“Architects of Black Harlem” by Thandi Nyambose addresses a gap in most architectural histories. The neighborhood is well known for its Black residents but not as much for the Black architects who helped create it. If you prefer her work in a more visual (and perhaps more visceral) form, here’s the Story Map. Either way, a …
Underhill again, in 1936, showing us the former Cities Service Building, 70 Pine Street, by looking down Pine Street from the east. We’re on the east side of Front Street looking west. As a reminder, Front Street is two blocks into the landfill along the East River, while 70 Pine is on Pearl Street, at …
I’ll be giving a book talk about The Structure of Skyscrapers at the Skyscraper Museum (virtually) next Tuesday. Details and registration at the museum website: here. I don’t like to repeat talks I’ve already given, so this time I’ll be talking about how industrialization of the building process helped lead designers to create skyscrapers.
While I was looking at maps for the Consolidated Exchange, I was reminded of an anomaly in the pattern of streets and blocks in lower Manhattan. I knew the cause, but not the timing, so I decided to trace it backwards through time. The anomaly is Coenties Slip, a triangle of open space in the …
New York has two Roman-style triumphal arches that I know of: at Washington Square in honor of George Washington, and at Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza in honor of the Union army of the Civil War. (There could well be others, but if there are, they’re fairly obscure.) There was a temporary third in 1919, spanning …
