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

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

by

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.

(more…)

,
Architecture
05/17/13 4:00pm

Singapore’s Eco-Architectural Gardens

by

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.

(more…)

,
Architecture
05/17/13 3:00pm

Public/Private: How Private is Your City?

by
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…)

,
Featured
05/17/13 2:00pm

Smorgasburg’s Culinary Delights

by

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…)

, ,
Featured
05/17/13 1:00pm

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

by

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…)

,
Amsterdam
05/17/13 12:00pm

Innovative and Inexpensive: Holland’s Experimental Music Scene

by

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

(more…)

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

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

by

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…)

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

Daily What?!: $10 Million Home Loan Just For You

by

OneWest Bank LA_Santa Monica_Home Loans 10 Million Just For You

Today’s Daily What?! is from Santa Monica, California where we spotted this ad from OneWest Bank: Home loans up to $10 million just for you (well, not for most of us). OneWest Bank’s tagline is “One Person at a Time” so we can give them props for sticking to their marketing target. Justa as reference, home loan rates are rising but the average amount of a home loan in 2012 was $235,000.

(more…)

,
Arts & Culture
05/17/13 9:00am

#untappedcities Instagram “Pic” of the Week: Tom Fruin Watertower

by
watertower_newyork_timothydavidson

This shot of Tom Fruin’s water tower was submitted to us by @betsybatman.

This week’s #untappedcities Instagram “Pic” of the Week goes to this colorful shot of Tom Fruin’s Watertower, taken by @betsybatman, on display in Brooklyn Bridge Park untiL June. A big congratulations to @betsybatman! and thanks for tagging your picture #untappedcities. This capture is brilliant in so many ways. It is not every day that anything, let alone a water tower dwarfs the famed Manhattan Bridge, or East River, but this shot takes on the ask head on. Aside from this, it is hard to believe that the colors produced by Fruin’s Watertower could be rivaled, however @betsybatman does the unthinkable by framing the Watertower with the sunset over the East River. Amazingly, this contrast between the setting sun and the kaleidoscope of a water tower compliment each element in this beautiful photo. (more…)

, , , ,
Events
05/16/13 4:00pm

Underground Dance Parties in Paris with the Nomade Club

by

Nomade Club Paris Untapped Cities

You arrive in the city center just as night is falling, turn the corner in a little cobblestoned street and enter an unmarked door to an underground cocktail bar. Inside, the lights are dim, the atmosphere is chic and the cocktails are the very best. As music plays, you are drawn closer to it. You follow the sounds to a hidden back room, where people are dancing in rhythm to the music. (more…)

, ,
Next Page »