Thanks to a new law, parents of New York City students can be a little less worried about undetected polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) leaking fluorescent light fixtures. The City Council and Mayor Bloomberg passed a law Monday that requires schools to notify
Forget the 1969 three-day music festival, Woodstock, New York has a new claim to fame: the world’s first solar-powered menorah. Rabbi AB Itkin of the Chabad community in Ulster County designed and built the menorah using spare parts from a local store. While
MVRDV just ignited a media firestorm as “The Cloud” – their new project for Seoul, Korea featuring two towers linked by a pixellated mass – drew comparison to the exploding form of New York City’s Twin Towers on 9/11. The architecture firm recently addressed cries of outrage by apologizing for the design, stating “It was not our intention to create an image resembling the attacks nor did we see the resemblance during the design process. We sincerely apologize to anyone whose feelings we have hurt, the design was not meant to provoke this”, however Jan Marbles, one of MVRDV’s architects who worked on the project stated “I must admit that we just thought of September 11, 2001″. Many are still shocked and appalled by the design – according to MVRDV, they’ve received “threatening emails and calls of angry people calling us Al Qaeda lovers or worse”. So what do you think – Are the towers offensively similar to the flaming World Trade Center buildings on September 11th, 2001? Tell us what you think after the jump.
This week, New York’s Department of City Planning released Zone Green, a set of proposed amendments to the city’s zoning resolution designed to remove obstacles to erecting green features in the city’s built environment. These amendments, available for public
We distinctly remember jumping out of our seats with excitement when the City of New York’s $220 million plan to overhaul Governors Island and turn it into a green oasis was unveiled. Now with the same excitement, we bring you the news that ground will break
From 1981 to 1995, there were more cumulative deaths from the AIDS epidemic in New York City than total U.S. deaths in the Vietnam War, yet as some have pointed out, there is no significant memorial to those losses in the city of New York — aside from a bench
image courtesy Office of the Governor
Governor Andrew Cuomo has just signed a law that creates a new category of company that seeks to benefit businesses across New York State that prove they have socially responsible practices. The new category, Benefit
For two months, the BMW Guggenheim Lab transformed a former rat-infested lot in the East Village into a vibrant, public space. While the Lab has officially packed up and moved on to Berlin, the lot will not, thankfully, be returned to its rodent-run glory.
New York public schools are being challenged to save as much energy as possible as part of an initiative with the Green Design Lab program. The thirty participating schools will have the chance to win grants totaling $30,000, sponsored by non-profit Solar
The New York City Department of Transportation released news yesterday that they’ve recorded an 8 percent increase in people biking into Manhattan this year, that makes today’s number double the number of bikers in 2007. In part due to the bicycle equality
A group of park activists and city board members are hard at work on bringing the concept of the High Line to Queens. The group recently met with representatives from the city about a proposed plan to turn the defunct Rockaway Beach Branch of the Long Island
photo © Henrique Vicente
To many New Yorkers, the horse drawn carriages of Central Park are the quintessential tourist trap. But what they also represent is simple animal cruelty. Over the last six weeks, three exhausted carriage horses have collapsed
New York City has been named a recipient of the World Green Building Council’s Government Leadership Awards for Excellence in City Policy for Green Buildings. The honor was announced on Monday during the United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP17,
Construction is set to begin in January on the latest section of Brooklyn Bridge Park that will be both family and eco-friendly! A 400-foot long pedestrian bridge, three new playing fields, and an additional picnic area will be ready in time for the summer
Early reports from the New York Department of Transportation seem to show that toll hikes in the month of September on NYC bridges and tunnels connecting the city to New Jersey may have pushed more commuters to use public transportation. The reports note that
Fracking opponents made their voices heard loud and clear yesterday at a hearing about New York State’s proposed rules for hydraulic fracturing. Hosted at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, the hearing was held in order to solicit public comment about
Sidewalk construction sheds, no matter how necessary, are complete eyesores that weave across nearly 200 miles of New York City streets. But the steel and plywood monstrosities will soon be replaced with a safer, more aesthetically-pleasing structure. In early
Garfield, New Jersey’s groundwater could be putting its residents at risk–the chemical toxic hexavalent chromium is seeping into the area’s groundwater, due to a massive leak that occurred almost 30 years ago. Hexavalent chromium might ring a bell, as it
It seems like Interboro Partners’ Holding Pattern installation at MoMA PS1 just came down yesterday, but the museum is already looking for next year’s talented design team. PS1 has just announced the finalists for the 2012 Young Architects Program, which
As the effects of climate change become more and more a part of our daily lives, the forecast for the future of New York predicts some major changes. A new report by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority shows that New York City has
It’s soon going to be easier for New York City buildings to go green. On December 12, a new set of 20 green zoning rules will be unveiled by the Bloomberg administration. The new set of rules is be aimed at removing hurdles that building owners face in implementing
The cute East Village one stop shop, Sustainable NYC, has just won the Green America People’s Choice Award for Best Green Business. The general store meets boutique meets café has been providing sustainable goods and great fair trade coffee to East Villagers
Thanksgiving is fast approaching and that means only one thing, the annual holiday green-off is about to occur — the questions abound, from is tofurkey better than a locally grown grass-fed real bird, to what’s the greenest way to wrap my unnecessarily large
photo Jason Gibbs/Cornell University
The bees of the world may be in danger of disappearing, but New York City now has its very own. Officially named “Lasioglossum gotham,” a new bee species has been discovered in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden! The
