Photograph by Jake Dobkin Later today, the city will discuss whether the I.M. Pei-designed Silver Towers should be landmarked. The Observer reported that NYU announced its support today, a reversal from an earlier position over three years ago. The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation pushed for landmarking the complex, located between Bleecker and Houston Streets and LaGuardia Place and Mercer Street, a few years ago, calling it "an innovative modern design by I.M.......

Back in March of 2003, Mayor Bloomberg opened up the City Hall Academy at the Tweed Courthouse. The school offered two-weeks "residencies" for students, giving them an "inter-disciplinary approach" to learn about NYC and its history. Mayor Bloomberg, who made education reform one of the cornerstone of his mayoral platform (it's a big part of his "national" persona, too!), had said, "The opening of City Hall Academy demonstrates our commitment to excellence, achievement, and innovation......

While Mayor Bloomberg may have given himself an A on his personal report card that determes how well he fulfilled goals of his administration, one blot on that report card is the recent rise in the number of homeless people in New York City. When he was elected, Bloomberg promised to cut the number of homeless people by two-thirds. Today, the number of homeless people in the city is at a 20 year high. The......

Governor Spitzer nominated H. Dale Hemmerdinger to be Peter Kalikow's replacement as MTA Chairman. Hemmerdinger is a real estate developer with long and varied ties to New York City. He is the president of ATCO Properties and Management, which owns and manages two million square feet of residential, commercial, industrial, and retail space. A longtime backer of Democratic politians, Hemmerdinger's wife donated $40,000 to Spitzer's campaigns since 2000, and Mrs. Spitzer hosted a fundraiser at......

The city is embarking on a new pilot program to offer cash to poor families to motivate them to "break the cycle of intergenerational poverty." The public-private plan which has raised $42 million in private funds so far is called Opportunity NYC, and Mayor Bloomberg said, "If you’re serious about tackling poverty, an entrenched problem that has proven resistant to conventional government programs, you have to be serious about trying new things, taking a new......

The hard-hitting polemical film, Brooklyn Matters, lucidly articulates and amplifies the movement to stop Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards plan. Directed and produced by Isabel Hill, the film portrays the AY project as an outrageous scam to be perpetrated upon hoodwinked Brooklynites. Numerous interviews with critical residents, planners, critics, and elected officials portray a scenario in which a cynical developer and corrupt State agencies have hired gullible community allies and a star architect to conceal......

When we were little our parents would often tell us the same terrifying bedtime story: An old woman walks into a lawyers office demanding that they help her sue the criminals who have taken away all of her savings. The concerned lawyer asks the woman who could have done this to her so that he can help. She explains that she spent every one of her pennies on the Lotto because she had to......

If you are interested in urban planning, architecture, or real estate, The Stamford Review is a great read. It's a scholarly journal that deals with a lot of those issues, published in NYC and Stamford, CT. We got a copy of their spring issue (available as a free download at StamfordReview.com, which contained many intriguing pieces about the limits of growth in our city, and what is going to happen next. Larry Sicular, the......

Bad news for Fernando Ferrer: He's trailing Mayor Bloomberg by a whopping 31 points according to a Quinnipiac poll. And this poll, unlike earlier ones where Bloomberg enjoyed a 27 point lead, is after fears about the subway terror threat on October 7, which might mean that New Yorkers, despite their grousing, might really love Mayor Bloomberg! The Mayor introduced a new health plan to insure children, which Ferrer's campaign says is the second instance......

A day after the MTA's announcement of unprecedented and, frankly, surprising discounted fares between Thanksgiving and New Year's, the reality has set in. First off, the MTA is really trying to restore its credibility with riders by being nice; a Regional Plan Association spokesperson tells Newsday, "You can't take the politices out of it totally." Second, some critics wonder why the MTA can't put the money ($50 million for holidays discounts this year; another $50......