Urban Planning and Public Space

Small Green Spaces

~ David J. ~ Leave a comment

A few months ago when the country appeared to be moving away from pandemic life (or, at least, could realistically hope for such a transition in the foreseeable future), I began to re-introduce myself to New York City. Losing myself in a bookstore. Relaxing outside a cafe. Even braving a sparsely attended movie. After living in cities all my adult life, I found myself needing to learn how to be an urbanite again — the expected aftershock following a year and many months of effective hibernation.

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H.P. Lovecraft’s Summer in the City

~ David J. ~ Leave a comment

By the summer of 1925, weird tale author H.P. Lovecraft was souring on his New York experiment. He was living in a boarding house in Brooklyn. He was robbed of nearly all his clothes. His wife was living in another city. He was barely writing. Still, he managed to enjoy his summer.

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Greenwich Village with H.P. Lovecraft

~ David J. ~ 1 Comment

Greenwich Village was the New York City epicenter of modern art, experimental literature, and radical politics in the 1920s. During his brief New York sojourn (1924-1926), author H.P. Lovecraft loved visiting this neighborhood for its architecture and urban design. He wandered its streets — often at dusk or deep in the night — and swooned at the simple sight of a vintage lamppost, a curving alleyway, or a door knocker.

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A Railway to Somewhere

~ David J. ~ Leave a comment

While venturing beyond my own Jersey City neighborhood for only the second time in 2021, I stopped at an overpass above an abandoned rail corridor, the Bergen Arches. Several local organizations are advocating for this space — unused since 1957 — to be reactivated as part of the East Coast Greenway. This would connect Jersey City with surrounding municipalities and provide both a recreational pathway and park to residents. It would be transformative.

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