Before Central Park

Reviewed by Kara Murphy Schlichting

Before Central Park is Sara Cedar Miller’s fourth publication about New York City’s famous greensward. Miller is historian emerita and, since 1984, a photographer for the Central Park Conservancy. Before Central Park is distinctive in its combination of Miller’s photography, her expert understanding of the park’s geography and archeology, and her meticulous real estate history of parkland from the 17th through the 19th centuries.

Central Park Soundscapes: The Rumba Cypher

By Berta Jottar

Since the late 1950s, New York City has been an epicenter of rumba outside Cuba. For more than six decades, a rumba circle in Central Park has embraced those of African descent from Spanish-speaking islands (Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans) and Latin America (Panamanians, Colombians), local African Americans, AfroLatinxs (Nuyorican, NuyoDominicans, Cuban Americans) and those from other diasporas including American Jews. A focus on Central Park rumba illustrates the intricacies and ancestral functionings of the African Diaspora present in contemporary New York.

Arts & Culture, Immigration, Manhattan, Parks, Race & EthnicityGuest UserSeptember 6, 2022 Comment

Sites and Sounds: Hart Island

Site and Sounds: Hart Island

By Melinda Hunt

On today’s episode of Sites and Sounds, Melinda Hunt talks about the public graveyard at Hart Island.

Sites and Sounds: Bike New York

Site and Sounds: Bike New York

By Evan Friss

On today’s episode of Sites and Sounds, Evan Friss talks about the the history of the bicycle and cycling spaces in New York.

Podcasts, Transportation, Gilded Age, Parks, Urban PlanningGuest UserOctober 14, 2021Comment

Sites and Sounds: New York Botanical Garden

Site and Sounds: New York Botanical Garden

By Jane Garmey

In today’s episode of Sites and Sounds, Jane Garmey talks about the New York Botanical Garden.

Podcasts, Nature & Environment, Parks, Bronx, ScienceGuest UserOctober 13, 2021Comment

New York Recentered: Building the Metropolis from the Shore

Podcast Interview: New York Recentered

Kara Murphy Schlichting Interviewed by Garrett Reed Gutierrez

In New York Recentered: Building the Metropolis from the Shore, Kara Murphy Schlichting offers a fresh perspective on New York City’s history by shifting readers’ gaze away from Manhattan and towards the coastal periphery—where local planning initiatives, waterfront park building, the natural environment, and a growing leisure economy each had a stake in the regional development of New York City. Schlichting’s regional and environmental approach frames New York’s extensive waterways as points of connection that unite, rather than divide, the urban core and periphery to one another.

Built Environment, Interviews, Nature & Environment, Parks, Podcasts, Urban Planning, Waterfront & IslandsGuest UserJuly 9, 2021Comment

Hart Island and the Paradox of Redemption

By Sally Raudon

In the twelve months before January 2021, 2,225 people were buried on Hart Island, New York City’s public burial ground. At a time when the Island’s operations are undergoing the most significant organizational changes in its modern history, that’s the highest number of such burials recorded since the 1918-1920 influenza pandemic.

The Invention of Public Space: Designing for Inclusion in Lindsay’s New York

The Invention of Public Space: An Interview with Mariana Mogilevich

Interviewed by Katie Uva

Today on the blog, editor Katie Uva speaks to Mariana Mogilevich about her recent book, The Invention of Public Space: Designing for Inclusion in Lindsay’s New York. Mogilevich discusses the 1960s and 1970s as a uniquely inventive time in the city for defining and conceptualizing the use of public space. At a time when New York was dealing with deindustrialization, economic decline, and suburbanization, the Lindsay Administration made a conscious effort to develop inviting public space and support public interaction in city spaces, an attempt to lift up the city’s density and shared space as an asset rather than a liability.

Built Environment, Housing & Realty, Nature & Environment, Parks, Postwar New York, InterviewsGuest UserApril 29, 2021Comment

Forbs, Fungi, and Fading Memories: What Can Preserving a Disappearing Staten Island a Century Ago Teach Us Today?

By Melissa Zavala

Staten Island’s rich history of conservation is overshadowed by its reputation as a “dump,” most often associated with Fresh Kills, the notorious landfill which at its peak point of operations in the 1980s was considered the largest landfill in the world. A look through the Staten Island Museum’s archival collections, however — its founder’s letters, journals, publications, photographs, and a wide array of other objects including herbariums, assorted wet and dry collections of specimens, and more — reveals an island that has transformed radically.

Gilded Age, Nature & Environment, Parks, Progressive Era, Science, Staten Island, Waterfront & IslandsGuest UserMarch 4, 2021Comment

Review: Roberta Brandes Gratz's It’s a Helluva Town: Joan K. Davidson, the J.M. Kaplan Fund, and the Fight for a Better New York

Activist Philanthropy, Indeed

Reviewed by Jeffrey A. Kroessler

Have you recently trekked to a farmers’ market for fresh produce? In this lockdown year, do you miss attending concerts at Carnegie Hall? A Broadway show? Have you enjoyed roaming through the romantic landscape of Central Park, or wandered the streets of the city’s historic districts? Do you go out of your way to experience the inspiring urban spaces of Grand Central Terminal? Are you invigorated when you head west to the Hudson River Park and marvel at the river’s recovery?

Arts & Culture, Built Environment, Parks, Reviews, Urban PlanningGuest UserFebruary 16, 2021Comment