Urban Residue - leftover thoughts from the day

They are a place to rest, to wait for someone you're meeting, to relax and watch the world go by. On a thriving city street, large publi...

This is the sort of project that makes people resentful of cyclists. The bike channels installed on newly reconstructed step streets like th...

In a dank alleyway, far beneath the metropolitan skyscrapers, there exists a temporal loop. A rich couple, having taken an ill-advised sho...

There have been dire warnings recently that car manufacturers might try to exert their influence to take over city streets at the expense of...

Not long ago, I was at an event where a wealthy developer spoke for a few minutes to a group responsible for making public improvements in a...

This is a designated pedestrian street in Lower Manhattan The quality of our public spaces in New York City is so much worse than they ...

Recently, my wife and I were out on a date and taking a stroll through Harlem before dinner when we stumbled on a dog relief area at the co...

Major changes have been announced for Norwood with new construction planned for a rocky slope that residents had always believed was parkla...

After closing the Privately-Owned Public Space for months of reconstruction to fix subsurface problems, the Millennium Hilton is now ...

I was recently at Frederick Douglass Circle at the northwest corner of Central Park. Every time I go, I am bothered by a detail that detract...

It seems to be an article of faith among many contemporary planners that grade separation is an ti-pedestrian and inherently anti-urban. I...

I drove with my family to Wisconsin and back for Christmas, with a minor detour through Chicago each way. Four days on the road gives you pl...

When I was out the other night, I enjoyed the simple design intervention on the security barriers made from concrete blocks and jersey barri...

The drain on this park path collapsed years ago. Ever since, it has flooded. The standing water acts as a bird bath, but also collects trash...

The city is different on rainy days, sometimes in surprising ways we don't always notice. Light and shadows change their shape. Subway s...

This is the second in a series of posts about the failures of city agencies to protect New York City's public spaces, using the example ...

This is the first in a series of posts about the failures of city agencies to protect New York City's public spaces, using the example o...

Charlotte Street in The Bronx has a mythic place in the history of The Bronx, and it continues to grow as the borough recovers from its peri...

A miniature palisade suddenly rises. Natural wooden hues thrust upward from the sidewalk, warmly reflecting the summer sun. A few days later...

The phrase "working the street" has referred to many things, but the connotations have mostly all been negative: prostitution, sel...