Cityscape

Curbed
best of new york

Best of New York 2021

 Reintroducing a 36-year-old New York magazine franchise. By The Editors
  1. It Just Keeps Getting Worse for 432 Park A new lawsuit seems likely to spoil sales at the Billionaires’ Row tower.
    By Kim Velsey
  2. 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
  3. 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
  4. 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
  5. 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
  6. Is Brian Benjamin the Person Who Can Turn NYCHA Around? Among advocates, there is cautious optimism.
    By Caroline Spivack
  7. Climate Change Is Putting More Poop in New York’s Waters A crappy side effect of all this rain.
    By Lauren Vespoli
  8. I Wish I Liked the New Brooklyn Bridge Bike Lane More A hard-won symbolic victory that’s a baby step.
    By Diana Budds
  9. Continuum’s Towers Were Nixed by the City. So the Developer Is Suing. The Botanic Garden fight may go another round.
    By Kim Velsey
  10. 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
  11. 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
  12. 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
  13. 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
  14. 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
  15. La Revuelta de los Repartidores Robados, apuñalados, golpeados, con mala paga y demasiado trabajo. Ya están hartos.
    By Josh Dzieza
  16. Visiting the Visitors: Photographs at the 9/11 Memorial Some tourists are more respectful than others.
    By Shaughn and John
  17. 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
  18. 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
  19. The World Trade Center, Before, During, and After Remembering architect Minoru Yamasaki through the afterlife of his most famous buildings.
    By Justin Beal
  20. 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
  21. 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.
  22. 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
  23. The FDR Drive, Swamped Last Night, Is Full of Abandoned Cars Today Tow trucks are trying to clear the road.
    By Christopher Bonanos
  24. 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
  25. Hochul’s First Big Win Is a New Eviction Moratorium New legislation extends the freeze to January 15.
    By Caroline Spivack
  26. A Very Long Walk With Isaac Fitzgerald Down the length of Fire Island with the most gregarious member of the literary internet.
    By Robert Moor
  27. 9/11 Gave Us Two Decades of Anxious Architecture After the attacks, we had a chance to build the downtown that New York deserves. Two decades later, timidity and fear have us hemmed in at every turn.
    By Justin Davidson
  28. The U.S. Open’s Longest-Tenured Ball Boys At court with the most senior ball-lobbers and towel-profferers in tennis.
    By Jane Starr Drinkard
  29. When the Office Is a Fly-Fishing Motel A creative agency ditched its Manhattan studio and went upstate for good.
    By Diana Budds
  30. The Chinese Buyers Who Were Scooping Up New York Real Estate Have Vanished Anti-maskers and anti-Asian hate attacks are among the reasons keeping the top group of international home buyers away.
    By Rong Xiaoqing
  31. Democratic Party Promoter The 23-year-old nightlife impresario Chi Ossé finds a new VIP area: the City Council.
    By Sean Piccoli
  32. Receptionist? Maître d’? Now You’re Also a Vaxx Bouncer Five workers talk about enforcing the new vaccine mandate.
    By Caroline Spivack
  33. Jaeki Cho’s Favorite Spots in Flushing Chinese breakfast crepes, old-school Korean fried chicken, and the best salon for scalp treatments.
    By Cathy Erway
  34. The Look Book Goes to a Cricket Match in Van Cortlandt Park Players from India, Australia, Jamaica, and elsewhere faced off.
    By Daniel Varghese and Louis Cheslaw
  35. The Specific Torture That Is Procuring a Passport Right Now The pandemic has thrown the process of renewing or getting a passport into disarray.
    By Louis Cheslaw and Daniel Varghese
  36. The Renegade Skate-Ramp Builders of New York Who is pouring concrete under the L.I.E.?
    By Daniel Karel
  37. Some Tree Buffs in D.C. Took It Upon Themselves to Help Rebuild Notre-Dame A truss constructed with 12th-century techniques. On spec.
    By Shawn McCreesh
  38. Shelters Were Supposed to Get Better Air Circulation This Year. They Didn’t. “Ventilation? What ventilation? … Where we’re sleeping at, there’s nothing.”
    By Kevin T. Dugan
  39. After Fears of a Pandemic Undercount, Census Numbers for NYC Are Way Up Multilingual outreach and a major effort to find unlisted apartments helped find half a million people.
    By Caroline Spivack
  40. How I Greened My Prewar Co-op Building (It Wasn’t Easy) A climate economist overhauls his own leaky, 200-year-old co-op.
    By Gernot Wagner
  41. A Napping Corner in Hudson Square (That’s Also a Playscape and Lunch Spot) This is the curbside architecture New York City needs.
    By Diana Budds
  42. I Tackled My Climate Anxiety by Becoming a Parks Department Super Steward One weed at a time.
    By Stephanie Foo
  43. Mutual Aid Gets Militant: The Brief Occupation of a Bushwick Storefront Organizers of the Gym clashed with police to use the empty space.
    By Caroline Spivack
  44. Central Park Accidentally Offed Its Celebrity Bird Barry the barred owl is dead.
    By Willy Blackmore
  45. New York’s Stoopers Have a New Enemy “If I had to imagine the Dr. Evil of the stooping community, this is it.”
    By Caroline Spivack
  46. New York Public Library’s Human Search Engines “One thing that historians learned this year is that digitization can never replace the archives.”
    By Christopher Bonanos
  47. The City Is Finally Giving Homeless New Yorkers Enough Money for Rent The voucher program’s long-overdue boost comes months ahead of schedule.
    By Valeria Ricciulli
  48. The Look Book Goes to Miramar Yacht Club Members and guests watched (and raced in) a weekend regatta at the 77-year-old Sheepshead Bay club.
    By Daniel Varghese and Louis Cheslaw
  49. The Parallel-Parking Job That Ignited the Internet It prompted thousands of insults, threats, and moral judgments.
    By P. E. Moskowitz
  50. New York’s Central Park Concert Isn’t Ready for the Delta Variant To see Barry Manilow, only one vaccine shot is required.
    By Caroline Spivack
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