Earlier this week, at the MAS panel discussion Solutions for Preserving New York’s Neighborhood Businesses, experts and New Yorkers pondered this and many other complex questions that relate to the increasing threat chain stores and banks are presenting to the survival of local business in the city. Click on the ‘play’ icon above to watch a short video summary of the program and (below) tell us what you think are the causes and solutions to this problem. Continue Reading>>

Over a century ago, when MAS was founded, its goal was to beautify New York City with works of art, but while our concerns have broadened to include pressing issues of urban planning, design and preservation, we returned to our founding premise with the launch of the Adopt-A-Monument program in 1986 to preserve the public art which means so much to New York. Twenty statues from five boroughs were selected for the pilot program; thirty-eight have been restored. Of the original twenty only one has not been conserved - the heroic bronze Rocket Thrower.

Theme piece for the 1964 World’s Fair, Donald De Lue’s Promethean figure still stands on its original site in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park long after the fair buildings have vanished. Celebrating the space age, this forty-five-foot high semi-nude male hurls a long arc-shaped object through a circle of stars into outer space. It remains symbolic of our country’s aspirations and confidence during the era of our first explorations beyond the stratosphere. Continue Reading>>

On Saturday, October 18, join the winner of this year’s Jane Jacobs Medal for New Ideas and Activism, Alexie Torres-Fleming, on a walking tour highlighting several community-driven projects undertaken by her organization that have improved the health of the Bronx River watershed. Highlights include the restoration of Concrete Plant Park — a once-contaminated property that was converted to parkland designed by local residents, and several storm water best management practices, including rain gardens, green roofs, and rain barrels.

From Burning to Blooming: Community Driven Projects in the Bronx
Saturday, October 18, 10:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Space is limited. $15, $12 MAS members/students. Purchase tickets online or call 212-935-2075. Leader: Alexie Torres-Fleming, founding director of Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice. Meet outside the office of Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice, 1384 Stratford Avenue, Bronx, NY 10472, MAP.

For details of upcoming MAS programs, visit www.mas.org/tours and for a downloadable version of our fall program calendar in PDF form, click here.

On Tuesday night (October 7), a standing-room-only crowd gathered at MAS to celebrate John Lobell’s book, Between Silence and Light: Spirit in the Architecture of Louis I. Kahn, which has been re-issued after 29 years. Lobell is an architecture professor at Pratt Institute, and the evening was an occasion for a gathering of alumni, students and faculty. Visit the MAS bookstore, www.urbancenterbooks.org to buy a copy of Lobell’s book.

Lobell’s idea, as expressed in his re-issued book, “… that there are realms that transcend our material lives and we can have access to these realms through architecture” is not currently fashionable, but reflects Louis Kahn’s belief in “…architecture as the meeting of the measurable and immeasurable.” Lobell’s illustrated lecture made a compelling case.

On Friday, November 14, join MAS for an all-day trip to New Haven for a guided tour of Kahn’s Yale Center for British Art (one of Kahn’s best buildings) and a very different building by another modern master, Paul Rudolph. The restoration and renovation of the Yale School of Architecture Building (now renamed for Rudolph) has just been completed by Charles Gwathmey and Associates. Continue Reading>>

The MAS and MWA film City of Water screens this Saturday, October 11, at 4:00 p.m., as part of the Red Hook Film Festival. For more information on the screening and the film festival, click here.

Two years in the making, City of Water explores the aspirations of public officials, environmentalists, academics, community activists, recreational boaters and everyday New Yorkers for a diverse, vibrant waterfront at a time when the shoreline is changing faster than at any other time in New York’s history. The documentary features interviews with Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff, US Representative Nydia Velazquez, MacArthur Fellow Majora Carter, author Phillip Lopate, Sandy Hook Pilots’ Captain Andrew McGovern and others, and includes footage from Jamaica Bay, the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and many other places on the waterfront. To learn more about the film and watch a short trailer, visit www.mas.org/cityofwater.

Knowledge is power, but local knowledge paired with the latest web-based mapping technology is empowerment. The Bridge Builders Community Partnership Initiative (BBCPI) and the MAS Planning Center partnered this summer to create a spatial inventory of neighborhood resources in South-West Bronx, with direct participation of the people who would ultimately use the maps.

BBCPI’s initiative set out to demonstrate that family well-being and child welfare will improve through collaborative networking among neighbors, parents, and neighborhood-based service providers. That collaboration, in turn, effectively connects people to the social services they need. Up-to-date maps showing detailed information on where to access and how to reach community resources, ranging from educational institutions, community-based organizations, and religious centers, to food resources and outdoor amenities for outdoor and athletic recreation, among other amenities, are now available to those who depend on these resources. Continue Reading>>

Margot Gayle, who died at her home on the Upper East Side on September 28 at the age of 100, was an active member of MAS for 61 years. She never understood inactive. As newsletter editor, trustee, chair of dozens of committees (several, now venerable organizations) and finally recipient of the Society’s Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis medal, Margot earned the right to relax. But the energy and spirit that saved threatened treasures from the Alice Austen House in Staten Island, to the Old Sun Clock in Lower Manhattan, to the Bogardus Fire Tower in Harlem kept her advocacy going right to the end.

Before we had mayors who cared, she practically swept up City Hall, saved the Art Commission from extinction, and helped the Landmarks Preservation Commission become independent. Perhaps Margot’s most notable achievement is the 1973 creation of the SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District - earning her the moniker “Queen of Cast-Iron Architecture”. According to former MAS President Brendan Sexton, ‘’Margot Gayle is the only reason we have a SoHo. The only person who comes close or who shares with Margot that honor is Jane Jacobs… Margot turned her eye on the cast-iron district and it appeared like magic.’’ In fact, it is hard to imagine what New York might have become without her. Continue Reading>>

As the City Council considers changing term limits from two to three today, so the urban planning, architecture, and design community is pondering what a third Bloomberg term would mean for New York City’s built environment. Though MAS has not endorsed Mayor Bloomberg’s potential bid, MAS President Kent Barwick said in an interview with Architect’s Newspaper, published today, that one had to respect the “vision and leadership” the Bloomberg administration has demonstrated toward initiating urban planning efforts.

Streetsblog revisited an MAS exhibit from the last economic downturn in New York City titled “Steel, Stone and Backbone” to remind readers that New York City has built its most significant infrastructure and beloved cultural institutions in times of meager finances.  Given Bloomberg’s reliance on heavy private investment to see current development projects through, the New York Observer takes a less optimistic perspective.

In other news, the cost of acquiring all of the land in Willets Point is murky and Councilmembers are questioning the City’s budget. Continue Reading>>

At the Annual Benefit on November 11, with great pride and shared gratitude, MAS will present its highest honor to our President Kent Barwick who, after almost 40 years of service, steps down as president of MAS at year end.

Kent Barwick has been the soul of the Municipal Art Society for almost four decades, leading the charge to save Grand Central, Radio City Music Hall, Lever House, St. Bartholomew’s Church, to name just a few of his accomplishments. In some of his boldest strokes, Kent stopped the plan for a massive tower that would have cast shadows across Central Park, and prevented a potentially disastrous rezoning of Times Square that would have extinguished its celebrated bright lights. He is an outspoken and passionate advocate for a magnificent new Moynihan Station, for a revitalized waterfront and, most importantly, for engaging citizens in the shaping of their city. Continue Reading>>

The St. Vincent’s hardship case currently before the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) is one of the most complicated projects that the agency has considered in decades. The LPC must determine whether the maintenance of the 1961 O’Toole building in Greenwich Village “physically or financially prevents or seriously interferes with” the hospital’s ability to carry out its charitable purpose. Throughout the process, MAS has urged the LPC to seek the advice of experts in hospital design and operations who can examine the St. Vincent’s materials and offer independent opinions on the application.

At a public meeting today, the LPC invited several government officials to speak about the St. Vincent’s case and answer the Commissioners’ questions. There was no definitive answer as to whether or not the site of the O’Toole building is the only viable location for St. Vincent’s new hospital facility, but the officials did help the LPC and the public acquire a better sense of the issue. The LPC is expected to determine whether or not there is a hardship later this fall. Continue Reading>>