Viewing NYC Articles by Akiva Blander

"Against Domestic Colonialism", a 1972 Anti-Gentrification Mural in Hell's Kichen

2015-08-01T11:40:41-04:00

After years of community-led efforts, a beloved, yet dilapidated, mural overlooking a playground on West 45th Street in Hell's Kitchen may be imminently restored. "Against Domestic Colonialism," painted in 1972 by artist and Pratt professor Arnold Belkin, conveys a powerful message against gentrification and commercialization of the area, especially pertinent since the "community is again undergoing rapid change and development."

The mural features a diverse group of people set against the New York skyline, with one holding a sign that reads "We the people demand control of our communities," although much of it has been obscured over time:

Much of the mural’s original anti-gentrification message is now faded and covered over, but in the original, a bulldozer blazes a trail into a group of protesters, a clump of gleaming high-rises in its wake. A sign reading “The neighborhood is for the people, not big business,” and the figure holding it are no longer visible.

Weissman, who is still involved in the work on the mural, said that because of the condition of the wall the mural was painted on, the "restoration" will actually be a full "replication." The wall will be replaced and the mural fully repainted.

"Either way, the original is going to be gone, period," she said.

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"From Ruin to Renewal", Photos of Umbrella House, Its Residents and Urban Farm

2015-07-23T09:38:24-04:00

On Avenue C between East 2nd and 3rd Streets sits the Umbrella House, a co-op apartment building operated like many others. However, what sets this co-op apart is its "more utopian and collectivist ethos" and the critical role it has played in the East Village’s rich and contentious history of squatting. In fact, many of the original squatters who lived there before its gradual 2002-2010 legalization still occupy the co-op and are active in its management and activities.

After years of progressive renovations and improvements since its original occupation in 1988, the building’s newest undertaking is a 820-square foot, entirely volunteer-run urban garden on its roof. This series, as part of a NYTimes profile on the co-op and its community, includes photos of the new rooftop garden, as well as of residents in their uniquely designed apartments. Umbrella House’s online history also contains over a dozen archival shots of the building shortly after its squatting.

The entire history of the collective’s founding and its changing relationships with the police, neighbors and ever-gentrifying surroundings is fascinating and worth a read.

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Striking Photographs of Life in the Gowanus

2015-07-17T09:21:27-04:00

When one thinks of the Gowanus Canal, its highly contaminated waters or notably foul stench may first come to mind. However, with a keen eye, one can find interesting and overlooked types of "life abounding" in its industrial environs.

Photographer Miska Draskoczy captures these instances and hints of urban nature and life for his new exhibition "Gowanus Wild" at the Brooklyn Public Library. According to his website, one of the aims of the series is to "show just how tenacious nature can be in the face of…grave environmental destruction." His photos look at the interaction between the neighborhood's built and natural features, or as he calls it, "some hybrid":

There’s no real wilderness anymore, I’m interested in the idea that everywhere we are, it’s some hybrid of nature and the man-made.

In the context of the neighborhood's rapid gentrification and upgrading ("most of the sites he photographed have been torn down or swept away for new development"), even these slices of life in the neighborhood seem to be threatened with displacement.

The photo series is on display at the Brooklyn Public Library at Grand Army Plaza, and can be viewed through September 25th.

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Check Out These Fantastic Birdseye View Photos of New York in the Summer

2015-07-11T08:25:21-04:00

The city in the summer can be unbearably chaotic, but from a few hundred feet in the air, it suddenly becomes more orderly, strangely serene and and actually quite soothing.

The team of aerial photographers at NY on Air are constantly producing fantastic images and videos through its "unprecedented access to the skies above New York City."

TimeOut New York collected 13 of their stunning aerial photos of the city's hustle, bustle and occasional calmness during the summer months. Many were taken by the talented aerial photographer Anthony Quintano, whose hyper-lapses, NYE ball drop videos and selfies we have covered in the past.

If the crowds, heat and stress of street-level New York ever get to be too much, take a look at these pictures for a quick respite.

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Beautiful Photos of JFK's Abandoned TWA Terminal

2015-07-06T09:28:25-04:00

Last week, photographer Max Touhey was granted special permission to take photos of the defunct TWA Terminal at JFK Airport while a team of digital scanning experts recorded the building's features. The stunning pictures offer a rare glimpse into the terminal's symmetrical and flowing interior, typical of 1960's modernist architecture.

Off-limits to the public since 2001, the landmarked terminal is set to be converted into the lounge area of a hotel with 500 rooms housed in two towers flanking either side. It is legendary Finnish-born architect Eero Saarinen's final work, completed in 1962, one year after his death.

Beyond its architecture and design, the terminal also bears historical significance:

The opening of the TWA Flight Center in all its jet-age splendor marked a shift in the history of air travel in which middle-class Americans could now afford to fly. Clearly, the terminal's heyday coincided with the golden age of flying, in which travelers were restricted neither by economic class nor security concerns.

Take a look at Touhey's photographs and imagine what air travel in the 60's must have been like. While the redevelopment plans will try to preserve some of the TWA Terminal's features, it will never look as pristine as it does now.

For dozens more photos, check out the full article on Curbed.

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Quick Look at the City's Manifold Obscure Boutique Museums

2015-06-27T10:56:07-04:00

Last week, the Wall Street Journal's Metropolis blog gave a quick rundown of New York's small museums dedicated to a range of overlooked, weird and wholly original NYC-related themes.

Viewing NYC also gave you a peek inside Mmmuseumm, the worlds's smallest museum.

Take a look at some fascinating pictures of these quirky and unique spaces, or better yet, check out one of these one-of-a-kind museums in person and learn about a truly brand new topic.

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The Precedent-Setting History of How Brooklyn Heights Became the City's First Historic District

2015-06-26T09:35:36-04:00

When many of us think of Brooklyn Heights today, we think of beautiful rowhouses and active, upper middle-class residents. A recent Curbed feature details how these features of the neighborhood converged with Robert Moses's urban renewal plans of the post-War years to result in its historical landmarking and the setting of a legal precedent for historical districting.

After gradual industrial development during the Dutch and British colonial eras due to its harbor-hugging location, prominent residents for whom streets in the neighborhood are still named (Pierrepont, Middagh, Hicks) began to develop uniform residential plots for the neighborhood. By the first half of the 19th century, Brooklyn Heights came to be characterized by row houses diverse in architectural influences.

24 Middagh Street, built in 1824 in the Federalist style, is the oldest of these to survive. Through the Great Depression and World War Two, the neighborhood remained a largely white and middle class enclave throughout waves of industrialization and the opening of new transportation connections.

During the 20th century, Robert Moses's notorious urban renewal plans such as the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, the expansion of Cadman Plaza in downtown Brooklyn and a proposed expansion of hi-rise public housing developments motivated residents to organize community conservation councils in order to preserve the Heights's built form and social composition.

Besides spatial and aesthetic problems with the plans, "Heights residents don't want poor people and they don't want Negroes and Puerto Ricans," as one resident plainly told the Times in 1965. The battle between residents' and Moses's vision for the neighborhood had begun.

One option for fighting Moses that the CCIC began to explore was a little-known piece of legislation known as the "Bard Law" which gave the state of New York the ability to preserve "buildings, structures...having a special character or special historical or aesthetic interest or value." In 1959, the Bard Law had never been used, but the CCIC saw an opportunity: New York City was in the process of overhauling its zoning regulations. Perhaps the city could be convinced to invoke the Bard Law and seal off Brooklyn Heights from further development.

The evocation of this little-known law proved successful. Mayor Robert Wagner formed the Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1962 and, after endowing it with legislative authority under Bard's Law in 1965, paved the way for Brooklyn Heights to become the first historic landmarked district in New York.

Though landmarks laws would suffer many reversals in the coming decade, the Brooklyn Heights district remains intact and a sterling example of how a community—albeit a white and well-connected one—can sometimes face down city bureaucracy and win.

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Proposal for Development of the City's 700 Shadowy Miles of Overlooked Underpass

2015-06-25T10:57:40-04:00

A recent report from the Design Trust for Public Space and the NYC Department of Transportation points to the need to utilize creatively the oft-neglected spaces beneath elevated highways and railways, like the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, the J/M/Z lines in north Brooklyn, and the F and D lines in the south.

Some issues with these underused spaces relate to noise from passing traffic, garbage that collects near the curbs and the lack of adequate illumination. Implemented experiments for the "el-spaces" have included the construction of bike and pedestrian paths in Staten Island and various initiatives in the Bronx and Chinatown designed to draw people to these spaces. For example,

The "Boogie Down Booth" on the Bronx’s Southern Boulevard alongside the elevated tracks offered seating and played tracks from local artists like Thelonius Monk and Grandmaster Flash to counteract train noise.

However, with the High Line in Chelsea as a cautionary tale, proposals will need to consider the relationship between gentrification and these types of neighborhood initiatives.

Got any good ideas?

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Seriously Creepy Photos of Staten Island's Abandoned Tuberculosis Hospital Complex

2015-05-24T13:49:38-04:00

Abandoned NYC this week posted a fascinating set of haunting and beautiful pictures of the abandoned Seaview Hospital in Staten Island's Greenbelt.

Upon its 1913 completion, the hospital was celebrated as the "largest and finest hospital ever built" for tuberculosis patients, and by a city official as "vast, ingenious, practical, convenient, sanitary, and beautiful."

In the mid-1940's, Sea View contributed to a series of medical breakthroughs in developing streptomycin, an antibiotic effective in the treatment and ultimate curing of TB. Streptomycin was so effective in healing patients that by 1961, the main hospital was all but empty.

While some buildings in the hospital complex have been renovated and repurposed by civic groups, most of them, including the women's pavilions and the Children's Hospital (abandoned 1974), lay isolated and forgotten, visited only by urban explorers, adventurous teenagers and intrigued hikers.

The area is publicly accessible and exploring is possible, but beware of the thoroughly deteriorated stairwells and generally eerie atmosphere.

These photos and many more like them can be found in the Abandoned NYC photo book, available for purchase on Amazon.

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Grand Central Terminal's Secret, Exclusive Track 61

2015-05-22T08:46:21-04:00

Grand Central Terminal is one of the busiest and largest railway stations in the country. Running to catch a train during rush hour can have you wishing there was a private platform and train available to make your commute less stressful.

Apparently, such an option used to exist… provided you were powerful and wealthy enough. Our friends at 6sqft recently published a great article that outlines the history of Track 61, a private rail connection between Grand Central Terminal and the basement of the opulent Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

The general set-up of the private link is summarized in a 1929 Times article:

"The new Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, to be erected in the block bounded by Park Avenue, Lexington Avenue, Forty-ninth and Fiftieth Streets, will have a private railway siding underneath the building, it was learned yesterday. Guests with private rail cars may have them routed directly to the hotel instead of to the Pennsylvania Station or the Grand Central Terminal, and may leave their cars at a special elevator which will take them directly to their suites or to the lobby."

Beginning in 1938, many politicians and some VIP guests of the hotel took advantage of the secret track. Most famously, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who did not want the public to see that he was wheelchair-bound, was shuttled to his private suit, along with his 6,000-pound armor-plated Pierce Arrow limousine, via Track 61.

Track 61 became increasingly neglected from the 1960's on. Several different outlets have reported that Andy Warhol hosted an underground party there in 1965. Throughout the 70's and 80's, the track was host to a large 10 and squatter population.

Although largely defunct today, Track 61 is reportedly still used occasionally and "is considered an important escape route should the president ever have to leave New York in emergency."

As enticing as it sounds, don't bother trying to check out Track 61 yourself, as access is completely closed off. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like public tours will be available any time soon, either.

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