Posts by David Alpert — Founder
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NYC BRT
On Thursday, I was in the vicinity of 10th Avenue and 23rd Street, heading home. Since 10th Avenue turns into Amsterdam and I live half a block from Amsterdam, I decided to try taking the M11 bus. I knew traffic would be bad, and wasn’t in a rush, but getting past the Lincoln Tunnel was horrifically slow. Keep reading…
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Scott Stringer supports moving MSG
Following up to my post on moving Madison Square Garden and restoring a grand Penn Station, Borough President Scott Stringer has announced his support for the idea, and advocates for ensuring public participation in the planning process. Keep reading…
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“Suburban sensibility”
A Times article about Newport, the dense mixed-used development on the Hudson waterfront in Jersey City, talks about how the LeFrak family turned this wasteland of abandoned railyards into a thriving neighborhood. It’s a real success story and a great - and uncommon - example of how open developable spaces can be turned into something better than two-story generic… Keep reading…
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Save Our Superblock
One of the travesties of 1950s-era urban planning was the “superblock”, where cities disrupted the regular street grid to build large towers surrounded by windswept plazas. Most of these superblocks are now recognized as mistakes, such as Boston’s City Hall Plaza, a huge barren space nearly empty all year round, and the World Trade Center superblock,… Keep reading…
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Restoring Penn Station: Possible?
In the 1960s, the beautiful Penn Station was torn down and replaced by the hideous Madison Square Garden, relegating America’s busiest train station to a cramped basement. Now, New York is poised to build a new grand Moynihan Station on the west side of 8th Avenue, in the old Farley Post Office building that happens to have been designed by the same architects. No… Keep reading…
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Which is better?
Which street would you prefer? Keep reading…
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Three visions of the city
As Boozy so entertainingly informed us, Le Corbusier’s vision for a city was the Radiant City, of rows of identical buildings and skyscrapers separated by parkland. Robert Moses’ vision for the city included wide expressways (which eventually became choked with traffic) cutting across boulevards of urban renewal style projects. And Jane Jacobs famously… Keep reading…
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Freeways that never were
In the 1950s and 60s, urban planners were busy constructing freeways across America, through plains and mountains where they were needed, and into the centers of cities where they bulldozed vibrant communities and hastened sprawl and urban decay. Keep reading…
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Gowanus tunnel?
In The Power Broker, Robert Caro describes the Gowanus Expressway as one of Robert Moses’ first of many terrible highway projects. He ran the highway right down the center of Sunset Park, completely covering the then-vibrant Third Avenue despite the neighborhood’s pleas to run it closer to the waterfront. The Gowanus needs to be replaced, and since the… Keep reading…
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Bravo Gale
For many reasons, some known, some not known, the New York City Department of Transportation is still mostly stuck in the SimCity Classic phase of urban planning thinking, closer to Robert Moses than Jane Jacobs. While they did recently suggest, to the surprise of many observers, converting a segment of Willoughby Street in Downtown Brooklyn to be pedestrian-only, DOT Commissioner… Keep reading…