While the old-school images might seem odd, the new production method and a barrage of features both seen and unseen will make the licenses, officials say, virtually impossible to forge. — nytimes.com

and I watch everybody, every move. It's nerve-wracking, your blood pressure goes up ten points going through the door... - Jim Fahey (Assistant Chief in the Operation Control Center) — Charlie Rose

In our last post, we published the six finalists and category winners of New York City's ambitious Reinvent Payphones Design Challenge. Here is now the award winner in the "Creativity" category, the concept "NYC Loop" by New York architects FXFOWLE, in more detail. — bustler.net

New York City leaders have announced the winning prototypes from the Reinvent Payphones Design Challenge which launched last December. [...] The competition had invited architects, students, urban designers, planners, technologists, and policy experts to create physical and virtual prototypes that imagine the future of NYC’s approximately 11,000 public pay telephones. — bustler.net

The City of New York invited students, urban planners, designers, technologists and creators to build physical and virtual prototypes imagining the payphone of the future. Judges selected the top six designs, now you get to decide which design will receive the Popular Choice Award. — NYC Gov Facebook

Nick Lembo, the president of Monadnock, recruited nArchitects for the competition. “Some architects shy away from modular construction, and some are intimidated by micro-units,” he said. “But Mimi and Eric were excited by the creative challenges. They created an incredibly space-efficient unit with an open design that will make it feel larger than its square footage.” — nytimes.com

The MAS report, “East Midtown: A Bold Vision for the Future,” provides a plan for how to develop a stronger and more vibrant neighborhood in response to Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposed major zoning changes, announced last summer, to spur the modernization of East Midtown. MAS fears that in the absence of a careful and comprehensive vision, the City’s proposal will fall short. — mas.org

The long-stalled Tribeca building announced its comeback in October, only a week before resuming construction. Now the Herzog & de Meuron-designed tower is officially on the market. Nine listings have popped up on StreetEasy, ranging in price from a 2BR for $3.625 million to a 4BR penthouse for $24 million. — Curbed NY

Winning projects in three categories have been announced in Gowanus by Design's latest competition, WATER_WORKS. The brief called for solutions specific to Brooklyn's Gowanus area that simultaneously explored the role of water in recreation, quotidian uses, and in contaminated urban environments, and demonstrated how a redesigned community center and retention facility represent a more progressive view of the city's infrastructure. — bustler.net

“I’ve seen Kelly Ripa there. Two little kids were playing with Legos on the treadmill next to her, and there was nobody else.” — NYT

"The changes to the plans...were not enough to assuage the doubts the Commission had the first time around (although most of the commissioners did agree that significant improvements had been made). The alternations to the plans included stretching the double hung windows vertically in order to give the building less of a squat look, raising the base by six feet...and moving the tower forward slightly." — Curbed NY

The Windows of New York project is a weekly illustrated fix for an obsession that has increasingly grown in me since chance put me in this town. A product of countless steps of journey through the city streets, this is a collection of windows that somehow have caught my restless eye out from the never-ending buzz of the city. This project is part an ode to architecture and part a self-challenge to never stop looking up. — windowsofnewyork.com

Designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Rockewell Group, the building is envisioned as a kuntshalle, essentially a museum with no permanent collection, that would accommodate shows from local and international cultural establishments. Its most dramatic feature will be a 140-foot retractable structure that when rolled into place will double the size of the ground-floor gallery. — Crain's

The value of an institution isn’t measured in public square feet. But its value can be devalued by bad architecture...The designs have all the elegance and distinction of a suburban mall. I was reminded that Mr. Foster is also responsible for the canopied enclosure of the inner court at the British Museum, a pompous waste of public space that inserts a shopping gallery into the heart of a sublime cultural institution. — New York Times