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Post tags: black eyed peas, coca cola, eco fashion, ecocycle, Ekocycle, green NYC, recycling nyc, recycling south bronx, south bronx recycling, sustainable south bronx, will.i.am, will.i.am green

This morning, Mayor Bloomberg announced plans to transform the Bronx’s Kingsbridge Armory into the world’s largest indoor ice facility. The design calls for the historic landmark, which has been vacant since 1996, to be redeveloped into the Kingsbridge National Ice Center (KNIC), a 750,000-square-foot ice facility boasting nine year-round indoor regulation size ice rinks. When complete, the center is expected to attract more than 2 million visitors a year.

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If you’re looking for yet another sign that the end is near, the media has been buzzing (pun-intended) with reports that billions of cicadas will be burrowing out of their underground holes soon and swarming the East Coast of the United States. Okay, so “Cicadapocolypse” – what many entomologists are calling the insects’ mass exodus from the ground – may be a bit sensational considering that the bugs would hardly hurt a fly, but the event likely will be painful to our ears. Some experts predict that the noise the cicadas emit could even be comparable to the sound of a New York City train.

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Post tags: brood II, brood II cicadas, bug infestation, cicada, cicada apocolypse, cicada invasion, cicada swarm, cicadapocolypse, cicadas, east coast cicadas

Image via NYC Department of Environmental Protection

High school students in the Bronx will be learning a thing or two about protecting our water this summer thanks to an $82,000 grant recently awarded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The purpose of the grant is to encourage learning opportunities around water quality and wastewater treatment while laying the foundation for New York City students to prepare for careers in environmental fields.

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Post tags: bronx students, department of environmental protection, environmental jobs, Environmental Protection Agency, environmental training programs, epa, green jobs, judith a enck, new york city schools, youth and environment, youth in the environment initiative

Image via Control Group

Good news subway riders! The MTA is rolling out a series of high-tech, touch screen subway maps to make navigating the train system a bit less intimidating. No more awkwardly hovering over a stranger on the train to check out the subway map behind them or squinting your eyes trying to locate your stop on the graffiti-covered platform map. Control Group and CBS Outdoor will be adding the electronic kiosks to several stations to help keep passengers informed about service delays and outages (just expect a few ads thrown in between actual the actual information).

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Image via City Harvest NY Facebook

Deputy Mayor Linda I. Gibbs and the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City announced a new grant program yesterday that will provide more than $1.7 million in funding for city-wide emergency food networks that served communities in need during Hurricane Sandy. Many food pantries and soup kitchens served the influx of new clients during the aftermath of the hurricane despite struggling to rebuild their own facilities. The much-needed monies will support the post-Sandy distribution of thousands of meals throughout the hardest hit communities, helping to rebuild emergency food locations in Sandy-affected areas.

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Well House rendering via NYC Parks Department

Prospect Park wants to change the way you “go” at the park with a new system that will compost human waste. NYC has plans to build a $1.8 million composting green latrine in the park’s historic Well House building that will look much like a regular bathroom except it will use “eco-friendly foam” and very little water. Luckily, visitors won’t be subject to the smelly side of the new system as waste will be stored in the depths of the composting compartment in the bathroom’s basement, keeping it out of treatment plants and the Gowanus Canal.

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Image via NYC Mayor’s Office Flickr

Yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg announced that New York City’s population is the highest it’s been in over 60 years, with more people moving in than moving out for the first time in decades. According to data derived from the US Census Bureau, 161,000 more people have begun calling the city home in the past two years (an increase of 2 percent). So what does this mean for NYC’s economy, resources and housing situation? Read on to find out.

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Post tags: mayor bloomberg, Michael Bloomberg, MTA, mta subway, ny population, nyc borough population growth, nyc population, nyc population boom, nyc population growth, nyc residential growth, nyc subway, us census bureau

Image via Shutterstock

If you thought the collection of fungi housed in your own fridge was impressive, wait ’til you hear what was found on NYC’s green roofs. Researchers from Barnard College, Columbia University, Fordham and the University of Colorado recently conducted tests on planted roofs in all five boroughs and discovered that they harbor thriving colonies of various types of fungi. While creepy crawlies like these tend to have a bad rep, these newly discovered “fungal communities” could actually be beneficial in their ability to remove pollutants from the air and assist with stormwater runoff.

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Post tags: Adam Essene, Audrey L. Massmann, barnard college, Caitlyn M. Gillikin, central park, columbia university, Dominique Keefe, fordham university, Giulia Orazi, green roof biodiversity, green roofs, green roofs air pollution, green roofs stormwater, high line park, Jennifer A. Koshner, Jonathan W. Leff, Julia Discenza, Krista L. McGuire, Matthew I. Palmer, new york city public parks, Noah Fierer, nyc fungal communities, nyc green roofs, Ramya Rangamannar, Sara G. Payne, Seren M. Gedallovich, Soil Fungal Communities Green Roofs and City Parks, stormwater runoff, Su Jin Kim, the atlantic cities, university of colorado, urban green roofs, urban landscaping

Image via NYC Recycles Facebook

The New York City Department of Sanitation is calling on the city’s youth to conceive, design, and implement innovative cleanup, beautification, or reclamation projects in their boroughs. Citywide schools (both public and private) from grades K-12 can compete for a shot at winning cash prizes by submitting their sustainability initiatives to the 2013 Golden Apple Awards competition from now until May 1st. Now in its 11th year, the contest continues to further its mission to reward both students and schools for their exemplary commitment to environmental education projects.

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Image © NYC Mayor’s Office

Adding some clout to NYC’s highly controversial soda ban, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, along with Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Linda I. Gibbs and Health Commissioner Thomas A. Farley, released new data showing the correlation between sugary drink consumption and obesity today. The study was conducted by the New York City Community Health Survey, which surveyed 9,000 adults over the age of 18 across the city. The findings showed that in each of the five boroughs, neighborhoods that consumed a higher rate of sugary drinks also had higher rates of obesity.

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Read the rest of New Arbor House Apartment Boasts a Massive Rooftop Farm and Affordable Rent in the Bronx testing

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Mark your calendars, design fans! In keeping with its other efforts to promote local goods and services, New York City recently announced the first ever “NYCxDESIGN” (NYC by Design) city-wide event to showcase design from all around the five boroughs. The 12-day celebration of NY-designed products, art, crafts, clothing, graphics and more will take place from May 10th through May 21st, and will continue to be an annual event aimed at spotlighting locally-made goods as a way to grow the NYC economy.

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Image © NYRP

Beginning on March 9th, the New York Restoration Project – a nonprofit organization founded by actress and environmentalist Bette Midler – will kick off their annual spring tree giveaways. Thanks to a sponsorship by Toyota, 4,500 trees will be free for the taking in a series of 30 giveaways throughout all five boroughs. Read on to see how you can score your own free tree!

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As part of the redevelopment of the Bronx River Greenway, SLO Architecture has proposed the transformation of a disused train station into an innovative two-part project for the Bronx River. Called the Bronx River Right-of-Way, the project would give new life to a disused historic structure built in the 1930s by architect Cass Gilbert. The project would divide the train station into two parts – a headhouse that would become an entryway into the park and a waiting room that could be made into a boathouse for kayakers.


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Mayor Bloomberg broke ground today on the ambitious High Bridge revitalization project to restore New York’s oldest standing bridge and the park area around it. Part of the Old Croton Aqueduct, the bridge links Manhattan to the Bronx. With the bridge’s restoration, community members of each borough will be able to travel from one side of the park to the other, and pedestrians and cyclists will be able to access the Highbridge Pool and Play Center in Manhattan with ease.

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We wrote about the New York City Economic Development Corporation’s “New York’s Next Top Makers” competition back in October, and we’re excited to say that the contest is now open to submissions. The call challenges NYC designers and inventors to enter their product designs for a chance to win cash prizes and an opportunity to prototype their products. If you have a great idea but aren’t sure where to begin or how to raise money to produce it, this could be the opportunity you’ve been waiting for.

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Post tags: eco design, eco news, flood gates, green design, green new york, green news, Hurricane Sandy, hurricane sandy news, hurricane sandy nyc subways, hurricane sandy subways, MTA, new york, new york news, nyc mta, nyc subways, subway system, subways, sustainable design, sustainable news

If you’re one of more than 140,000 New Yorkers whose polling sites are closed today because of Hurricane Sandy, you might be wondering where you can vote. Thanks to Governor Cuomo, the answer to that question is anywhere you want. Yesterday, the Governor signed an executive order allowing voters in NY that were displaced by the storm to cast affidavit ballots at polling sites outside of their normal voting districts. Low voter turnout in the Mid-Atlantic region due to Sandy has been an ongoing worry for the past week so we’re hoping that the Governor’s swift action will make it as easy as possible for people to vote today. However, New Yorkers should be aware that only voters who are registered in New York counties that have been declared federal disaster areas are covered by this executive order, so it’s not a free ticket for just anyone to vote from wherever is most convenient for them.

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New York City is still a long way off from full recovery post-Hurricane Sandy, but at least some of our subway lines will be running today. They MTA has restored service on some trains and released this map of limited service last night, so if you’re about to head to work, read on or check out your available options here.


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