Battery Park City in Manhattan has been hailed as a triumph of urban design, and is considered to be one of the success stories of American urban redevelopment planning. The flood of praise for its design, however, can obscure the many lessons from the long struggle to develop the project. Nothing was built on the site for more than a decade after the first master plan was approved, and the redevelopment agency flirted with bankruptcy in 1979. Taking a practice-oriented approach, the book examines the role of planning and development agencies in implementing urban waterfront redevelopment. It focuses upon the experience of the central actor - the Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) - and includes personal interviews with executives of the BPCA, former New York mayors John Lindsay and Ed Koch, key public officials, planners, and developers. Describing the political, financial, planning, and implementation issues faced by public agencies and private developers from 1962 to 1993, it is both a case study and history of one of the most ambitious examples of urban waterfront redevelopment.
Battery Park City is a special place, and superlatives have come easily to those who have written about it. It is one of the most significant "new towns" ever built in America, constructed by private developers on landfill, with an infrastructure financed by the sale of bonds by a state-created public benefit corporation. Its successful mix of attractive office and residential buildings has been the major contributor to the revitalization of New York City's downtown. It's also paid off literally. The Battery Park City Authority, the public benefit corporation that was the driving force behind the entire development is in the black and, indeed, generates more than $100 million a year in profit without the City or State having a cent invested in the venture. The development is even rich culturally. It's bookended on its south end by The Museum of Jewish Heritage, which has the most important collection memorializing the Holocaust outside of Washington D. C.'s Holocaust Museum, and on the north by the new home of Stuyvesant High School, which most years sends more graduates to Harvard than any other high school in America. Amidst parks, sculpture and apartments providing homes for almost 10,000 people, most of whom walk to work, stands the New York Mercantile Exchange and the imposing World Financial Center. Within the shouting distance of young children on scooters and adolescents on skateboards are long town cars, waiting to whisk executives to their next appointment. But if anything truly merits superlatives, it's the public amenities that grace this "city" extending out into the water from lower Manhattan. On a summer Sunday, its long and graceful esplanade hosts thousands of bikers, hikers and people out for a stroll along the Hudson River. The area is thronged at lunchtime. And after work on any pleasant afternoon, Battery Park City's yacht cove is ringed with workers unwinding after a busy day and its harbor side restaurants are crowded with diners enjoying the spectacular view. The city's financial powerhouses charter yachts with names such as "Royal Princess" and "Excalibur," anchored in the cove, for business-promoting cocktail and dinner parties. But you don't have to be rich and powerful to enjoy what the development has to offer. The indoor concerts under the high-arching crystal vault filled with palm trees and bright flowers, part of the World Financial Center just behind the cove, are free and open to the public. Signs on the esplanade caution bikers and skaters to "Yield to Pedestrians." But one of the marvels of Battery Park City is that the whole development actually does that. Here in the heart of Manhattan, on the island that the automobile long ago conquered, the public spaces have been planned for people on foot. The spaces are broad and open, the streets just wide enough to provide necessary vehicular access. Already, although building continues on its several empty lots, Battery Park City has become one of New York City's landmarks, attracting foreign visitors as well as tourists from around America as one of Gotham's must-see sights. As with any landmark, it now seems to own the space it occupies. Despite the evident newness of everything in the development, its component parts are beginning to take on an air of inevitability. But the truth is that there was nothing inevitable about the development of Battery Park City. Every element of it was a battleground over which politicians and planners fought. In fact, this marvelous and extremely valuable asset to America's greatest city might just as easily have remained under water. That's the point of this book. There's something deceptively inevitable about land, steel and concrete. With the passage of time it becomes harder and harder to imagine that the land wasn't there, that the
What did New York look like four centuries ago? An extraordinary reconstruction of a wild island from the forests of Times Square to the wetlands downtown. Named a Best Book of the Year by Library Journal, New York Magazine, and San Francisco Chronicle On September 12, 1609, Henry Hudson first set foot on the land that would become Manhattan. Today, it’s difficult to imagine what he saw, but for more than a decade, landscape ecologist Eric Sanderson has been working to do just that. Mannahatta: A Natural History of New York City is the astounding result of those efforts, reconstructing in words and images the wild island that millions now call home. By geographically matching an eighteenth-century map with one of the modern city, examining volumes of historic documents, and collecting and analyzing scientific data, Sanderson re-creates topography, flora, and fauna from a time when actual wolves prowled far beyond Wall Street and the degree of biological diversity rivaled that of our most famous national parks. His lively text guides you through this abundant landscape—while breathtaking illustrations transport you back in time. Mannahatta is a groundbreaking work that provides not only a window into the past, but also inspiration for the future. “[A] wise and beautiful book, sure to enthrall anyone interested in NYC history.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “A cartographical detective tale . . . The fact-intense charts, maps and tables offered in abundance here are fascinating.” —The New York Times “[An] exuberantly written and beautifully illustrated exploration of pre-European Gotham.” —San Francisco Chronicle “You don’t have to be a New Yorker to be enthralled.” —Library Journal
The New York Times Book Review called Neal Stephenson's most recent novel "electrifying" and "hilarious". but if you want to know Stephenson was doing twenty years before he wrote the epic Cryptonomicon, it's back-to-school time. Back to The Big U, that is, a hilarious send-up of American college life starring after years our of print, The Big U is required reading for anyone interested in the early work of this singular writer.
Battery Park City in Manhattan has been hailed as a triumph of urban design, and is considered to be one of the success stories of American urban redevelopment planning. The flood of praise for its design, however, can obscure the many lessons from the long struggle to develop the project. Nothing was built on the site for more than a decade after the first master plan was approved, and the redevelopment agency flirted with bankruptcy in 1979. Taking a practice-oriented approach, the book examines the role of planning and development agencies in implementing urban waterfront redevelopment. It focuses upon the experience of the central actor - the Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) - and includes personal interviews with executives of the BPCA, former New York mayors John Lindsay and Ed Koch, key public officials, planners, and developers. Describing the political, financial, planning, and implementation issues faced by public agencies and private developers from 1962 to 1993, it is both a case study and history of one of the most ambitious examples of urban waterfront redevelopment.
Jane is a Los Angeles nurse who grew up in a Christian cult that puts celebrities on trial for their sins. Daniel is a has-been actor whose career ended when the cult family members nearly killed him for flirting with her. Eight years after a romantic meet-cute in Battery Park, both search for someone to fill the gap they imagine the other could've filled if given the chance. Jane compulsively goes on dates with every self-professed expert in art, music, and food hoping they will teach her the nuances of the culture she couldn't access in her youth. Daniel looks for a girlfriend who will accept the disabilities left from the cult attack. A loving woman will prove to Daniel's blockbuster star brother, Steve, that he's capable of a supporting role in Steve's upcoming movie and relaunching Daniel's career. When a chance encounter unexpectedly reunites them, Jane and Daniel not only see another chance at the love they lost, but an opportunity to create the lives they've always wanted. The only question is whether their families will let them.
A pictorial history of the development of New York City’s Central Park from conception to completion. Drawing on the unparalleled collection of original designs for Central Park in the New York City Municipal Archives, Cynthia S. Brenwall tells the story of the creation of New York’s great public park, from its conception to its completion. This treasure trove of material ranges from the original winning competition entry; to meticulously detailed maps; to plans and elevations of buildings, some built, some unbuilt; to elegant designs for all kinds of fixtures needed in a world of gaslight and horses; to intricate engineering drawings of infrastructure elements. Much of it has never been published before. A virtual time machine that takes the reader on a journey through the park as it was originally envisioned, The Central Park is both a magnificent art book and a message from the past about what brilliant urban planning can do for a great city.
Few buildings in Manhattan have had a richer and more varied life than 200-year-old Castle Clinton, the magnificent red sandstone structure that lies in historic Battery Park. Although originally built as a fortress just before the outbreak of the War of 1812, its actual fame rests on the years when it was known worldwide as Castle Garden, a name that underlined its intimate connection with the surrounding park. Under that name, it served successively as Manhattan's preeminent public events hall and theater (1824-1855), then as America's first great landing place for millions of immigrants (1855-1890), and finally as the oldest and grandest municipal aquarium in the United States (1896-1941). Castle Garden and Battery Park invites readers to step back in time and dip into this legendary monument's dramatic story and learn how it has managed to survive into the 21st century.
New York Historical Society docent Feirstein has written a historically rich guide to New York City that will entertain both New Yorkers and tourists as they walk through the Big Apple. The histories of the city's major neighborhoods, as well as the history of their names divide the book into sections, the remainder of which contains the names of streets, parks, plazas, corners, alleys, and avenues in that neighborhood and the history of each name. The guide is illustrated with bandw photos of New York's illustrious folk. c. Book News Inc.
