Blog
Guides
05/20/13 11:00am

Untapped Secrets of Central Park: Waterfalls, Caves and Prehistoric Rocks

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Kwanzan Cherry Blossoms, photo by Rachel Fawn Alban

In 1857, the city held a design competition for Central Park. The winning plan, by Frederic Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, was named ‘the Greensward Plan’ and featured an English style landscape with meadows, lakes, hills, winding pedestrian paths, and many trees to block the view of city buildings. The park was envisioned to be world class, on par with the greatest parks in London and Paris.

In today’s post, we focus on some of the most naturalistic features and areas of the park that were included in the original Greensward Plan. Like all the landscapes in Central Park, these beautiful areas are all man-made in areas that were irregular, containing swamps and farms. Most of that was completely razed, though some existing trees and many rock outcrops were incorporated into the plan. These naturalistic areas and elements were intended by the designers to allow city dwellers to connect with nature and experience the change that comes with seasons, weather conditions, and different times of day.

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Events
05/20/13 10:00am

Your Week Untapped: Best NYC Events for May 20-26

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Stephen Mallon East River Ferry Untapped Cities

Photo by Stephen Mallon, one of the artists in the East River Ferry’s floating photographic exhibition.

MONDAY, MAY 20: Screening of the Restored 1927 Fritz Lang film classic Metropolis, an Association for Preservation Technology Fundraiser. 6-8pm Benefit auction with light hors d’oeuvres; 8pm film screening at Brooklyn Academy of Music, 30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn. $50. Buy tickets here.

TUESDAY, MAY 21: THE VILLAGE: 400 Years of Beats and Bohemians, Radicals and Rogues – A History of Greenwich Village. The work is a monumental study that captures the singular spirit and significance of a place that long shaped American arts, politics, and popular culture. A sprawling, anecdotal chronicle that begins with the earliest settlements and travels with non-stop momentum to the reinvented, affluent Village of today. 6pm at the General Society Library, 20 West 44th Street. $5 students / $10 members / $15 general admission. Email victoria.dengel@generalsociety.org or call 212.840.1840 prompt 2.

Also on Tuesday: bOb Bar presents the Girls On Top (GOT)–UK’s first all-female graffiti crew formed in 2000 by Chock and Ned to unite female graffiti artists. Introducing NYC to 5 members (Chock, Luna, Lyns, Pixie, and Syrup), the show represents each individual’s style. Exploring the limits of graffiti aesthetics through mediums including embroidery, collage, and customized novelty items, they illustrate their experiences within a male-dominated graffiti culture. 7pm at  bOb Bar, 235 Eldridge Street.  (more…)

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Architecture
05/20/13 9:00am

Vintage Photos: Coney Island

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Coney Island, 1910s, as it looked in my great-grandparent's time.

Summer is almost here; soon it will be time for New Yorkers to get out their bathing suits and head over to Coney Island for some sunshine and corn dogs. Despite the brutal damage wrought by Hurricane Sandy, our favorite spots on Coney Island–the Cyclone, Nathan’s Famous hot dogs, the New York Aquarium, and more–have re-opened their doors, ready to feed and entertain New Yorkers all summer long.  (more…)

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Arts & Culture
05/20/13 8:00am

Inside Kim Holleman’s “Trailer Park” for IDEAS CITY in NYC

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Kim Holleman, artist_TrailerPark
The biennial festival, IDEAS CITY, hosted by The New Museum, aims to investigate the future of cities with the notion that the arts and culture play a vital role in the health of the urban core.  The theme for this year’s festival was Untapped Capital (fittingly for us). Participants were called to explore the under-utilized or under-recognized resources and potential within cities.

Kim Holleman is one such artist. She has taken the often-scorned mobile trailer and created a park in its interior, turning the entire notion of “trailer park” on its head. Holleman’s ideas came from what she saw as a growing need to integrate nature into the urban environment and provide access to larger numbers of urban residents.

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Architecture
05/17/13 4:00pm

Singapore’s Eco-Architectural Gardens

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GARDENS BY THE BAY

Singapore is well known for its nature-based attractions including the Singapore Botanic Gardens, Night Safari and the recently opened River Safari.

Gardens by the Bay is the newest addition to these green space innovations, making this architecturally brilliant metropolis truly a “City in a Garden.” The location of this new attraction, which lies on reclaimed land along the marina, was originally intended as space to extend the financial sector.

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Architecture
05/17/13 3:00pm

Public/Private: How Private is Your City?

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Results for Athens

Results for Athens

New York is known for a lot of things—taxis, bagels, Central Park, the subway—but it is not known for privacy. Privacy, in fact, can be pretty hard to come by. Last month, BMW Guggenheim Lab launched “Public/Private,” a new interactive project that explores our individual and collective experiences of privacy in cities around the world. In order to participate, you must first enter your information: gender, age and city. Next, you evaluate the level of privacy you seek in various locations in your city: workplace, home, school, parks, streets, etc. Finally, you rate your level of satisfaction with your city. Once your results are calculated, you can compare them to those of other users living in your city, and discover how your city’s collective data matches up to other cities around the world. (more…)

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Featured
05/17/13 2:00pm

Smorgasburg’s Culinary Delights

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smorgasburg brooklyn bridge park

Brought to you by the same people who run Brooklyn Flea, Smorgasburg, is a gastronomic delight. Smorgasburg is open, rain or shine, from 11:00AM to 6:00PM on Saturdays, in East River State Park (Kent Ave. and N. 7 St. on the Williamsburg waterfront), and on Sundays it is located in the Tobacco Warehouse in Brooklyn Bridge Park. The vendors feature packaged and prepared foods, beverages, and more from purveyors from New York City and across the region, for a total of 75-100 vendors. We recently interviewed Jonathan Butler and Eric Demby, the creative minds behind Smorgasburg.

Below are a sample of the artisinal (and hipster) culinary delights that await you at Smorgasburg:  (more…)

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Featured
05/17/13 1:00pm

The Transformation of the Upper West Side: From Food Desert to Food Destination

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Jacob's Pickles

Back when New York was the Naked City with 8 million stories, the Upper West Side was a food desert. Sure, giants walked the earth—Isaac Bashevis Singer, Duke Ellington, Hannah Arendt, and many more—but they mostly ate in dingy diners (exception: Barney Greengrass) or, if they wanted a decent meal, sprang for an expensive cab ride to a better neighborhood.

Today, New York has some 8.25 million people and the Upper West has renowned restaurants of just about every type and for every income level. The industry has become so successful that it is able to support a remarkable food festival—New Taste of the Upper West Side—sponsored by the Columbus Avenue BID.  (more…)

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Amsterdam
05/17/13 12:00pm

Innovative and Inexpensive: Holland’s Experimental Music Scene

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While experimental performance is typically thought to evoke a niche audience, its presence is more ubiquitous than you may think. Believe it or not, the experimental music scene is alive and well across the western region of the Netherlands; otherwise known as Holland. Not to be overlooked as a trendsetter in how music interacts with and enhances public space, it is apparent that this inventive genre is increasing accessibility to the arts in practice and performance. Moreover, the Netherlands has a lot to offer through experimental music to someone living on modest means.

The sound takes center stage during the Composing Spaces Symposium at KonCon

The sound takes center stage during the Composing Spaces Symposium at KonCon

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Arts & Culture
05/17/13 11:00am

Show Me How You See This: Admission: An Elastic City: NYC 1993 Walk at The New Museum

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Photograph by Caitlin Ruttle

I’d been to the NYC 1993 exhibit at the New Museum a few weeks earlier, but this time my eyes were closed and a stranger was guiding me through the second floor. He described the installation in front of us and, based on his clues, I couldn’t think back to what it could be: “A domestic scene. A red room and a white room. There are family photographs on a table. They look like they could be from the 70s. There’s an American flag, broken dishes on the floor, an open can of Coke…”  (more…)

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