Showing only Notes + Links tagged new york
New York Isn’t Silicon Valley, and That’s Why They Like It - NYTimes.com“What we need in New York is our own PayPal mafia,” says Caterina Fake, referring in jest to the band of early PayPal employees in Palo Alto who went on to found hugely successful ventures after the e-commerce business was sold to eBay in 2002.
“YouTube, LinkedIn, Yelp, Slide,” she says, ticking them off on her fingers. “We need a big company to go public, throw off employees that start their own companies and create a self-propagating, thriving scene like that out here.”
Not to find one’s way around a city does not mean much. But to lose one’s way in a city, as one loses one’s way in a forest, requires some schooling.Walter Benjamin — Berlin Childhood
Tonight in NYC: PechaKucha Night with a ridiculous list of presenters including Sagmeister, Iwan Baan, Steven Holl Architects, Zachary Lieberman, and some other amazing sounding architects and designers. Each will be presenting about something they love using 20 slides which advance every 20 seconds = 6:40 per speaker. So excited.
Cooper Union, 4pm
PechaKucha Night was devised in Tokyo in February 2003 as an event for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public.
It has turned into a massive celebration, with events happening in hundreds of cities around the world, inspiring creatives worldwide. Drawing its name from the Japanese term for the sound of “chit chat”, it rests on a presentation format that is based on a simple idea: 20 images x 20 seconds. It’s a format that makes presentations concise, and keeps things moving at a rapid pace.
YoGA @ MoMA (under a sculpture by Gabriel Orozco). HOW did I miss this ridiculosity/amazingness!?
Flavorpill’s yoga-loving friends headed to the Museum of Modern Art’s second floor atrium bright and early on Saturday morning for a class with Virayoga founder Elena Brower. What made this latest YoGA @ MoMA experience — the third installment of the popular series — so unique? The class took place underneath Gabriel Orozco’s 35-foot-long whale skeleton, and was accompanied musically by bassist Garth Stevenson.
I know there are at least two of us round these parts who would have loved this! Next time!
New York in Last Place in Happiness Rating - NYTimes.com →
Literally nobody I talk to in New York on a daily basis is unhappy! Maybe these scientists are hangin’ with the wrong crowd?
What is Affordable Housing? is a great interactive map of NYC that makes a really complex set of data easy to grok.
The beautifully designed toolkit consists of the interactive map above, a downloadable pdf guidebook, and a rearrangeable felt chart*:
The Envisioning Development Toolkit is a set of teaching tools designed to help experts and laypeople communicate. Advocates, policy wonks, community board members, developers, and others can use the tools as a centerpiece for workshops and conversations that describe and clarify problems and propose and communicate solutions.
The Toolkit is visual, tactile, and interactive. Each tool translates abstract concepts and language into straightforward activities and physical objects that let people learn by looking, doing, and listening to each other. Participants teach themselves and others as they use the tools. Concepts and jargon turn out to be less complicated than they seem.
It’s put together by the Center for Urban Pedagogy, an organization that uses the power of visual arts and design to help people communicate about urban issues. I highly recommend downloading the book (pdf) and flipping through, it’s absolutely fascinating, easy to read, and important to understand.
*which I first came across (and loved!) a few months ago while exploring the Center for Architecture with Liza!
An original manual for Die Neue Haas Grotesk, amended with the typeface’s new name - Helvetica
Creative Review - Inside the (new) Herb Lubalin Study Center
Norman Foster has designed an imposing and innovative eight story gallery to rise on the Bowery this spring:
“Once you look at putting in an elevator able to move significant works of art, the next stage is to say, ‘Why doesn’t the major gallery become the elevator?’ ” Mr. Foster said in a recent interview in Madrid, where an exhibition of his sketches had just opened.
While the elevator could fit up to 240 people, only a few are expected to occupy it at a time. It will move more at a rate of 50 feet per minute, rather than the more typical speed of 150, to allow time for people to admire the art inside.
“We want it to move very slowly, so you’re not interrupted in seeing the artwork,” said Michael Wurzel, the Foster architect in charge of the project in New York. “It’s not a 20-floor office building where everybody is impatient.”
He added, “The whole concept is, you almost don’t realize you’re in an elevator.”
Sliver of Space on Bowery Is a Challenge for Norman Foster - NYTimes.com
These transparent living spaces, once the quintessence of twenty first century Modernism, have become eyesores, particularly at night when they take on the appearance of showrooms in Amsterdam’s red light district.
How often have you walked down streets where you’ve seen much more of another person’s life and lifestyle than necessary? Yet like a moth drawn to light you couldn’t resist?
Steven Heller — People in Glass Apartments: Observatory: Design Observer
A Look Back at the Rooms Series - NYTimes.com
The fact is, New York City is a city of rooms, and the good stuff here always tends to happen behind closed doors. But the best part is that, even after 54 weeks, the surface has been only slightly scratched. One could imagine doing this again in a few years when the rooms have changed, which of course they will. The real estate racket will see to that.
Whitney Advances Plans for Museum Near High Line - NYTimes.com
Next to the High Line entrance on Gansevoort Street: An artist’s rendering of the new museum planned by the Whitney. (to be designed by Renzo Piano!)
“I fall into the camp of parents who are irate,” Ms. Sell said. She has equal disdain for Mister Softee and the ice cream pop vendor outside the park, but since they are licensed, there is not much she can do about them.
“I feel kind of bad about having developed this attitude,” she said. “I want Katherine to have the full childhood experience and all. But it’s really predatory for them — two of them — to be right inside the playground like this.”
Ms. Sell says she is not obsessed with health and nutrition. She — and others — feel they have been pushed to the brink by that little bell. Across message boards and playgrounds, soccer fields and day camp exits, parents have been raging. In a greener, more health-conscious, unsafe world, the ice cream man has lost some of his mojo.
Soft Serve and Jingles Jangle Moms - NYTimes.com
Every time I read something like this article about parents that want to ban ice cream trucks I thank God that my parents were never freaks.
Life and Art, Afloat on a Barge in New York Harbor - NYTimes.com
Public enthusiasm for the project has been voracious. Situated at the intersection of recession escapism, do-it-yourself culture and ecomania, the Pod neatly sums up many current lifestyle trends — the compost container gets a lot of “this is how we should do it at home” comments from visitors.
Eve K. Tremblay, a Canadian-born artist who was based in Berlin until she came to work and live on the Pod this year, was not happy with the result of all this go-with-the-flowness. “It’s looking a bit too hippy right now,” she said, adding: “I’m a bit of a critical voice on this project. There is very little time to read or do art. It takes a lot of work to do sustainability. And sometimes it feels like Frankenstein, like we’ve created this organism that has a life of its own.”
These utopian colonies are always interesting to read about but never seem to work out as planned.
To help prevent flooding in the subway system, the MTA has installed higher subway grates in flood-prone areas. The grates also serve as innovative street furniture, such as the one above that provides both seating and a place to lock up a bike.
Very interesting! I was wondering about these when I saw them because the design and construction is quite beautiful. The only problem I can think of is: who wants to sit above a subway grate? Gross!
Is it weird that I saw this receipt stuck in the window of the train today, put these two images together in my mind, and laughed to myself? Ceci n’est pas une ticket for travel.
