Pioneering architect, planner and theorist Denise Scott Brown brings her singular perspective to MAS on November 12 for what is sure to be a lively evening. Ms. Brown, who was educated in the 1940s and 1950s at Witwatersrand University in South Africa, the Architectural Association, and the University of Pennsylvania, has taught and led her Philadelphia firm, Venturi Scott Brown and Associates since the 1960s in collaboration with Robert Venturi.

“I have come to feel like a grandmother in architecture, a guardian of its institutional memory who knows its pitfalls and where the bodies are buried.”
– Denise Scott Brown

Following a short talk about her new book, Having Words, Denise Scott Brown will be joined by architects Sarah Whiting and Hilary Sample for a panel discussion moderated by Paola Antonelli, senior curator of architecture and design at MoMA.

Denise Scott Brown: 40 Years of Evolving Architectural Imagination
Thursday, November 12, 6:30 – 8:00 p.m., at MAS, 457 Madison Avenue
Free, but reservations required. Reserve your place online or call 212-935-2075. MAP.
This program is underwritten by Elise Jaffe + Jeffrey Brown.

This was a question tour leader Matt Postal asked about half-way through last Saturday’s Sustainable Design in Midtown walking tour. We were standing at the S.E. corner of 42nd St. and Sixth Ave., looking at skyscrapers in three directions, but the green roof was behind us — Bryant Park. In the early 1990s, 86 miles of underground book stacks were constructed behind the New York Public Library and underneath the park which was itself being redesigned and reconstructed.

The rest of the stops on the tour were more expected. We began at The New York Times Building, which has a number of sustainable features, but didn’t try for LEED certification. (LEED is a green building certification process, which is time-consuming and can be costly.) The owners of The Times contend that they didn’t want to pay $100,000 for the honor. For other buildings, LEED status can be advantageous as proof of their commitment to sustainability. Continue Reading>>

Lynden Miller was a painter with a passion for plants when Betsy Rogers, as administrator of Central Park and head of the Central Park Conservatory, handed her an assignment: restore the Conservatory Garden at 105th St. and Fifth Ave. That was 1982, when that end of the park was often considered dangerous. In addition to restoring the garden, Lynden was also charged with raising the money to do it and finding a way to bring people back to it. The Conservatory Garden was the beginning of her career as a public garden designer. Gardens all over town followed, including those at Bryant, Wagner, and Madison Square parks.

Now Lynden Miller has written a book, Parks, Plants and People, which tells others how public gardens can be created, including a resource directory on everything from the art of garden design to park advocacy and funding sources, plus a plant list of those she has found to be hardy, reliable and relatively low-maintenance. She dedicates the book to William H. Whyte, from whom she learned the elements of a successful public space. In addition to practical advice, Lynden Miller provides telling anecdotes. When a taxi driver dropping her at the Conservatory Garden in the early 1980s expressed concern for her safety, she invited him to accompany her into the partially restored garden, where the crab apples were in bloom. One down.

This Wednesday night at 6:30 p.m., join us at the Municipal Art Society for an engaging and inspirational talk with Ms. Miller, buy an autographed book at a 25% discount, and talk with fellow urban garden lovers over a glass of something refreshing. $15, $10 MAS members. Reservations recommended. Purchase tickets online or call 212-935-3960. MAP.

Last Tuesday, our weekly Downtown walking tours kicked-off with an examination of the elegant Pentagram-designed model of Lower Manhattan (see below), then moved to the streets, where New York’s history is written in stone and metal. The dozen tour takers, including three college students studying preservation, two visitors from Vancouver, B.C. (previously unacquainted), and a recent retiree whose wife keeps their weekends too fully booked for walking tours, were joined by a visitor from out of town when she overheard tour leader Joe Svehlak’s commentary as he led participants into the Wall Street subway station to view the terra cotta artwork. She (the out of town visitor) had come Downtown to rehearse change-bell ringing at historic Trinity Church.

At the corner of Wall and Broad streets, Joe pointed out the site of Washington’s first inauguration and its commemoration in the statue and plaque at Federal Hall, then turned the group’s attention to the handsome building just across the street. In 1920, a terrorist’s bomb went off outside the-then House of Morgan. The scars of the deadly shrapnel remain in the stone façade, a silent memorial to the 30 killed and 200 injured that September day. Unlikely juxtapositions are common Downtown, where remnants of our Dutch, English, and Revolutionary past rub up against the visual history of the last turbulent century. Continue Reading>>

Need a lunchtime break? Entertaining out of town visitors? Starting Tuesday, September 1, join us for a walking tour of Downtown on Tuesdays at 12:30 p.m. Each hour and a half tour will be led by a knowledgeable MAS guide, either Tony Robins, Marty Shore, or Joe Svehlak.

Architectural historian Tony Robins is especially known to MAS tour takers for his Deco and Broadway theater tours, but also wrote the text for the Downtown Heritage Trail and authored a book on the World Trade Center. Urban historian Marty Shore leads popular MAS tours of Jewish Harlem and is a regular at Grand Central Terminal. He’s been leading Downtown tours for the last nine years. As a teenager, urban historian Joe Svehlak’s first job was as a messenger for a Downtown printing firm. His passion for preservation began as he saw great Downtown buildings lost to the wrecking ball. Joe’s recent “When New York was Nieuw Amsterdam” walking tour was a smash (and even made Dutch television).

Each tour leader will offer his individual perspective, but all will provide an overview of Downtown’s rich and varied history.

New Weekly MAS Walking Tour
Downtown: Where New York Began
Tuesdays at 12:30 p.m.
Tours begin at the Downtown Information Center, 55 Exchange Place, Suite 401 (adults, please bring your photo id) MAP. No reservations are necessary. Like our Wednesday Grand Central Terminal tours, there is a suggested donation of $10 per person.

About eight years ago, architectural historian Matt Postal read about two fellows who wanted to transform a derelict railroad structure into a park. Matt soon got the go-ahead for a walking tour, “In the Shadow of the High Line,” from then-tours director Jill Anson.

Neither Jill nor Matt knew if anyone would be interested. Sixty people showed up the first time MAS offered the tour — and the second time it was offered, and the third. Matt continued to lead the walk every year, as the park became a reality. For years, tour takers wended their way along the base of the High Line, through a then-raffish neighborhood of warehouses and meat markets. Last Saturday, on a perfect summer’s day, Matt led MAS members up the stairs and into the light. They had a shared, audible response. Wow. Continue Reading>>

Join award-winning designer Tom Balsley, FASLA, and Michael Koontz, ASLA, of Thomas Balsley Associates, for a walking tour of Riverside Park South this Sunday. This park, notable for both its design and financing, celebrates the specific natural and industrial past of the site.

It is a new sort of park landscape for New York, one of tall grasses, leafy trees, abstract forms and references to the site’s past as a mammoth rail yard. All of the park’s construction and maintenance is privately funded.

Riverside Park South Walking Tour

Sunday, May 31, 11:00 a.m.
Meet at stairs at 73rd Street and Riverside Drive. Before 3:00 p.m. today (Friday 5/29/09), please purchase tickets online or call 212-935-2075, or walk up on Sunday morning. $15, $10 MAS members. MAP.

Join architectural historian Francis Morrone on Mother’s Day for a stroll through historic DUMBO, including parts of three Historic Districts: Fulton Ferry, DUMBO, and Vinegar Hill. Atmospheric streets of beautiful old factory and warehouse buildings combine with stunning riverfront vistas to make this a uniquely appealing area. DUMBO is also home to interesting stores and restaurants that you may wish to explore after the tour.

For more information about DUMBO, its buildings and their industrial heritage, visit www.saveindustrialbrooklyn.org, a website created by MAS to draw attention to the threatened buildings lining the Brooklyn waterfront.

Mother’s Day in DUMBO Walking Tour
Sunday, May 10, 11:00 a.m.
Meet at York and Jay streets, upstairs from subway. The tour will end near the Fulton St. Pier. (Transit: F train to York St.) $15, $10 MAS members. Reservations required.
Purchase tickets online or call 212-935-2075 to reserve.

MAS arranged two tours related to the theme of its April 28 panel discussion, Manufacturing a Greener New York. The first of these took place this past weekend. The second, Look for the Union Label takes place on Friday, May 22, 2:00 p.m.

President of the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation (BNYDC), Andrew Kimball, led a MAS bus and walking tour of the extraordinary industrial park that is the Brooklyn Navy Yard last Friday afternoon, briefing tour-takers about the site that contains 40 buildings, 4 million square feet of leasable space and 5,000 employees. On our first stop, we saw the Perry Avenue Building, the nation’s first multi-tenant, multi-story green building — in fact a LEED Gold Building. (All future buildings at BNY will at least meet LEED Silver standards). To our right was the red brick 1889 Paymaster’s Building where burial shrouds for Hasidic Jews were made (niche market, indeed). Striking juxtapositions were everywhere. Continue Reading>>

Click here to read Lauren Collins’ article in this week’s New Yorker magazine on Howard Brandston’s recent “Night and Light and the City” MAS walking tour.

Noticing the difference between the yellow light of high pressure sodium and the white light of metal halide is akin to learning a new word. Once you know it, you see it everywhere. One woman on the walking tour suddenly noticed on her umpteenth bike ride across the Brooklyn Bridge that it is partly lighted by metal halide and partly by high pressure sodium — and that she much prefers the true colors conveyed by metal halide lights.

What about you? Do you have a favorite nighttime walk or bike ride? A park or street or esplanade that has special beauty after the sun goes down? Or, are there parts of city that you dislike because of the lighting? Let us know and it will help us plan our next nighttime walking tour, come fall.