Omigod, a flood is coming. OHHHH it’s here. It’s over, and I don’t know where to begin. Find new place to live. Muck out house. No power, no car, no water. Apply for FEMA help, try to keep job, put kids in new school. Where’s the damn insurance adjuster? March to demand Congress send aid. Yikes! Mold is everywhere! What do I do with this house? What has to be fixed? How much will it cost?  How do I get a contractor who is not a crook? Where’s the insurance check? OMG, New flood maps!? Where are … [Read more...]

As many of you know, I am I am no longer the architecture critic for Bloomberg News, though I continue to write for the company. My column, along with almost all cultural coverage, was eliminated at Bloomberg late last year in favor of a yet-to-be completed revamping that focuses on luxury and lifestyle. Obviously, the decision saddens me personally, but it’s also a regrettably powerful signal that culture doesn’t matter in our society and economy. Bloomberg News is a much-respected media … [Read more...]

The Perez Miami Art Museum seems like the most luckless new museum in recent memory. The vandalism of an Ai Wei Wei work, “Colored Vases,” by local artist Maximo Caminero is only the latest episode in the museum’s long and contentious escape from the bloated faux hacienda Philip Johnson inflicted on it in 1983. Noisy skepticism accompanied the museum’s quest for a new building, when the collection was still small and new. Though voters approved $100 million to build it,  the project came on … [Read more...]

Should NY State take over building airports? That’s what Gov. Andrew Cuomo proposed in his State of the State address. Congratulate him for finally realizing that the Port Authority of NY and NJ is completely dysfunctional, a money pit, and an impediment to the region’s economic vitality. However, his model is the Tappan Zee Bridge replacement project, which suffers from some the same Portlike maladies. Cuomo sponsored a terrible, budget design that is by no means guaranteed to come in cheap or … [Read more...]

I have long been a critic of NYU’s growth plan, but the stop-growth-at-any-cost contingent was won a victory in State Supreme Court, which ruled that the city wrongly permitted NYU development on public park space. I cannot comment on the legalisms that drove this decision, but the ruling will not help either NYU’s cause or its opponents’. No casual visitor would deem these spaces parks. They are leftovers from the 1950s urban renewal that created the so-called superblocks south of Washington … [Read more...]