Highlighting MAS’ upcoming July and August program and tours on New York City’s livability and sustainability, the July-August issue of the MAS newsletter is hitting mailboxes across the city right now. To read or download the July-August newsletter, click here. MAS thanks the Liman Foundation for its ongoing support of our newsletter.

MAS members receive the newsletter six times annually as a benefit of membership. To join MAS, visit MAS.org/membership.

Highlighting MAS’ upcoming June program and tour series on Manhattan’s Garment District and announcing our new initiative, Preservation and Climate Change, the May-June issue of the MAS newsletter is hitting mailboxes across the city right now.

To read or download the May-June newsletter, click here. MAS thanks the Liman Foundation for its ongoing support of our newsletter.

MAS members receive the newsletter six times annually as a benefit of membership. To join MAS, visit MAS.org/membership.

After more than 25 years in the Villard Houses on Madison Avenue, the Municipal Art Society is moving its headquarters to the Steinway Hall Building at 111 West 57th Street, as of February 2010. MAS President Vin Cipolla remarked earlier this week,
“Having a new home in such a storied building coincides perfectly with our plans to reaffirm our mission of advocacy for all New Yorkers. I am excited to call 111 West 57th Street MAS’ new home, and look forward to many productive years there.”

MAS signed a lease for the entire 16th floor at 111 West 57th Street, located between Avenue of the Americas and Seventh Avenue. The 17-story office building is owned by Steinway & Sons. Built in 1925, 111 West 57th Street was designed by legendary architects Warren and Wetmore. For more information about the building, read the press release here.

Plans are underway for the continuation of our exhibition programming and our bookstore operations.

Please stop by the Villard Houses to view our current exhibit, Re-Imagining cities: Urban Design After the Age of Oil, co-sponsored by PennDesign. The exhibition, which is free and open to the public, is on display at MAS through Friday, December 4. Click here for more information about MAS exhibits, including gallery hours.

At yesterday’s annual meeting, MAS launched its new Annual Report Advocate, Effect Change, Support, Convene, Enlighten, Celebrate, which is now available for download in PDF format.

Most computers support PDF, but if you have problems viewing the report, you might need to download Adobe Acrobat. It is available free here.

To download previous year’s annual reports going back to 2002, visit www.mas.org/annualreport.

Last night, the Municipal Art Society’s new exhibit ImagineConey: Bold Ideas for Coney Island opened with a party at our Urban Center Galleries, featuring Miss Cyclone as the evening’s MC, with sword-swallower The Great Fredini and Steve the Strongman providing sideshow entertainment that was both fascinating and gruesome at the same time.

Check out the slideshow above for photos of the opening, and visit our Facebook page to watch two short videos of the Great Fredini performing. We also took the opportunity to “live-tweet” this captivating event on Twitter, so please check out our tweets after the jump to learn about some of the more intriguing points of the evening. Continue Reading>>

Tomorrow night, “Fredini” the Sword Swallower, Miss Cyclone, and other Coney Island stars will be making guest appearances at MAS to celebrate the opening of the new MAS exhibit ImagineConey: Bold Ideas for Coney Island’s Future, and you are invited to join them.

More than 350 ideas about how to reinvent Coney Island were submitted from around the world to the MAS initiative ImagineConey over the past four months. And, these ideas, together with results of two public workshops and a charrette – an intense design workshop – are on display at the MAS Urban Center Galleries from Wednesday February 4 through Wednesday, March 11. Join us at the exhibit opening on Tuesday, February 3, 6.30 – 8:00 p.m. Entry is free, but reservations are required as space is at a premium. RSVP online or call 212-935-2075.

If you can’t make it tomorrow night, don’t worry, you can still follow everything that’s going on here and interact with us through Twitter, as we will be “live-tweeting” the event. If you don’t already follow MAS on Twitter, click here to start now.

Learn more about the ImagineConey initiative here.

You may have noticed something new about the MAS website. It has a new look and is now updated with new content, including photos, videos, podcasts, and polls, every day. Visit us at MAS.org and read the most up-to-date news on our advocacy initiatives, make a reservation for a walking tour or public program, and join MAS.

But you don’t have to visit our website to keep up-to-date with MAS — MAS news can come to you any way you want:

Subscribe to receive our RSS feed and get instant alerts whenever our website is updated. Follow us on Twitter, or become a fan of MAS on Facebook, and join New Yorkers and advocates all over the world who share our mission to fight for intelligent urban planning, design and preservation in New York City. Continue Reading>>

The hundreds of ideas for the future of Coney Island that have been submitted so far to ImagineConey are some of the most creative, thoughtful ideas ever submitted in a process of this kind — from a proposal to build a Sushi Skate Park to rebuilding the Elephant Hotel.  You can view them by clicking on the Gallery button on the ImagineConey website. If you haven’t yet had an opportunity to submit an idea, the deadline for submissions is now January 15, and an exhibit featuring all the ideas and the charrette results will open at the MAS on January 27 2009.

Now, it is critical that we demonstrate to the decision-makers that New Yorkers passionately believe that Coney Island should become a great amusement and entertainment destination once again.  So please join us on January 14 at 6.30PM, where the MAS will be participating in a public meeting in Coney Island at Our Lady of Solace Church. Continue Reading>>

Last Monday, the MAS launched ImagineConey, a new initiative to develop new ideas for Coney Island’s future to restore the area to its place as a great entertainment and amusement destination once again - the “world’s playground’. On that day, we brought together a world-class team of designers, engineers, producers and economists at Brooklyn Borough Hall to listen to presentations from key Coney Island stakeholders. (click here to see photographs from the day and here to watch a broadcast about it on NY1).

The team will return for a two-day “charrette” – an intense design workshop – on November 13 and November 14 and present their initial ideas to the public on November 17.

But first, it’s time for New Yorkers and Coney Island fans everywhere to weigh in. We need your ideas for Coney Island’s future: for events and activities, for new amusement rides, for the design of new structures and even for interim activities that could happen in the summer of 2009. Continue Reading>>

A new partnership between the Municipal Art Society’s Planning Center and New York City gives users of the city government’s website direct access to the interactive maps and data featured on the Planning Center’s CITI website. The current CITI website provides access to detailed property information including zoning, ownership, land use and lot dimensions. Over time, city officials will add new data and functions to the widely used map portal. Continue Reading>>