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In its first month, the MTA’s OMNY fare capping pilot had more than 168,000 people hit a 13th ride, earning an unlimited pass for the rest of that week. The agency said this group of straphangers had gone on to ride enough to save more than $1 million in fares. MTA Chairman Janno Lieber said at last week’s monthly MTA board meeting that these were the kind of results that could ensure the program sticks around after the four-month pilot is over. — Gothamist
Launched towards the end of February, the pilot fare program seems to be a win for both the MTA and its riders, which could prompt making it permanent. Data collected by the agency shows that 86% of people who got the bonus were subway riders, with the remaining reaching the 13th ride on... View full entry
As public bathrooms continue to be one of the rarest commodities in the city, the Adams administration has not provided a timeline or any details for the installation of 15 automatic sidewalk toilets unused for more than a decade.
But only five of the toilets have been installed and the city has struggled to find suitable new spots. For years, the others remained mothballed in a Queens warehouse but city officials declined to detail where they are currently located.
— The City
The toilets are a holdover of the Bloomberg administration, which signed a franchising agreement with Cemusa (later JC Decaux) in 2006 that was supposed to provide 20 such facilities at a cost of around $500,000 apiece. Recently, the city declared it will not force dining establishments to offer... View full entry
Broadway Junction, the busy yet infamously underutilized area surrounding the Broadway Junction Subway station, may need to brace for a big change. The area, which sits between several neighborhoods including East New York, Bed-Stuy and Brownsville, has become the center of a private developer’s new vision for East Brooklyn. — BK Reader
At a virtual town hall held on March 22, Totem Group, a Brooklyn-based real estate development firm, shared preliminary plans to build a large mixed-use building next to the busy station complex. Totem’s proposal calls for the construction of four high-rise towers, with two including housing... View full entry
New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art has made several big announces these past few months: From news of a $500 million wing expansion designed by Frida Escobedo, an upcoming rooftop installation from artist Lauren Halsey, to the museum's Ancient Near East and Cypriot Art gallery renovation... View full entry
At 20 Exchange Place, the sheer height of the building has made the persistent outages particularly infuriating for residents, who can pay as much as $5,000 a month for a market-rate one-bedroom unit.
Since November, the skyscraper has been plagued by long elevator outages that have turned daily life upside down and trapped residents with mobility issues inside their apartments. Elevator service is unpredictable and often nonexistent, for hours at a time, above the 15th floor.
— The New York Times
The building’s owner DTH Capital says Con Edison is the culprit, but a spokesperson for the company told the Times there was “no indication” that the malfunction has nothing to do with its service or equipment. The problems are so bad that the building had to hire an elevator mechanic to be... View full entry
The Brooklyn Bridge finally caught up with the COVID-19-era rise in cycling last year after the city opened a dedicated bike path on the iconic span’s roadway.
It was one of the signature initiatives in the final year of the Mayor Bill de Blasio administration, and advocates lauded the addition, which was also the first reconfiguration of the bridge since old trolley tracks were permanently removed in 1950.
— amNewYork
Bicycle traffic on the bridge increased by more than a quarter from 2020 to last year. The jump is indicative of an overall city-wide trend, which has seen New Yorkers’ biking habits increase at a rate of 33%. The numbers likely correlate to the pandemic-era decrease in subway ridership caused... View full entry
The Urban Design Forum and Van Alen Institute have announced a new cycle of Neighborhoods Now, their initiative launched in the Spring of 2020 that pairs leading architecture, design, economic development, legal, and planning firms with local New York City organizations to help drive their... View full entry
The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation has issued a Request for Proposals in search of at least ten firms that will provide landscape architecture services for upcoming park improvement projects. “We are seeking experienced design firms to advance projects that... View full entry
Mayor Eric Adams said the city will crack down on buildings with a high number of fire safety violations, two months after a blaze killed 17 tenants of a Bronx high-rise with a history of complaints. As part of a new executive order signed on Sunday, the city will increase information sharing between the FDNY and the city’s housing inspectors “to identify safety violations earlier and increase fire safety compliance.” — Gothamist
As part of what’s called Executive Order 12, the Fire Department of New York (FDNY) and the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) will launch a broad campaign to educate New Yorlers on fire safety. The order will also require the FDNY to conduct more frequent inspections of... View full entry
Congestion pricing may be headed to New York City by the end of 2023. During a budget hearing with the New York City Council's transportation committee this week, MTA Director of Capital Program Management Steve Berrang revealed that the agency expects the federal government to approve the environmental review later this year, which will be followed by a year-long process of installing the congestion pricing infrastructure. — Gothamist
This plan, the country’s first ever congestion pricing law, is coming into fruition after it was initially approved by the state legislature in Albany in 2019 and then subsequently stalled by the Trump administration. The congestion pricing will include tolls for drivers entering Manhattan... View full entry
Local lawmakers are putting pressure on Mayor Eric Adams to fulfill his campaign promise to make New York City greener by committing more cash to the parks department, something Adams did not follow through with in his preliminary budget. On Monday in Flushing Meadows, members of the City Council and environmental stakeholders called for a $1 billion investment in annual maintenance for New York City parks as part of a five-point plan for improving parks and access to green spaces. — Gothamist
This commitment means that the city would allocate 1% of its budget towards the parks department, which NYC Mayor Eric Adams promised during his campaign. However, in his first preliminary budget proposal, Adams only set aside about $500 million towards parks. Today we unveiled about 5 point plan... View full entry
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has appointed Boston architect Nadaaa to the $40m reconfiguring of a suite of its galleries. The practice, led by principal designer Nader Tehrani, will work with Moody Nolan, the US’s largest African-American-owned and -managed practice, as architect of record on the 15,000sq ft project. The pair will undertake the complete renovation of the Met’s galleries for Ancient Near Eastern and Cypriot Art which currently occupy 11 rooms on the second floor. — Building Design
As detailed by The Met, the renovation will introduce architectural and design elements that reflect both the materials and geographic origins of the work on view. This will be evident in the Ancient Near Eastern Art galleries, which will be characterized by a series of architectural backdrops... View full entry
A collapsing floor injured two workers Monday at a midtown office building where falling exterior work killed a prominent architect in 2019. The accident at 729 Seventh Avenue happened just before 10 a.m. During active demolition work on the 18th floor, part of the floor collapsed, sending two workers dropping to the 17th floor. They were taken to area hospitals; their conditions were not immediately clear. — NBC New York
The address is well known as the site where, in December 2019, architect Erica Tishman was struck by a piece of falling debris that her family claims directly resulted from negligence on the part of the property developer and the Department of Buildings. Administrative code charges... View full entry
Two years into the project, they construct the city in short and mobile sprints. “We circle around different districts,” explained Minefact. “We work one week in Chinatown, then one week in Tribeca, one week on Bowery and then come back to Chinatown. We always work on multiple districts at the same time to keep things interesting.” — Curbed
The crowdsourced design-build was begun by a German user named MineFact who had attempted a similar project the year before for his hometown of Frankfurt using rendering software that incorporated data taken from Google Maps. Incorporating a replacement for the obsolete Mercator projection... View full entry
Last week, New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced an agreement that will transform the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal (SBMT) into one of the largest offshore wind port facilities in the country. This move will help establish New York as a leader in offshore wind and meet its climate goals of... View full entry
