Did you know that, if you have enough money in New York City, you can buy a public street? OK, not buy, but lease one, for a really long time. That’s what Kaufman Astoria Studios did in Queens, and someone is not happy about it.
Public Space
Posted inArt
This Land Is Your Land: Bringing a Windswept Space into the Public Domain
Since 2003, San Francisco-based artist Amy Balkin has worked to transfer ownership of a windswept parcel of land in California to each and every person on Earth. Or rather, to have its ownership be under no person, for perpetuity.
Posted inNews
Lawsuit Accuses the City and Lincoln Center of Privatizing a Public Park
A handful of New York residents and environmental activist groups are suing the City of New York, the Parks Department, and Lincoln Center over the use of Damrosch Park, a 2.44-acre park on the Upper West Side. The lawsuit claims that the city has effectively, but illegally, handed over management of the park to Lincoln Center, and that the events the performing arts center holds there — including the iconic Fashion Week — have taken over the space and rendered it unusable for the public.
Posted inArt
Why Won’t the MTA Allow This Artist to Make Art? [UPDATE]
One February evening, Brooklyn-based artist Enrico Miguel Thomas carried his drawing board a few paces away from where he had been illustrating from a counter in Grand Central — leaving behind a bag full of markers and a folded-up easel. After a brief moment of gathering the necessary detail on his subject, which he characterizes as having taken no longer than five minutes, he turned to find a swarm of police officers gathering near his bags. After approaching them, claiming the bags, and identifying himself as an artist, the MTA police officers insisted on “clearing” his bags with a K-9 bomb-sniffing dog.
Posted inOpinion
Libraries Aren’t Irrelevant Yet
As more and more people get their information and do their research online, often from the comfort of their own couches, the future of public libraries seems very much up for the debate these days. Should libraries ship some of their books off to storage facilities and bring in more computers, as the New York Public Library is attempting to do? Should they follow San Antonio’s lead and go bookless altogether? Should we devote more public resources to libraries to renovate them and make them more “relevant,” whatever that actually means, in the digital age? Or should we just say throw in the towel and privatize them all?
Posted inArt
Inflatable Dictators, Cardboard Robots, and Other Interventions in the Chilean Street
SANTIAGO, Chile — The name of the first urban intervention festival in Santiago de Chile, “Hecho en Casa” (“Homemade”), simply comes from the mission of the activities: the aspiration to create a festival for people in downtown Santiago, to make them feel that the streets are their home.
Posted inArt
The Wildlife of Reykjavik Street Art
While a tourist in Iceland’s capital, Reykjavik, my mission became to find the most colorful, magical and exotic creatures painted onto the city walls.
Posted inOpinion
Philly Bench Brings Up Questions of Public Space
Is there such a thing as anti-public seating? We’re all used to the presence of urban furniture as an accessible public good, from benches to bike racks and bus shelters. But what happens when the design of these resources is actually anti-user? A public bench in a Philadelphia train station brings up exactly that question.
