When Long Island City Was the Next Big Thing

By Ilana Teitel

For about a hundred days this winter, Long Island City was in the spotlight as a neighborhood about to be transformed. Amazon was coming, the national media was running articles about the 7 train, and brokers were selling condos via text messages. The word was out about this patch of western Queens and its waterfront views, central location, cultural diversity, and overtaxed infrastructure.

And then, on Valentine’s Day, it was over. Amazon pulled out and locals began to debate whether that much change would have been good or bad for LIC. But, this wasn’t the first time that Long Island City was the neighborhood that almost, maybe, soon, was about to take off. Here’s a look at three other times that LIC was briefly New York’s Next Big Thing.

New York Recentered: Building the Metropolis from the Shore

By Kara Murphy Schlichting

In 1865 New York City park commissioner Andrew Haswell Green came to the conclusion that the city had outgrown Manhattan Island. In a report for the Board of Commissioners of Central Park, Green argued that the city’s future should include its mainland environs of Westchester County north of the Harlem River. He articulated a river-spanning future for New York. Green reasoned that lower Westchester was “so intimately connected with and dependent upon the City of New York, that unity of plan for improvements on both sides” of the Harlem was “essential.”

Reprinted with permission from New York Recentered: Building the Metropolis from the Shore, by Kara Murphy Schlichting, published by the University of Chicago Press. © 2019 by the University of Chicago Press. All rights reserved.

Capital City: An Interview with Sam Stein

In Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State, Sam Stein offers a theoretical and empirically grounded discussion of how gentrification became a generalized fact of urban life in the 21st century, and how we can not only stop it, but also build cities that work for all, not just the wealthy few. Centering his discussion around the contradictory and often hidden role of professional planners, Stein illustrates how the state has been central to the rise of real estate in urban political economies, leveraging state “police powers” to turn devalued urban land into a profitable commodity — the so called “spatial fix” that capital requires from time to time in moments of crisis. By bringing to life the diverse set of state and non-state actors responsible for turning the places we cherish into products to be bought and sold, Stein also reveals the contingencies and limits of real estate capital’s power over our lives.

Contested City: An Interview with Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani

Today on Gotham, Prithi Kanakamedala interviews Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani about the process of community-engaged pedagogy, collaborative public history, and advocacy around the Lower East Side's SPURA.

A Call for a Progressive Spatial Politics

By Scott M. Larson

Wins by left-leaning candidates in 2018 midterm elections have led many to suggest a progressive revolution is under way in Democratic — if not American — politics. With each successive victory progressive candidates have staked out bold positions on hot-button issues from Medicare-for-all to a $15 federal minimum wage and free college education.

Built Environment, Urban Planning, Politics, Contemporary EraGuest UserMarch 5, 2019Comment

Myth #10: Example of Laissez-Faire Planning

By Gergely Baics & Leah Meisterlin

Not until 1916 did New York City acquire its comprehensive zoning resolution, the first in the nation. Through the 19th Century, the city’s land-use restrictions comprised a patchwork of fragmented and locally scaled public and private regulatory interventions, including nuisance laws, fire zones, building codes, and deed restrictions in the form of restrictive covenants. Although with this patchwork of caveats, it is fair to describe this early land-use regime as largely unregulated, at least by our contemporary standards.

(Podcast) Discovering Ancient Greece and Rome in the Modern City

Today on Gotham, Beth Harpaz, editor of CUNY SUM, interviews Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis about Classical New York: Discovering Greece and Rome in Gotham. The new volume, co-edited with Matthew McGowan, explores how and why New York City became a showcase for the art and architectural styles of ancient Greece and Rome — from the public spaces at Rockefeller Center to the Gould Memorial Library at Bronx Community College.

Listen to their interview here.

Podcasts, Interviews, Built Environment, Urban PlanningGuest UserFebruary 5, 2019Comment

Notes on the LaGuardia Community College Amazon Teach-In

By Molly Rosner

On November 13, 2018, Amazon announced that Long Island City would become the site for its new headquarters “HQ2” along with a site in Crystal City, Virginia. Since then, New Yorkers have greeted this announcement with both applause and outrage. Throughout the year, Amazon has received bids from cities and towns across the country trying to entice the trillion-dollar company to their area. But after the gimmicks and tax incentives have all been weighed, it feels clear that New York was always high on the list of places the company was considering.

Built Environment, Urban Planning, Business & Labor, Contemporary Era, Education, Politics, QueensGuest UserDecember 20, 2018Comment

Myth #9: A System of Block and Lot Divisions

By Gergely Baics and Leah Meisterlin

The New York City grid is often understood as a foundational system of land subdivision and cadastral allotment. Accordingly, the grid divides Manhattan into a highly regularized system of rectangular shaped blocks, subdivided into lots, making standard (and stackable) units of real estate available for urban development. The grid accomplishes the city’s apportionment through its collection of more frequently spaced and narrower east-west cross-streets and less frequently spaced and wider north-south avenues — each serving as partition and demarcation between the blocks with their nested lots. Indeed, conceptualizing the grid as a system of subdivided blocks highlights its underlying cadastral logic. Previous posts (#4 and #6) have addressed two myths following from this line of reasoning, specifically the extent to which block sizes determined lot sizes, and how the relentless regularity of blocks and lots contributed to rampant real estate speculation.

Built Environment, Urban Planning, Early Republic, ManhattanGuest UserDecember 15, 2018Comment

New York City Has the Country’s Most Elaborate Zoning Code. Why Isn’t It Protecting Us From Luxury Overgrowth?

By Samuel Stein

Construction is booming in New York City, and, as the real-time construction map recently released by the New York City Department of Buildings shows, a lot of the new development is wildly out of context with the surrounding neighborhoods. While scale is not sacred, many of these buildings pose quite specific problems for their neighbors, as in the case of a proposed string of towers on Franklin Avenue that would cast looming shadows over the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. A luxury development whose size and shape would make a public garden obsolete is exactly the kind of development that city planners should be working overtime to prevent.

Built Environment, Contemporary Era, Urban PlanningGuest UserDecember 13, 2018Comment

When Long Island City Was the Next Big Thing

By Ilana Teitel

New York Recentered: Building the Metropolis from the Shore

By Kara Murphy Schlichting

Capital City: An Interview with Sam Stein

Contested City: An Interview with Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani

A Call for a Progressive Spatial Politics

By Scott M. Larson

Myth #10: Example of Laissez-Faire Planning

By Gergely Baics & ​Leah Meisterlin

(Podcast) Discovering Ancient Greece and Rome in the Modern City

Notes on the LaGuardia Community College Amazon Teach-In

By Molly Rosner

Myth #9: A System of Block and Lot Divisions

By Gergely Baics and Leah Meisterlin

New York City Has the Country’s Most Elaborate Zoning Code. Why Isn’t It Protecting Us From Luxury Overgrowth?

By Gergely Baics & Leah Meisterlin