Today, MAS President Vin Cipolla released a statement (below) regarding yesterday’s announcement by Senator Charles E. Schumer, Governor David A. Paterson and Amtrak president Joseph H. Boardman that an agreement has been made on the future development of Moynihan Station.

“After a decade of starts and stops, the future looks brighter for Moynihan Station. The agreement reached by Amtrak, Governor Paterson and Senator Schumer is a critical step towards expanding and improving the nation’s busiest train station.

The plans include moving many of Amtrak’s services into a new train hall that will be built in the James A. Farley Post Office, just across the street from Penn Station. While design details have not been released, the agreement furthers Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s vision for a grand work of civic architecture that stands as an inspiring gateway to New York City. With Amtrak as the primary tenant of the new hall, the station can be designed to support the needs of its intercity rail travelers. According to Amtrak, roughly 25% of the nation’s Amtrak passengers pass through Penn Station at some point on their journey. Continue Reading>>

On Wednesday night, 300 courageous souls boarded the Circle Line for the MAS Annual Boat Tour, braving wind, rain, and ominous darkness. In honor of the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s historic voyage, the boat tour featured the upper Manhattan and Bronx sections of the mighty Hudson River. Architectural historian and MAS tour guide Francis Morrone expounded upon many architectural jewels of this stretch of the Hudson, including the Wave Hill, in the Bronx, the George Washington Bridge, and the magnificent 1904 IRT Powerhouse, which the Landmarks Preservation Commission is currently considering landmarking after much urging from MAS. Continue Reading>>

It is forecast that by 2030, there will be one million additional people living in the City of New York. However, our transit systems – our roads, our subways, our buses – are already at or near capacity. How will all these people get around? Will the city they inhabit have a people-friendly, walkable cityscape, or will they inhabit a warren of automobile corridors?

On June 16th, the MAS Urbanists participated in a walking tour of some of the areas of Manhattan in which the Department of Transportation (DOT) is testing how street capacity can be increased. Led by Ed Janoff, DOT Senior Project Manager for Streetscapes and Public Spaces, urbanists observed how the agency, with a small budget, cooperation from other city departments, and a very limited design vocabulary, is creating new public spaces. While these spaces will have more permanent design elements added over the next three years, part of the beauty of these new spaces derives from the ingenuity with which they were arranged. Continue Reading>>

MAS was delighted to host Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan on Wednesday night for the premiere presentation of the city’s first truly comprehensive set of guidelines for street design, Designing Streets in New York City. David Burney, Commissioner of the Department of Design & Construction, Adrian Benepe, Commissioner of the Department of Parks & Recreation, and Amanda Burden, Chair of the New York City Planning Commission, were also in attendance.

Constituting 26% of the total area of the City, the streets and sidewalks are by far its largest public space, and the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) new manual represents a rethinking of the way city government works with regard to this vital resource. Continue Reading>>

The White House Office of Urban Affairs offers hope of a new direction in federal urban policy, including that for transportation. Public transportation is critical to a sustainable future for our city and the metropolitan region, essential to integrating housing, economic development, and environmental practices and policies.

What is the Obama administration doing that will help or hinder the development of the transportation system we need? How can local stakeholders ensure that the smartest investments receive federal support? An outstanding panel will answer these and other questions next Wednesday as New Yorkers face fare hikes and service cuts.

Investing in Infrastructure: Transportation and New York’s Future
Wednesday, May 6, 6:30 – 8:00 p.m., at the Municipal Art Society MAP
Reception to follow.
Moderator: Kate Slevin, director, Tri-State Transportation Campaign.
Panelists: Susan Bass Levin, deputy executive director, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey; Linda Bailey, federal programs advisor, New York City Department of Transportation; Jeffrey Zupan, senior fellow, transportation, Regional Plan Association; Martin Robins, founding director, Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center, Rutgers University.
$15, $10 MAS members. Purchase tickets online or call 212 935 2075.

In this podcast, architectural historian John Kriskiewicz talks to Tamara Coombs of MAS about his April 2 lecture, The 100th Birthday of Two Great Bridges: The Queensborough & The Manhattan, celebrating the centennial of the Manhattan and Queensboro Bridges, and explains why their construction marks New York’s metamorphosis from an island city to a modern metropolis.

Join MAS as we celebrate the centennial of two of the eras great bridges with a lecture and two walks across the neighborhoods they transformed. $15, $10 MAS members. Purchase tickets online or call 212-935-2075.

The proposed city-wide bike parking text amendment, which mandates bike parking spaces in new residential, office and commercial development, including public parking garages, as well as community facilities, represents a positive and crucial step to making our city more sustainable. The Department of City Planning’s amendment is a welcome initiative as it addresses one of the major impediments to commuting: the lack of safe and secure places to park bikes.

Apparently, 70,000 bike are stolen annually from city streets. So, as part of an overall strategy to increase adequate bike infrastructure in the city, increasing bike parking opportunities in new development projects city-wide is a welcome reform. We hope it will help persuade New Yorkers to ride their bikes not just recreationally, but as they go about their daily activities in the city. Continue Reading>>

A regular new feature, the Community-Based Plan of the Month  highlights plans included in Planning for All New Yorkers: An Atlas of Community-Based Plans in New York City, an interactive map created by the Municipal Art Society and the Community-Based Planning Task Force. As the recent economic slowdown gives us the opportunity to take a step back and reevaluate New York City’s planning processes, community-based plans can provide a framework for growth that works for all New Yorkers. The plan featured here provides an example of how inclusive planning processes work on the ground, and ideally will help inspire future community planning efforts.

Stable-izing Brooklyn
When the Fort Hamilton Parkway interchange of the Prospect Expressway was completed in 1962 under the direction of Robert Moses, a small, eight-block section of Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn was severed from its neighbors.  This quirky area was once home to a number of horse stables due to its proximity to Prospect Park, but now only one remains: Kensington Stables, located at East 8th Street and Caton Avenue.  Since Claremont Riding Academy near Central Park closed last year, Kensington Stables is among New York’s few remaining urban stables. Continue Reading>>

At the first annual Jane Jacobs Forum last night, an expert panel considered how to house a million more New Yorkers over the next twenty years, and how to do this while retaining neighborhood character and diversity. Panelists also suggested ways of making housing affordable in an increasingly land-poor city, and described the kind of changes in city infrastructure they think are necessary to accommodate all these new New Yorkers.

Panelist Jerilyn Perrine, director, Citizens Housing and Planning Council, said (jokingly) that she would like to see Staten Island swapped for portions of New Jersey that are well-connected to regional mass transit, and (seriously) the extension of the 7 train in both Manhattan and, more importantly, in eastern Queens where affordable housing could be built to serve growing immigrant communities.

But, what would you do to make housing affordable? What improvements to the city’s infrastructure do you think the city and federal governments should focus on? Tell us. Continue Reading>>

At tomorrow night’s book program and panel discussion Growing Greener Cities – Urban Sustainability in the 21st Century, Alexander Garvin of Alexander Garvin & Associates, will join book editors Eugenie L. Birch and Susan Wachter, to talk about the urban green movement. The speakers will discuss concrete methods of addressing some of the most challenging issues facing cities today, ranging from public transit and infrastructure improvement, to aquifer protection and urban agriculture.

Editors Eugenie L. Birch and Susan Wachter will be available to sign copies of their new book during the reception that follows the program. Growing Greener Cities – Urban Sustainability in the 21st Century, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008.

Growing Greener Cities – Urban Sustainability in the 21st Century
Tuesday, October 28, 6:30 – 8:00 p.m.
$12 MAS members/students, $15 non-members. Purchase tickets online or call 212-935-2075.