New York is chock full of inspirational elements and objects, and artist Robert B. wants you to channel this into your very own recycled art. For his latest Vayable experience, Robert will take you and up to 19 of your closest friends on a journey around the city to collect objects that you will upcycle into your own art! The class is for eco-conscious art lovers who want to fuse their passions into fun, green, resourceful projects.
The ambitious Low Line Project proposal, which would transform a disused subway station into an underground park, has launched their Kickstarter campaign – and in less than 48 hours, it has already raised nearly $24,000. The subterranean park would infuse some much needed green space on the Lower East Side, without disrupting the current lay of the land. Designed by James Ramsey and Dan Barasch, the project has already begun moving forward and could be realized should their campaign be funded.
Two months ago, we brought you the proposal for the “Low Line,” an awesome underground park located in the abandoned Essex Street trolley terminal under Delancey Street in the Lower East Side. Designed by architect James Ramsey, the principal of RAAD, in part with Dan Barasch of tech think tank PopTech, the park, which calls for pumping natural sunlight into the subterranean space with fiber optics, looked to many to be too out there and unrealistic. But the proposal for the Delancey Underground seems to have piqued the interest of the MTA, who recently released a fantastically interesting video tour of the station. Led by Peter Hine, a senior project manager for the MTA’s Real Estate Department, the tour gives a history of the space and conveys the MTA’s excitement over the creative possibility’s for the terminal’s restoration.
The idea to turn the ill-fated Tappan Zee Bridge into a pedestrian walkway is finally crossing the desk of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo. The bridge, which connects Rockland and Westchester, has been deemed beyond repair, so a new bridge has been slated to be built. Supervisor Paul Feiner of Greenburgh first suggested the walkway, but Cuomo’s interest to transform the site was finally piqued when a cabinet meeting this week determined the cost of demolition was estimated at a whopping $150 million.
This week the town of Dryden, New York won a court case giving it the right to ban hydrofracking for natural gas within its borders. The case is a major victory for fracking opponents nationwide, and here’s how it all went down: The Marcellus Shale, the largest deposit of shale gas in the United States runs underneath the town of Dryden in upstate New York. Due to the gas jackpot, the Anschutz Exploration Corporation purchased 22,000 acres of drilling rights in the town. Before Anschutz could get to the gold, however, the Dryden Town Board passed a drilling ban. Anschutz then sued the town alleging their actions weren’t legal, but on Tuesday, Justice Phillip R. Rumsey of State Supreme Court said it was completely legal. Now Anschutz is out $5 million that they spent securing now unusable rights in the quaint northeast town.
The decades-old wooden benches we’ve become accustomed to in New York City subway stations are now up for sale. For $650 you can purchase a piece of salvaged New York history from the MTA. The relics are being sold to make way for new steel benches that the MTA predicts will be easier to clean.
Dried out shark fins stock countless shelves all over Chinatown, but New York legislators have just announced a bill that may ban their sale. About 73 million sharks are killed and stripped of their fins each year to produce ingredients for shark fin soup. Similar bills have already been passed in California, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington, with bills in Florida, Illinois, Maryland, and Virginia not far behind.
The triangular plot of land on the east side of Astor Place will soon be home to a 12-story LEED Gold certified office tower designed by Fumihiko Maki. You may remember the corner to formerly hold a failed Starbucks and Cooper Union’s engineering building. The new glass tower at 51 Astor will reach both Fourth and Third Avenues, and offer tenants a 13th floor green roof space, as well as an art-infused ground floor plaza.
More photos at DNAinfo
It was almost a year ago to date when the Department of Transportation set its eye on an unused triangular plot of land in Chinatown and envisioned the city’s next High Line Park. Though much smaller, the raised area at the foot of the Manhattan Bridge was poised to become a new public plaza complete with plants, seating, and art installations. Plans are finally coming to life as new details have emerged for the Chinatown mini High Line, including an amazing artistic design by McArthur Fellow artist Xu Bing.
New Yorkers throw away nearly 200,000 tons of clothing a year. But thanks to a recent spurt of recycling programs throughout New York City, collecting and reusing textiles is becoming easier than ever. One program called Re-fashionNYC was just launched last year and has already collected over 50 tons of textiles in its first six months. Re-fashioNYC, who places clothing recycling bins in apartment buildings throughout the five boroughs, has 130 participating buildings so far and hundreds of requests flowing in daily.
The Upper West Side’s Riverside Tennis Club, inside the sprawling Riverside Park, may be getting new public restrooms, complete with composting toilets, designed to meet the strict Living Building Challenge standards. Proposed by Rick Cook of Cook + Fox, the eco-sensitive latrine building would use the best green technologies and promises not to disrupt the park’s environment. The proposal includes an adjacent garden, and it would use ground water and solar energy to create a low impact facility for patrons of the tennis club and park.
That vacant lot that you walk by everyday may just be waiting for you to transform it into a community garden! Many neighborhood vacant lots are actually publically owned, and 596 Acres wants you to know where they are and what you can do about it. Working with the Center for the Study of Brooklyn, the group helps residents reclaim these unused lots to transform them into lush community spaces.
McCarren Park Pool, the famed venue for popular Jelly NYC concerts in Williamsburg, is reverting back to its original use. As part of Mayor Bloomberg’s PlaNYC initiative, the pool is being rehabilitated into an aquatic recreational center that will be open for neighborhood residents throughout the year. The renovation, designed by Rogers Marvel Architects, is expected to achieve LEED Silver certification.
