Shared Spaces: NY’s Flatiron District is doing it right.
Flatiron Public Plazas
The Public Plazas were opened in August 2008, complete with a reconfiguration of traffic patterns at the intersection of Broadway, Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street. This project creates safer conditions for pedestrians and cyclists. Additional pedestrian space, new crosswalks and bike lanes and simplified patterns for vehicular traffic knit the neighborhood together and provide a more enjoyable experience for the people who live, work, do business in, and visit the area.
(Source: flatironbid.org)
A series of chairs enmeshed into a table and another series of chairs that extends into a roof? The waterfront by the Hudson River in NY certainly has some innovative public furniture.
+1 for multi-functionality
Cacti are sprouting in Manhattan?
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Presented by the Animus Arts Collective, they create these urban “cacti” by linking brightly colored cable ties thousands of times around a lamppost. According to the makers of this project, “We as artists wanted to create something of beauty out of everyday items. We wanted to show that making art doesn’t require a lot of resources, formal education, or even money. Art and creativity are things we’re all capable of.”
Hello, everyone! So my posting speed has fallen quite a bit this past month due to finals and moving along the East Coast, but now I have finally settled into my new place in New York City! I have an internship here with the amazing website, Untapped Cities, so naturally, check it out! Off you go then.
Tiny Origami Apartment in Manhattan Unfolds into 4 Rooms
It’s true that Manhattan lacks the elegant squares, axial boulevards and civic monuments around which other cities designed their public spaces. But it has evolved a public realm of streets and sidewalks that creates urban theater on the grandest level. No two blocks are ever precisely the same because the grid indulges variety, building to building, street to street.
