Category: Linked

Recession or not, things are not looking good for the daily print media in this country. Journalism, I suspect, will survive. But in what form is not clear. Newspapers need to figure out how to make money off journalism, as they’ve lost the market for just about everything else. Paying for content is an option, but it has to be done in a way that recognizes how the Internet works – not in a way that fights the Internet. Erecting walls, trying to dam up the flow of information and fighting content sharing (as in my link above) will fail for all but those with the most exclusive content.

(For what its worth, I have no idea why national weekly magazines (Time, Newsweek, USNews) are still in business.)

Seven students from a Baptist church in Topeka, Kansas traveled all the way to Bethesda, Maryland to launch a protest at Walt Whitman High School. Why? Because Whitman was maybe gay. The kids from Bethesda did a good job standing up for Brooklyn’s original literary hero:

At the 2:10 p.m. dismissal, 500 students issued forth from the campus and lined up, several students deep, along the police tape, across Whittier Boulevard from the congregants. They alternately chanted the school name and “Go home!” — drowning out voices from across the street.

From WPA, more ugly on the Southside.

One of Williamsburg’s nicest cast-iron buildings is looking a whole lot nicer lately.

A moment of industrial archaeology, courtesy of the ongoing demolition of the BRT Power Plant on Kent Avenue.

The new edition of the AIA Guide to New York Architecture is due out this Autumn, and it has room for Bob Scarano:

NORVAL WHITE, one of the great figures of New York architecture, was cruising around Long Island City a couple of months ago when he came upon an unexpected sight. On Jackson Avenue, in this still scrappy-looking section of Queens, stood a newish co-op sheathed in luminous squares of blue glass. Its designer, Robert Scarano Jr., is one of the less beloved figures among the city’s architectural cognoscenti, and much to Mr. White’s amazement, he didn’t actually hate the thing.

“It’s definitely a cut above his other stuff,” Mr. White, his lean, 6-foot-5 frame tucked into the front seat of a gray Subaru Forester, acknowledged in his plummy baritone. “It has some quality. We’ll have to include Scarano in the guide.”

Not sure which building he is talking about, but I can think of a few other Scarano buildings that deserve inclusion on design merits (and yes, there are certainly a few that deserve that deserve inclusion as poster children for the Architecture of Excess). That’s more that can be said (design-wise) for the Axis of Banal that is responsible for most what we pass by every day.

Several local merchants are railing against the second annual “Williamsburg Walks” event, saying that barring cars from a seven-block stretch of the avenue … every Saturday in June and July cuts into their earnings.

I’m skeptical, but Williamsburg Walks should be a boon to local business, particularly those on the avenue. If it isn’t, the organizers should make sure that it is.

WPA digs through the archives to find the story behind 165 Havemeyer.

The Times declares bicycling safe for grown ups (or at least for the well-dressed ones). Some people still refuse to slow down, though:

James Vicente, a court attorney at the Kings County Criminal Court in Brooklyn, knows the quandary. After a trip to Amsterdam five years ago, Mr. Vicente was inspired to ride to work in his suit and tie. (He converted his road bike to a fixed-gear bike, with detachable fenders.) … One day he collided with another rider, tearing a gash in his suit sleeve and another in his pride. Today his suits reside in an office closet, and he cycles to work in jeans and a polo shirt.

NPR on NAG’s seed ball project.