All articles by Dana Schulz

Dana is a writer and preservationist with a passion for all things New York.  After graduating from New York University with a BA in Urban Design & Architecture Studies, she worked at the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, where she planned the organization's public programs and wrote for their blog Off the Grid. In her free time, she leads walking tours about the social and cultural history of city neighborhoods. Follow her on Twitter @danaschulzNYC.
November 25, 2014

Daily Link Fix: Vintage Photos of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade; De Robertis CaffĂ© Closing after 110 Years

Check out these amazing vintage photos of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. [Wired] Why not make your holiday gifts this year? Here’s six arts and crafts classes that won’t break the bank. [Brokelyn] After 110 years as an East Village staple, De Robertis CaffĂ© will close on December 5th. [Bedford + Bowery] Hate schlepping to […]

November 24, 2014

Daily Link Fix: The City’s Landmarked Lampposts; NYC Named America’s Snobbiest City

There are 62 lampposts that are designated city landmarks. Who knew?? [GVSHP] Local artists design markers for the South Bronx Culture Trail. [DNAinfo] Ever wonder where the nickname Gotham came from? Turns out, it might have started as an insult. [Ephemeral NY] NYC is America’s snobbiest city. We politely disagree. [Fortune] On the one-year anniversary of […]

November 22, 2014

Weekly Highlights: Top Picks from the 6sqft Staff

Futuristic floating park may come to the West Side thanks to a $130 million pledge from billionaire media mogul Barry Diller. New rendering for 111 West 57th Street shows what will become the slimmest building in the world. NYC getting pay phones of the future with free WiFi, charging stations and more. Robert Pattinson checks […]

November 21, 2014

Study Says Brooklyn Bridge Park Towers Will Have Insignificant Environmental Impact

Critics of the two new residential towers planned for Pier 6 in Brooklyn Bridge Park have made complaints that the structures' environmental impact needed further analysis, but a new study, completed by environmental engineering firm AKRF and set to be released today by the city-controlled Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation asserts that the towers' environmental impact will be insignificant. In a statement, Brooklyn Bridge Park said: “After evaluating the potential impacts on 19 distinct environmental categories—including schools, flood resiliency, traffic and open space—and incorporating any relevant updated changes to the project, the environmental regulations and background conditions, the technical memorandum concludes that the Pier 6 uplands project would not have any additional significant impacts.”
More on the planned towers here
November 21, 2014

Real Estate Wire: Most Expensive Townhouse Lists for $63M; High-Rise Towers Could Rise Along Gowanus Canal

Morris Adjmi will design condos to replace the Brooklyn Heights Cinema. [BK Heights Blog] New York’s most expensive townhouse officially hit the market for $63 million. [Curbed] Queens real estate is getting a lot of attention lately. [NYT] An $18 million Williamsburg warehouse sold for $434/square foot, among the highest sales ever in the borough. [Crain’s] Gowanus […]

November 21, 2014

The Verrazano Bridge Opened 50 Years Ago, but There’s Still a Myth About Its Toll

Bridges and tolls are on everyone's mind these days, thanks to the MTA's latest proposed fare hikes. If approved, this would raise the toll of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge to $16. And today, on the 50th anniversary of the bridge's opening, most Staten Islanders still think that driving across the bridge was supposed to become free once it was paid off. No one's really certain where this myth came from, but those who believe it are quite passionate about the subject.
More on the urban myth here
November 21, 2014

REVEALED: SHoP’s Scaled-Back South Street Seaport Tower

This week, the Howard Hughes Corporation gave a presentation to the South Street Seaport community about their residential tower planned for the waterfront beside Pier 17. The original design by SHoP Architects was 52 stories and 650 feet, but to satisfy concerns by neighborhood residents and elected officials about the tower's appropriateness, the firm scaled back the design to 42 stories and agreed to also build a middle school and waterfront esplanade. But even this revised plan was met with much criticism at the community meeting; Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and City Council member Margaret Chin both expressed that they would not support the tower and likened it to plopping a high-rise in the middle of Colonial Williamsburg. The luxury residential tower is part of Howard Hughes's overall $305 million plan for the Seaport, which, if approved, would include a restoration of the historic Tin Building and a new home for the Seaport Museum.
More details on the project and revised design
November 20, 2014

Hush Earplugs Let You Block Out Noise Without Missing Your Alarm

Does your roommate insist on slamming the doors at all hours of the night? Do you have an upstairs neighbor who decides to practice tap dancing at 3am? Whatever your noisy apartment horror story may be, there's a common conundrum we encounter when trying to block out the racket: how to wear earplugs but not miss the alarm. A group of engineers must have heard about our sleep-deprived woes because they've created Hush, earplugs that connect wirelessly to a smartphone, so users can hear the sounds they need to while blocking out the rest. Plus, they can play white noise, ocean waves, or a crackling fire if you need some soothing sounds to get you to sleep. And the charging dock doubles as a carrying case and phone charger (what can't these earplugs do?).
READ MORE
November 20, 2014

Finalists Announced for 2015 Governors Island City of Dreams Pavilion

Governors Island is one of those magical NYC places that comes to life in the spring after a long winter hibernation. And part of its reawakening will be the revealing of the City of Dreams Pavilion, a futuristic-looking art installation where visitors can gather. For the fifth consecutive year, FIGMENT has teamed with the Emerging New York Architects Committee (ENYA) of the American Institute of Architects NY Chapter (AIANY) and the Structural Engineers Association of New York (SEAoNY) to host a competition for the pavilion. Entrants were asked to design a temporary architectural structure to hold 50+ people, provide shade and rain cover, using sustainable materials. And just this week the five finalists were announced.
Take a look at the final five designs here
November 19, 2014

Towers in the Park: Le Corbusier’s Influence in NYC

Any architecture history student or design nerd knows about Le Corbusier (1887-1965), one of the founders of modern architecture and a truly one-of-a-kind urban planner. For those of you who aren't as familiar with Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris (his given name; he was French-Swiss), one of his most noteworthy urban ideas was concept of "towers in the park." Part of his Contemporary City plan (and later Radiant City plan) to house three million inhabitants as a way to deal with overcrowding and slums, towers in the park were skyscrapers set in large, rectangular tracts of lands with open space between the buildings. Whether they were consciously influenced by Le Corbusier or not, many projects in New York City mimic his vision of towers in the park, and we've decided to take a look at the most well known of this architectural crop, as well as some other ways the famous architect left his mark on NYC.
Take a look at NYC's towers in the park
November 19, 2014

Hudson Yards Cost Taxpayers $650 Million So Far, and It’s Not Over

Just yesterday, the city hailed the completion of the platform built over the west side rail yards that will support the Brookfield West development, a major component of Hudson Yards, the 26-acre development rising on the far west side. And while Brookfield will boast a two-acre park plaza, two 60-plus-story high rises and other public commercial space, it's important to note that $7 million was spent just on designing and producing a special machine called "The Launcher" to lift the 56,000-ton concrete slabs to build the platform. This is just one of many substantial costs in the mammoth Hudson Yards project, for which the city will have paid nearly $650 million in subsides by the end of this fiscal year, money that, over the past ten years, has come straight from the pockets of taxpayers. And that's not all; according to a review by the city's Independent Budget Office, even more will be needed through 2019 to complete the "next great commercial district."
More on the subsidies and Hudson Yards
November 19, 2014

Real Estate Wire: Mega Residential Development Could Come to Bronx Waterfront; Fifth Avenue Is World’s Most Expensive Retail Address

William Randolph Hearst’s penthouse apartment at 91 Central Park West is back on the market for $27.5 million after Giorgio Armani’s deal fell through. [Curbed] An abandoned industrial lot on the Bronx waterfront could become the next mega residential development for $30 million. [NYDN] Fifth Avenue is the world’s most expensive retail address, overtaking Hong […]

November 19, 2014

BWArchitects’s Artist Loft Juxtaposes a Gritty Brooklyn Warehouse with Warm Interiors

There's plenty to be said about Brooklyn becoming a brand and the second most expensive place in the country to live. But every once in a while, we stumble across something that still has a bit of the borough's old school glory. Take this Brooklyn Artist Loft designed by BWArchitects. The firm's dramatic conversion of a light manufacturing warehouse to a work/live artist studio juxtaposes the building's gritty, industrial exterior with warm, light-filled interior spaces.
Take a look at the space
November 19, 2014

Daily Link Fix: What It’s Like to Tweet as the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree; A Writer’s Farewell to Brooklyn Heights

Did you know the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree has its own Twitter? Comedian Matt Haze talks about being the voice behind the account. [WSJ] Pop Candy author Whitney Matheson is moving out of her Brooklyn Heights apartment. But before she goes, she’s saying goodbye with a list of 33 things she’ll miss about the ‘hood. […]

November 19, 2014

POLL: Will the Pier 55 Floating Park Get Built?

The city was abuzz on Monday when news broke of media mogul Barry Diller’s $130 million pledge to build a $170 million, 2.7-acre floating park off the shore of 14th Street in the Hudson River. The planning and design process had been kept under wraps for over two years, and though the undulating, amoeba-shaped public […]

November 18, 2014

NYC Getting Pay Phones of the Future with Free WiFi, Charging Stations and More

Remember the good old days of frantically running around looking for a pay phone and then realizing you were out of change and had to make a collect call? Well, that's soon to be nothing more than a distant memory, as New York City is turning its remaining pay phone booths into forward-looking tech hubs that include free 24-hour WiFi, free domestic calls, charging stations, and touch screens with access to city services and directions. Officially dubbed LinkNYC, they'll also be able to connect people with emergency responders and broadcast city alerts during emergencies like Hurricane Sandy.
More on the pay phones of the future here
November 18, 2014

New York Times Will Finally Stop Comparing Everything to Brooklyn

“What’s next? Describing Manaus as the Williamsburg of the Amazon? Katmandu as the Cobble Hill of Nepal?” These are the questions posed by New York Times Standards editor Philip B. Corbett to his writers, who can’t seem to stop comparing everything in the world to Brooklyn. He references The Atlantic‘s article “All the Places The […]

November 18, 2014

Daily Link Fix: SantaCon Heading to Bushwick; New MTA Campaign Will Teach Subway Etiquette

SantaCon’s drunken debauchery is abandoning its traditional East Village route and heading to Bushwick. [Bushwick Daily] All those backpack wearers and “man spreaders” are going to get a public shaming when the MTA rolls out its subway etiquette awareness campaign in January. [am NY] Explore the “poison cauldron” of Newtown Creek in photos. [Gothamist] After 15 […]

November 18, 2014

Minetta Street Townhouse with Yo-Yo Sales History Goes for $5.7M

Sure, we all love a good flip story, but this is more like a flip flop. This lovely townhouse at 17 Minetta Street in Greenwich Village sold for the first time as a single-family home in 2010 for $5.1 million; it then sold again in 2013 for $5.8 million (after asking $7.5); now it's sold for $5,676,000, above the $5.35 asking price, according to city records. We're not quite sure why the landmarked home keeps getting tossed around for little to no profit. The 19th century Federal townhouse got a modern renovation in 2008 by architects and designers Zhenya Merkulova and Alan Tanksley; it's accessed through a gated mews that leads to a private garden.
Tour 17 Minetta Street here
November 17, 2014

Barry Diller Pledges $130M for Futuristic Offshore Park on the West Side

Floating space in New York's waterways is not a new concept. Take the +Pool, for example, the public pool proposed for the East River that was recently supported by Kanye West. But a new offshore park proposed for the Hudson River off 14th Street seems exceedingly ambitious, as it would cost $170 million, be located 186 feet off land, and contain wooded nooks and three performance venues including an amphitheater. Barry Diller, sponsor-to-be of this ambitious plan, gives the project a much more realistic outlook. The billionaire chairman of IAC/InterActiveCorp, former head of Paramount Pictures and Fox–and husband to Diane von Furstenberg–was the single largest donor to the High Line. He's pledged $130 million from the Diller-von Furstenberg Family Foundation to make the 2.7-acre park a realty, as well as agreed to run the outdoor space and cover operating expenses for 20 years. He and his wife have starchitect-designed offices in the Meatpacking District and are clearly becoming king and queen of the neighborhood.
More on the futuristic park ahead
November 17, 2014

Daily Link Fix: Snøhetta Talks About Designing the 9/11 Memorial Museum; Brooklyn Is a Chocolate Mecca

Snøhetta talks about designing the 9/11 Memorial Museum. Architect Craig Dykers describes how his own experience with the tragedy inspired the process. Watch the video on Arch Daily. Chocolate fiends should probably move to Brooklyn. Crain’s reports that the borough is becoming the “chocolate district.” I Quant NY colorfully maps the city’s address system. There’s […]

November 15, 2014

Weekly Highlights: Top Picks from the 6sqft Staff

Is Airbnb as good for NYC as they say it is, or is it threatening affordable housing? We dissect the controversy. In our third installment of NYC’s skyscraper boom we take a look at unreleased plans on the drawing boards, office and hotel projects rising throughout the city, and the development boom occurring in Jersey City There’s neuroscientific […]