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey eyed it as an ideal location for high-rise or commercial development. The idea to build Brooklyn Bridge Park came from local residents and neighborhood leaders looking for less intensive uses of the property. Together, elected officials joined with members of the communities to produce a practical plan, skillfully won a commitment of government funds in a time of fiscal austerity, then persevered through long periods of inaction, abrupt changes of government, two recessions, numerous controversies often accompanied by litigation, and a superstorm. Brooklyn Bridge Park is the success story of a grassroots movement and community planning that united around a common vision. Drawing on the authors’ personal experiences—one as a reporter, the other as a park leader—Brooklyn Bridge Park weaves together contemporaneous reports of events that provide a record of every twist and turn in the story. Interviews with more than sixty people reveal the human dynamics that unfolded in the course of building the park, including attitudes and opinions that arose about class, race, gentrification, commercialization, development, and government. Despite the park’s broad and growing appeal, its creation was lengthy, messy, and often contentious. Brooklyn Bridge Park suggests ways other civic groups can address such hurdles within their own communities.
Download or read book Rebuild by Design written by Rebuild by Design and published by . This book was released on 2015-06-30 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Port Towns and Urban Cultures written by Brad Beaven and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-05-04 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite the port’s prominence in maritime history, its cultural significance has long been neglected in favour of its role within economic and imperial networks. Defined by their intersection of maritime and urban space, port towns were sites of complex cultural exchanges. This book, the product of international scholarship, offers innovative and challenging perspectives on the cultural histories of ports, ranging from eighteenth-century Africa to twentieth-century Australasia and Europe. The essays in this important collection explore two key themes; the nature and character of ‘sailortown’ culture and port-town life, and the representations of port towns that were forged both within and beyond urban-maritime communities. The book’s exploration of port town identities and cultures, and its use of a rich array of methodological approaches and cultural artefacts, will make it of great interest to both urban and maritime historians. It also represents a major contribution to the emerging, interdisciplinary field of coastal studies.
Download or read book New York Rising written by Thomas Mellins and published by The Monacelli Press, LLC. This book was released on 2018-11-20 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Rising is an illustrated history of real estate development in Manhattan, a story of speculation and innovation--of the big ideas, big personalities, and big risks that collectively shaped a city like no other. From the first European settlement in the seventeenth century through the skyscrapers and large-scale urban planning schemes of the late twentieth century, this book presents a broad historical survey, illustrated with images drawn largely from the rich archival resources of the Durst Collection at Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University. The patriarch of one of New York City's most prominent real estate families, Seymour B. Durst, was a bibliophile and an avid collector of New York memorabilia. His archival holdings--once known as the Old York Library and now the Durst Collection--reflect his fascination with the city's street grid, mass transit, port, parks and open spaces, as well as its monumental buildings and signature skyline. Ten leading scholars--the late Hilary Ballon, Ann Buttenwieser, Andrew Dolkart, David King, Reinhold Martin, Richard Plunz, Lynne B. Sagalyn, Hilary Sample, Russell Shorto, and Carol Willis--delved into the collection to select objects that reflect their own areas of interest and expertise. Using these materials, they have created visual narratives on specific topics, focusing on the Dutch and English governance of Manhattan, the growth of the city according to the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, the emergence of the public transit system, the "race for height," the rise of multi-family and affordable housing, the transformation of Midtown into a commercial center, urban renewal in the Moses era, the revival of Times Square, and the reclaiming of the waterfront as public space. Essays by Kate Ascher and Thomas Mellins provide a framework for exploring these topics. New York Rising is published in association with The Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation and Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University.
Download or read book Gotham Unbound written by Ted Steinberg and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-06-03 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2015 PROSE Award for US History A “fascinating, encyclopedic history…of greater New York City through an ecological lens” (Publishers Weekly, starred review)—the sweeping story of one of the most man-made spots on earth. Gotham Unbound recounts the four-century history of how hundreds of square miles of open marshlands became home to six percent of the nation’s population. Ted Steinberg brings a vanished New York back to vivid, rich life. You will see the metropolitan area anew, not just as a dense urban goliath but as an estuary once home to miles of oyster reefs, wolves, whales, and blueberry bogs. That world gave way to an onslaught managed by thousands, from Governor John Montgomerie, who turned water into land, and John Randel, who imposed a grid on Manhattan, to Robert Moses, Charles Urstadt, Donald Trump, and Michael Bloomberg. “Weighty and wonderful…Resting on a sturdy foundation of research and imagination, Steinberg’s volume begins with Henry Hudson’s arrival aboard the Half Moon in 1609 and ends with another transformative event—Hurricane Sandy in 2012” (The Plain Dealer, Cleveland). This book is a powerful account of the relentless development that New Yorkers wrought as they plunged headfirst into the floodplain and transformed untold amounts of salt marsh and shellfish beds into a land jam-packed with people, asphalt, and steel, and the reeds and gulls that thrive among them. With metropolitan areas across the globe on a collision course with rising seas, Gotham Unbound helps explain how one of the most important cities in the world has ended up in such a perilous situation. “Steinberg challenges the conventional arguments that geography is destiny….And he makes the strong case that for all the ecological advantages of urban living, hyperdensity by itself is not necessarily a sound environmental strategy” (The New York Times).
Download or read book Urban Waterfront Development written by Douglas M. Wrenn and published by . This book was released on 1983 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Transforming Urban Waterfronts written by Gene Desfor and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-10-04 with total page 427 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In port cities around the world, waterfront development projects have been hailed both as spaces of promise and as crucial territorial wedges in twenty-first century competitive growth strategies. Frequently, these mega-projects have been intended to transform derelict docklands into communities of hope with sustainable urban economies—economies intended to both compete in and support globally-networked hierarchies of cities. This collection engages with major theoretical debates and empirical findings on the ways waterfronts transform and have been transformed in port-cities in North and South America, Europe, the Caribbean. It is organized around the themes of fixities (built environments, institutional and regulatory structures, and cultural practices) and flows (information, labor, capital, energy, and knowledge), which are key categories for understanding processes of change. By focusing on these fixities and flows, the contributors to this volume develop new insights for understanding both historical and current cases of change on urban waterfronts, those special areas of cities where land and water meet. As such, it will be a valuable resource for teaching faculty, students, and any audience interested in a broad scope of issues within the field of urban studies.
Download or read book Urban Waterfront Lands written by National Research Council (U.S.). Committee on Urban Waterfront Lands and published by National Academies. This book was released on 1980 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Accidental Playground written by Daniel Campo and published by Fordham Univ Press. This book was released on 2013-09-10 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Accidental Playground explores the remarkable landscape created by individuals and small groups who occupied and rebuilt an abandoned Brooklyn waterfront in Williamsburg. Without formal authority, capital, professional assistance, grand vision, consensus, or coordination with each other, these "vernacular" builders transformed a vacated waterfront railroad yard into a unique setting for recreation and creative endeavor. With the Manhattan skyline as its backdrop, the collapsing piers, eroded bulkhead, and remaining building foundations of the former Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal (BEDT) became the raw materials for various forms of waterside leisure and social spaces. Lacking predetermined rules governing its use, this waterfront evolved into the home turf for unusual and sometimes spectacular recreational, social, and creative subcultures. These included skateboarders who built a short-lived, but nationally renowned skatepark; a twenty-five-piece "public" marching band, fire performance troupes, and a variety of artists, photographers, and filmmakers. At the same time the site also served basic recreational needs of local residents. Collapsing piers became great places to catch fish, sunbathe, or take in the Manhattan skyline; the foundation of a demolished warehouse became an ideal place to practice music or skateboard; rubble-strewn earth became a compelling setting for film and fashion shoots; broken bulkhead became a beach; and thick patches of weeds dotted by ailanthus trees became a jungle. Drawing on a rich mix of documentary strategies including observation, ethnography, photography, and first-person narrative, Daniel Campo probes this accidental playground, allowing those who created it to share and examine their own narratives, perspectives, and conflicts. The multiple constituencies of this Williamsburg waterfront were surprisingly diverse, their stories colorful and provocative. When taken together, Campo argues, they suggest a radical reimagining of urban public space, the waterfront, and the practices by which they are created and maintained. The Accidental Playground, which treats readers to an utterly compelling story, is an exciting and distinctive contribution to the growing literature on the unplanned and the undesigned spaces and activities in cities today.
