Just a few days ago, I left Manhattan for Astoria via the recently renovated Queens-Midtown Tunnel—not something I have ever done, but a route that I would think thousands of other people travel on a daily basis. Something tells me, though, that this routine experienced a staggering drop approximately one year and four months ago.
In this era of progressive retail collapse, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to conceive of any viable long-term solution for the numerous, variegated, embattled storefronts across this nation of largely unregulated markets. It’s already bad throughout the suburbs, where strip malls, big boxes, and even formerly mighty regional malls are under such strain from their burgeoning
A thriving neighborhood in the nation’s (and one of the world’s) most densely populated cities should yield great promise. This is New York City we’re talking about, and, in any given hour, at just about every intersection, hundreds—even thousands—of people walk or drive by. And the high concentration of rooftops, housing units, office leases, and
I’ve been wising up over the last few years to an escalating resurgence of the Victorian aesthetic throughout the Western world. Whether it asserts itself most powerfully in facial hair, comfort food, or a neo-Puritanism among our great social-media arbiters of taste, the Victorian revival seems most entrenched in the hippest, most urbane quarters. Take
Amidst all the talk of mall death—at least some of it from yours truly—it’s becoming easier to spot the retail sector’s outright desperation. When was the last time you visited a chain retailer and were not asked about becoming a member of the rewards program? And how long did it take you to find a
Religious conservatives have bemoaned the perceived encroachment of secularism in this country for decades, manifested most powerfully through surveys over the last few years that reveal an unequivocal rise in religious “Nones”. Credible those these results may be, polls do not always align with on-the-ground manifestations of those surveyed sentiments, as the data collected before
It’s hard for me to believe that I can offer anything about the New York High Line that someone else with a better knowledge base, commitment to the city, or insider’s connections hasn’t already said. It may still rank as the country’s premier greening of formerly neglected space in the past decade—a worthy successor to
When a settlement grows suddenly and rapidly, it’s common for the new development to completely overwhelm everything that preceded it: not just for the older settlement to get engulfed in the new, but for it to disappear completely. It’s happening all over the fast-growing areas of the American southwest, particularly states like Texas, where formerly rural
I recently featured a photomontage of teardowns and realized that, as powerfully as the images can speak, I’ve hardly plumbed the depths of this rich subject. Many other visuals await. In the weeks ahead, I’ll reveal my first blog post from a U.S. state I have not yet featured (and haven’t visited for almost twenty years),
Forgive the awful triplicate pun, if you can, and step back in time for just a moment. If we were to take some fashionable New Yorkers from 1986, shove them into a DeLorean, then shuttle them to the present, can anyone imagine the shock on their faces if this were the first thing they saw
Just a few days ago, I left Manhattan for Astoria via the recently renovated Queens-Midtown Tunnel—not something I have ever done, but a route that I would think thousands of other people travel
In this era of progressive retail collapse, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to conceive of any viable long-term solution for the numerous, variegated, embattled storefronts across this nation of largely unregulated markets. It’s already
A thriving neighborhood in the nation’s (and one of the world’s) most densely populated cities should yield great promise. This is New York City we’re talking about, and, in any given hour, at
I’ve been wising up over the last few years to an escalating resurgence of the Victorian aesthetic throughout the Western world. Whether it asserts itself most powerfully in facial hair, comfort food, or
Amidst all the talk of mall death—at least some of it from yours truly—it’s becoming easier to spot the retail sector’s outright desperation. When was the last time you visited a chain retailer
Religious conservatives have bemoaned the perceived encroachment of secularism in this country for decades, manifested most powerfully through surveys over the last few years that reveal an unequivocal rise in religious “Nones”. Credible
It’s hard for me to believe that I can offer anything about the New York High Line that someone else with a better knowledge base, commitment to the city, or insider’s connections hasn’t
When a settlement grows suddenly and rapidly, it’s common for the new development to completely overwhelm everything that preceded it: not just for the older settlement to get engulfed in the new, but for
I recently featured a photomontage of teardowns and realized that, as powerfully as the images can speak, I’ve hardly plumbed the depths of this rich subject. Many other visuals await. In the weeks ahead,
Forgive the awful triplicate pun, if you can, and step back in time for just a moment. If we were to take some fashionable New Yorkers from 1986, shove them into a DeLorean,
