The Soaring and Nearly Forgotten Arches of New York City

The Soaring and Nearly Forgotten Arches of New York City

Beautiful arches, like the art deco skeletal system of a lost urban era, can be found throughout New York City, from Grand Central Terminal to bars and restaurants. Created with tiles by the Spanish father-and-son duo, Rafael Guastavino and his junior namesake, these structures were also marvels of artistic engineering, combining intricate brickwork with functional arrays of vaults and pillars, all leading to a kind of Mediterranean dreamworld of colonnades "hidden in plain sight," as a new exhibition suggests, around the city.

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The Nation's Most Unequal City Isn't NYC or San Francisco

The Nation's Most Unequal City Isn't NYC or San Francisco

Thanks to battles over nightmarish rent-controlled apartments and privatized public transit, cities like New York and San Francisco have reputations as deeply unequal places. Yet a new report revealing the true least equal cities in the U.S. might surprise you.

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I stumbled on this photo while writing last night’s post about the East Side Access Project in New Y

I stumbled on this photo while writing last night’s post about the East Side Access Project in New York and just couldn’t resist: like some underground rail gun or a particle accelerator whirring to life, this is part of the Second Avenue Subway, the so-called "86th Street Cavern," a subterranean wonder that will soon be indistinguishable from mere infrastructure, captured by MTA photographer Rehema Trimiew. [MTA]

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Star Wars Hits the Runway at NY Fashion Week

Need some new, high fashion clothes? New York Fashion Week has you covered. Check out these Star Wars outfits seen here modeled by a group of women who don’t look like they’ve eaten a decent meal since 1999. These Star Wars dresses are designed by fashion house Rodarte.
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They are floor-length embroidered gowns featuring the printed likenesses of Luke Skywalker, Master Yoda, C-3PO and R2-D2, Tatooine and the Death Star. Personally, I prefer my X-Wing Fighters going down a Death Star trench, not a runway in New York, but more Star Wars clothes are always welcome, I suppose.

Great show, girls. Now go eat a cracker or two. And just because you regurgitate every meal, that doesn’t mean that you get to be the Sarlacc Pit. Modeling is so silly.

[via Yahoo! Movies via Geekologie]

Sitting on top of the world never looked so good… and terrifying

She may look like the Black Widow sitting atop the Chrysler Building in a scene from Avengers, but she is the fearless Lucinda Grange, a British photographer specialized in sports, portraiture, architecture, travel, and adventure. In her spare time she loves to climb tall structures and explore abandoned buildings, taking some truly amazing photos like the one above.

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A Colossal Yellow Cave Taking Shape Beneath Manhattan

A Colossal Yellow Cave Taking Shape Beneath Manhattan

NYC’s East Side Access Project continues apace, and these recent images, taken last month by MTA photographer Rehema Trimiew, show a whole new view of the mind-boggling underground caverns now being constructed beneath Manhattan. From raw walls of exposed geology to this, the space is finally taking on the look and feel of architecture.

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Sheep in Central Park, Archaeo-Bunnies, and Cockroach Pheromone Bots

Sheep in Central Park, Archaeo-Bunnies, and Cockroach Pheromone Bots

There’s a veritable menagerie in this week’s landscape reads: domesticated sheep, archeologist rabbits, robot cockroaches, and acidified limpets.

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9 of the Most Beautiful Buildings We Ever Tore Down

9 of the Most Beautiful Buildings We Ever Tore Down

The years between 1880 and 1920 changed American cities completely: From elevators to air conditioning to electricity, the monumental buildings born during this period seemed like living things, humming with life. But as quickly as they rose, many of them were torn down—victims of the same progress that pushed them up.

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When Does a Neighborhood Become "Good"?

When Does a Neighborhood Become "Good"?

"Is Harlem good now?" That’s the question that Ethiopian-born, Swedish-raised chef Marcus Samuelsson gets asked the most about his neighborhood. In Sunday’s New York Times, Samuelsson wrote an insightful op-ed about watching Harlem change over the past decade.

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Bowery Subway Stop Review: Is This Thing Safe?

Bowery Subway Stop Review: Is This Thing Safe?

The New York City subway system is a hell of a machine. With 468 stations in Gotham’s 468 square miles, this maze of rails and turnstiles moves nearly 5.5 million commuters around town on an average weekday. And, because it never closes, maintenance is a tricky proposition. Case in point: the Bowery stop.

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