As summer heats up, our thoughts return to garbage--specifically New York City's garbage. As I've mentioned before, it would be hard to invent a more environmentally damaging, or more expensive system of waste management, than the one we use. To reiterate--in New York City we collect the garbage that residents place on the curb and then dump it on the floor of huge warehouses that tend to be located in low-income neighborhoods. We then scoop it up and load it on to trailer trucks and ship it far away--mostly to landfills (dumps), or waste-to-energy plants (incinerators). In the old days, when we had more vacant land in the city, we dumped the garbage in our own landfills.  read more »

Dear Josh:

I was sick on the flight from Newark to Frankfurt. Which part of whiskey, Ambien, gin and red wine do you think was the problem?  read more »

In recent years, the Spanish city has restored the public use of a beach, built a highway to connect the town center with the outskirts, converted a power plant and, well, just made themselves look sexier. The urban renewal initative has even attracted a number of investors into those outskirts.

"In the urban-design studies that actually excited people, way back in 2002, we saw some hints of what Lower Manhattan's commercial future could be: offices designed to recognize that business today is about interaction, not chaining people to desks; architecture that soared gloriously to take full advantage of one of the world's great harbor locations.

The Mies Barcelona chair.

• The man to blame for Mies Barcelona chairs disappears to Miami, land of tawdriness, to dispense a lesson, we assume. (New York)
• New York and London are boring. It's those "backwards" cities that are the future now--not those troubled ones, the ones with an elite class. And, now that we're scared of immigrants and terrorism, attention must be paid to foreign cities, like, not Paris. Is that what New Statesman means?
• Now that it has been confirmed that NYC is dirty, Transportation Alternatives is campaigning for a car-free summer. (TA)
• The Related Companies has a new project, the Caledonia, which will boast its own entrance onto the new High Line park. (Scroll past the picture of Scarlett Johansson's cleavage.) (The New York Times)
• Brooklyn Bridge Park is a "sweetheart deal" for developer Robert Levine. (New York Post)
• Bruce Jones of Poseidon Resorts is inspired by Jacques Cousteau and is building an underwater hotel. The Poseidon rests 60ft below the surface beside a coral reef near Fiji. Guests will enter the linked pods by submarine or through a beachside tunnel. (Times)
• A terra cotta image of a 1922 Ford Model T on the Tunnel Garage in Tribeca may be destroyed. (Forgotten NY)
• Did you know? "This is a city that once had a tavern with a door that connected directly to the municipal court. Later, it passed out tavern licenses to widows, seeing it as a cheap form of relief." Gotham Gazette on the history and future of New York nightlife.
• The City and State are in a land battle over an Upstate watershed that allows the city to avoid building a water filtration plant. (Daily Freeman)
• People, parking is free on Sunday. Stop paying! (Newsday)
• The Municipal Art Society and Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance host an exhibit that imagines the future and presents the past of Todd Shipyard in Red Hook through photographs and alternative site plans. (MAS)

Outside Looking In. Ian Schrager and Aby Rosen Offer A Sneak Preview of 40 Bond

Today, developers Ian Schrager and Aby Rosen, the stylish duo profiled last month by The Observer, were on hand to entertain real estate and luxury living reporters. And there was more food from Nobu for the starving scribes.

But that's all in the past now, right? Now, Mr. Schrager admits to "having a ball" since hooking up with Mr. Rosen on smaller scale projects, yet with big name architects like Herzog and de Meuron.

One Star

212-533-2500  read more »