Superstorm Sandy brought the Rockaways into the forefront of New Yorkers’ consciousness for a period of time, [...] subsequently as a key reference point in debates about rebuilding versus retreating from the flood zone. [...]

The last of these sites is Arverne East, 81 acres of City-owned land that have remained vacant since the neighborhood was razed in 1969. Below, Jonathan Tarleton and Gabriel Silberblatt consider Arverne East’s uncertain future. — urbanomnibus.net

Rather than cooking up designs in their Manhattan studios and then peddling them with PowerPoint presentations, the teams attended meetings by the score...The result is a series of designs by committee — not a single camel, but a whole herd of options. — New York Magazine

[...] officials viewed a tunnel plug under development by ILC Dover, a Department of Homeland Security vendor and supplier to NASA, to protect subway portals where grade level tracks transition to underground subways.

If successfully tested, the MTA hopes the technology could be applied to portals and stairwell locations throughout the system. The tunnel plug demonstrated inside the station is not designed for use inside the subway system, Cuomo's office said. — silive.com

According to the experts — architects, environmentalists and civil engineers — large-scale projects like underwater gates are expensive, cumbersome and difficult to build. More important, they say, such undertakings are binary projects that work just fine until the moment they do not. — NYT