Greenwich Village and NYU exist in a fragile state of detente — at best. But while many Villagers don’t dig NYU Law’s newly opened Wilf Hall, its green bona fides are easy to like.
Archive | Zoning
The Tea Party Versus Sustainable Development: Part One
You see these liberty-loving conservative white people? Yeah, well they’re terrified of bike lanes and think LEED is a socialist plot.
Down On The Riverside: Scott Stringer Unloads On Extell’s Riverside Center Mega-Development
By David Roth on September 1, 2010 in LEED-ND, Manhattan, New York City, Upper West Side, Urban Planning, Zoning
Community Board 7 demanded more sustainability from Riverside Center, a mega-development on the UWS. Now Borough President Scott Stringer is doing the same.
Plans For Extell’s Riverside Center Receive Another Thumbs Down
It’s one thing for bloggers to demand sustainability. It’s another, entirely more awesome, thing when citizens do it. That’s what’s happening on the Upper West Side.
New Domino: Worst Mega-Development in NYC, Or Just One of the Worst?
New Domino: we obviously don’t like it very much. But dang it, we respect it for its ability to keep finding new ways to make us like it less.
Queens Is Not Keen On Green, Glassy Flushing Commons
The idea behind the LEED Silver-hopeful Flushing Commons development in Queens was to “revitalize” the borough. Instead, it’s united many residents in opposition.
Zone Defense: Streetsblog on Greening NYC Zoning
By David Roth on February 23, 2010 in Hudson Yards, Manhattan, New York City, Urban Planning, Zoning
Noah Kazis does a pretty tremendous job limning the gordian knot of issues surrounding New York’s zoning policies and politics, but he paints a favorable picture of the Bloomberg administration’s ultra-ambitious zoning work overall — nearly one-fifth of New York City has been re-zoned since 2002, and generally it has been re-zoned fairly thoughtfully. In the instance of Hudson Yards (pictured), for example, the city’s decision to essentially create a new neighborhood was predicated on the extension of the 7 train. Not all the development has been that wise, of course. “Even while the Bloomberg Administration has zoned for growth to be centered around transit, it has also closed off the possibility of more intensive transit-oriented development,” Kazis writes in part one. “The overall effect is positive, but it could be even better.” It’s a story gbNYC readers already know: this is a very green city, but it’s also one in which some very real green accomplishments are tempered by agencies that sometimes seem to be operating at cross purposes and the hugely powerful (and hugely regressive) influence of Real Estate Mega-Developers.
Go Downtown: Long Island Index Suggests Denser, Greener Lawn-Gilan
Urban density is a guarantor of efficiency. It doesn’t necessarily feel like Manhattan is a terribly green place — not when you’ve got buses belching in your face, not when the air smells like garbage and bad Chinese food — but those facts of life in New York ensure that no one drives, everyone takes mass transit and walks, and that our living spaces are (generally) small and thus inexpensively heated and cooled. That unconscious efficiency is what makes New York City’s per-capita carbon footprint so stunningly small, but the discomforts described above are also the sort of things that send people sprawling towards notably less efficient suburbs and exurbs. Sure, there are lawns there, but by just about every measurable metric, places like Long Island are hugely un-green. The newly released Long Island Index, funded by the Rauch Foundation, has what looks like a counterintuitive suggestion on how to ameliorate that. Which is that Long Island needs to get denser.
East Hampton Architectural Review Board Approves Bates Masi’s 132 North Main Street
Bates Masi has earned approval for its planned LEED Gold 132 North Main Street project in East Hampton.
ML: 132 North Main Street: Modern Green Controversy in East Hampton
On Long Island, local residents are proving that sustainability isn’t a panacea for bold modern architecture.
