Cityscape

Curbed
best of new york

Best of New York 2021

 Reintroducing a 36-year-old New York magazine franchise. By The Editors
  1. Move Over, Fake Vaxx Card — Here Comes an Anti-Vaxx Business Directory A new website is crowdsourcing businesses that are flouting the mandate — and New York has the most.
    By Caroline Spivack
  2. A Landscape Architect Who Loves Ruins and Hates Ruin Porn Julie Bargmann just won the first $100,000 Cornelia Hahn Oberlander prize.
    By Justin Davidson
  3. The Look Book Goes to an Animal-Blessing Ceremony At the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in Morningside Heights, pet owners brought their animals for an annual blessing.
    By Daniel Varghese and Louis Cheslaw
  4. A Bookstore in a Bus in the Bronx Readers now boarding at Bronx Bound Books.
    By Valeria Ricciulli
  5. What It Takes to Give David Geffen Hall a New Sound A look inside the New York Philharmonic’s home, en route to its new (and, fingers crossed, better) acoustics.
    By Justin Davidson
  6. The COVID-19 Hotel Scheme That Took NYC For $400,000 Five-star rooms for $50, booked through Facebook and paid with Cash App.
    By Caroline Spivack
  7. Is a Woman Randomly Punching People at the West 4th Street Station? TikTok certainly thinks so.
    By Valeria Ricciulli
  8. See the Translucent Marble Façade Go Up at the WTC Perelman Arts Center It’s better than the Beinecke!
    By Ian Volner
  9. Trying to Untangle the Princeton Architecture Department Drama Paging Sandra Oh.
    By Choire Sicha
  10. Most Storefront Rents in New York Are As High As Ever Apart from the super-luxury corridors, last year barely made a dent.
    By Kim Velsey
  11. Alexandra Kleeman’s Favorite Spots in Staten Island A restaurant with a New England-like view, the world’s best artichokes, and a tugboat parking lot.
    By Emma Alpern
  12. Dispatch From Deadly Rikers Island: “It Looks Like a Slave Ship in There.” Detainees, correction officers and officials talk about the jail’s new state of emergency.
    By Beth Schwartzapfel
  13. Marchers Attack Coronavirus Testing Station in Union Square The anti-vaccine-mandate protest went from the Department of Education to the Australian Consulate.
    By Choire Sicha
  14. The Candy-Colored Tudors and Mini Mediterranean Palaces of Queens ‘All the Queens Houses’ shows the most diverse borough’s most diverse residences.
    By Diana Budds
  15. This Is the OMNY Card, and You Might Be Able to Buy One Today But not in the subway (yet).
    By Christopher Bonanos
  16. New York Went From Worst to Best At Handing Out Rent Relief There’s still a lot of work to be done, but Governor Kathy Hochul deserves credit for getting us this far.
    By Caroline Spivack
  17. With Google Moving In, Hudson Square Is Trying to Spruce Up the Place The neighborhood is now a major tech hub, so it should probably be connected to the rest of the city.
    By Valeria Ricciulli
  18. Manhattan West Is (a Little Bit) What Hudson Yards Should Have Been It’s still a corporate simulacrum of a city, but given the history of such gestures, it’s surprising they got it anywhere close to right.
    By Justin Davidson
  19. It’s Time to Let the Elizabeth Street Garden Go It may be a pretty oasis, but we as a city are desperate for affordable housing.
    By Kim Velsey
  20. The Look Book Goes to Chess in the Park At the tournament, which is held yearly near Bethesda Fountain, more than 700 children (and a few adults) faced off over six rounds of rapid chess.
    By Daniel Varghese and Louis Cheslaw
  21. The Nation’s Monuments Are Male, Pale, and Stale A new audit makes the case for a more fluid landscape of public memory.
    By Diana Budds
  22. P.S. 705’s Welcome Committee The teachers who turned the school-drop-off line into a shindig.
    By Jane Starr Drinkard
  23. East River Park Activists Chain Themselves to Tree, Make Weirdly Modest Demand Really, they just want to ask questions.
    By Caroline Spivack
  24. You Can No Longer Stay in an East Village Van for $97 a Night The red Econoline and six others listed on Airbnb have been impounded.
    By Valeria Ricciulli
  25. The Very Tiny Fight Over a Midtown Park’s Locked Garden Can one determined person continue to keep the public out of a public park?
    By Kim Velsey
  26. Maybe Forcing City Workers Back to the Office Wasn’t the Best Idea Civil servants are now looking for new jobs en masse.
    By Caroline Spivack
  27. It Just Keeps Getting Worse for 432 Park A new lawsuit seems likely to spoil sales at the Billionaires’ Row tower.
    By Kim Velsey
  28. As a Delivery Worker, I Still Want More From the New Delivery-App Bills They’re a good start, but they won’t apply to all restaurants, for starters.
    By Wilfred Chan
  29. A New Arts Compound in East Williamsburg That Draws You In The Amant arts center faces the city with severity but aims to cosset visitors.
    By Justin Davidson
  30. The Street Fight Is Back Everybody wants a piece of your block, and it’s going to take a lot more than planters and metal barricades to resolve who gets what.
    By Diana Budds
  31. What It’s Like at Rikers, According to People Who Just Got Out “They’re not feeding people, there’s no water, no showers, no phone calls.”
    By Rebecca McCray
  32. Is Brian Benjamin the Person Who Can Turn NYCHA Around? Among advocates, there is cautious optimism.
    By Caroline Spivack
  33. Climate Change Is Putting More Poop in New York’s Waters A crappy side effect of all this rain.
    By Lauren Vespoli
  34. I Wish I Liked the New Brooklyn Bridge Bike Lane More A hard-won symbolic victory that’s a baby step.
    By Diana Budds
  35. Continuum’s Towers Were Nixed by the City. So the Developer Is Suing. The Botanic Garden fight may go another round.
    By Kim Velsey
  36. The Look Book Goes to the Obama Portraits During a preview party at the Brooklyn Museum, guests got an early look at Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald’s presidential portraits.
    By Daniel Varghese and Louis Cheslaw
  37. The Lower East Side Tailor to the Scene Clients have generally found Ramon Tailor through word of mouth. Now — suddenly — there are lines out the door for his custom pants.
    By Louis Cheslaw
  38. How Clean Is the Air in Your Classroom? Your Theater? It’s Not Easy to Find Out There’s little transparency about what we breathe inside big congregate spaces.
    By Justin Davidson
  39. We’re Falling Short on Even the Simplest Fix for Storm Flooding Plugged-up drains should be the most straightforward problem to solve, and the city can’t keep up.
    By Diana Budds
  40. Revolt of the Delivery Workers Exploited by apps. Attacked by thieves. Unprotected by police. The city’s 65,000 bikers have only themselves to count on.
    By Josh Dzieza
  41. La Revuelta de los Repartidores Robados, apuñalados, golpeados, con mala paga y demasiado trabajo. Ya están hartos.
    By Josh Dzieza
  42. Visiting the Visitors: Photographs at the 9/11 Memorial Some tourists are more respectful than others.
    By Shaughn and John
  43. If You’re Worried About Mold After the Flooding, Get In Line “You don’t have enough pumps, you don’t have enough dehumidifiers, you don’t have enough fans.”
    By Jack Denton
  44. The Leaning Tower of Seaport May Finally Break Its Bad Luck But it’s still tilting ever so slightly to the north.
    By Caroline Spivack
  45. The World Trade Center, Before, During, and After Remembering architect Minoru Yamasaki through the afterlife of his most famous buildings.
    By Justin Beal
  46. In the Vanderveer Projects, Michael K. Williams Was Another Kind of Star “He was someone who never forgot the hood. He used his influence as much as possible to lift up people beyond him.”
    By Saki Knafo
  47. Scenes from Ida’s Chaotic, Tragic Night in New York City The bus driver stuck in raw sewage, a delivery worker who biked through a foot of water, and other stories from the flood.
  48. Those Flooded Basement Apartments are a Deadly Part of the Housing Crisis The most dangerous place to be last night was on the ground floor.
    By Kim Velsey
  49. The FDR Drive, Swamped Last Night, Is Full of Abandoned Cars Today Tow trucks are trying to clear the road.
    By Christopher Bonanos
  50. The Look Book Goes to Margaritaville We chatted with guests at the newly opened outpost of the hotel chain, which sits right between the Times Square subway station and Port Authority.
    By Daniel Varghese and Louis Cheslaw
Load More