Manhattan’s Public Spaces: Production, Revitalization, Commodification analyzes a series of architectural works and their contribution to New York’s public space over the past few decades. By exploring a mix of urban mechanisms, supportive frameworks, legal systems, and planning guidelines for the transformation of the city’s collective realm, the text frames Manhattan as a controversial landscape of interests and concerns to authorities, communities, and, very importantly, developers. The production, revitalization, and commodification of Manhattan’s public spaces, as a phenomenon and as a subject of study, also highlights the vicissitudes of the reconciliation of the many different agents, which are part of the process. The challenge of the book does not only lie in the analysis of good design but, more importantly, in how to understand the functional mechanisms for the current trends in the production of space for public use. A complex framework of actors, governance, and market monopolies, which invites the reader to participate in the debate of how these interventions contribute, or not, to an inclusive environment anchored in the existing built fabric. Manhattan’s Public Spaces invites reflection on the revitalization of the city’s shared space from all dimensions. Beautifully illustrated in black and white, with over 50 images, this book will be of interest to scholars and students in architecture, planning, and urban design.

Mysteries and folkways of New York City revealed in an entertaining collection of graphic art The life and legend of New York City, from the size of its skyscrapers to the ways of its inhabitants, is vividly captured in this lively collection of more than 250 maps, cross sections, flowcharts, tables, board games, cartoons and infographics, and other unique diagrams spanning 150 years. Superstars such as Saul Steinberg, Maira Kalman, Christoph Niemann, Roz Chast, and Milton Glaser butt up against the unsung heroes of the popular press in a book that is made not only for lovers of New York but also for anyone who enjoys or works with information design.

The best cities become an ingrained part of their residents' identities. Urban design is the key to this process, but all too often, citizens abandon it to professionals, unable to see a way to express what they love and value in their own neighborhoods. New in paperback, this visually rich book by Alexandros Washburn, former Chief Urban Designer of the New York Department of City Planning, redefines urban design. His book empowers urbanites and lays the foundations for a new approach to design that will help cities to prosper in an uncertain future. He asks his readers to consider how cities shape communities, for it is the strength of our communities, he argues, that will determine how we respond to crises like Hurricane Sandy, whose floodwaters he watched from his home in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Washburn draws heavily on his experience within the New York City planning system while highlighting forward-thinking developments in cities around the world. He grounds his book in the realities of political and financial challenges that hasten or hinder even the most beautiful designs. By discussing projects like the High Line and the Harlem Children's Zone as well as examples from Seoul to Singapore, he explores the nuances of the urban design process while emphasizing the importance of individuals with the drive to make a difference in their city. Throughout the book, Washburn shows how a well-designed city can be the most efficient, equitable, safe, and enriching place on earth. The Nature of Urban Design provides a framework for participating in the process of change and will inspire and inform anyone who cares about cities.

Every morning, the architect and writer Michael Sorkin walks downtown from his Greenwich Village apartment through Washington Square to his Tribeca office. Sorkin isn't in a hurry, and he never ignores his surroundings. Instead, he pays careful, close attention. And in Twenty Minutes in Manhattan, he explains what he sees, what he imagines, what he knows—giving us extraordinary access to the layers of history, the feats of engineering and artistry, and the intense social drama that take place along a simple twenty-minute walk.

Winner of the 2015New York City Book Award The never-before-told story of the grid that ate Manhattan You either love it or hate it, but nothing says New York like the street grid of Manhattan. This is its story. Praise for City on a Grid "The best account to date of the process by which an odd amalgamation of democracy and capitalism got written into New York's physical DNA."--New York Times Book Review "Intriguing...breezy and highly readable."--Wall Street Journal "City on a Grid tells the too little-known tale of how and why Manhattan came to be the waffle-board city we know."--The New Yorker "[An] expert investigation into what made the city special."--Publishers Weekly "A fun, fascinating, and accessible read for those curious enough to delve into the origins of an amazing city."--New York Journal of Books "Koeppel is the very best sort of writer for this sort of history."--Roanoke Times

Manhattan Atmospheres uncovers an alternative environmental history of New York, examining the megastructural apartments, verdant corporate atria, enormous trading rooms, and mammoth museum galleries built between the 1960s and early 1980s. David Gissen demonstrates how these sealed environments were not closed off conceptually from the surrounding city but key sites of environmental production and a new type of socionatural form.