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Showing posts from December, 2010

Snail mail not slowed by the snowstorm

The "sixth largest snowstorm in New York City" on record did not snow-in mail boxes or the postman. Image: New York Post Office, New York, 1960s ( source ) This figures; the following excerpt from a Herodotus work is inscribed on the city's main post office, the historic James Farley Post Office: Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. Image: Farley Post Office green roof We profiled the Farley Post Office's green roof , the largest in New York City at 2.5 acres, which provides passive recreation and environmental services such as reductions in summer and winter runoff and savings in heating and cooling costs.

Then (November) & Now (post-December blizzard)

The plaza outside New York University's Coles Gym on Mercer Street in November 2010 and on December 28, 2010 after the "sixth largest snowstorm in New York City [recorded] History" according to New York magazine via the Daily News and the New York Times . Did you have post-Christmas precipitation in your area? What type and how much? Links to photographs can be included in the comment section, too.

Green-roofed bird houses

Image: Bluebird House by Sustainable Pet Design (courtesy of Stephanie Rubin) Sustainable Pet Design ships unplanted, waterproofed bird (and dog) houses "with drainage material, filter fabric, and [their] special soil mix." Planted houses can be shipped to California addresses. The company can provide native plant sources to their customers. Each house is constructed of untreated red cedar planks, zero-VOC paint, and beeswax waterproofing. Image: Chiclet Birdhouse by Sustainable Pet Design (courtesy of Stephanie Rubin) These bird houses might be good gifts for folks who live in the Central Park neighborhood or in Los Angeles County and other areas of Southern California. Why? See the numbers below. On Sunday, December 19, 2010, the 111th Christmas Bird Count in Central Park recorded 59 species of birds and 6,220 individual birds reported the NYC Parks Daily Plant blog. Also, on Sunday, December 19, "six locations in L.A. County set new record rainf

Playing in traffic in Washington Square Park

Image: Washington Square Park (Memorial Arch) by Percy Loomis Sperr, 1925 ( source ) We count Washington Square Park as one of our neighborhood parks.  Imagine my surprise when I read that cars once ran through the park via Fifth Avenue!  On the "closing streets and roads" to gain parkland in Urban Green: Innovative Parks for Resurgent Cities , Peter Harnik wrote that the park had been bisected by Fifth Avenue until 1964.  Ironically, a proposal to expand that avenue into a freeway led to the uproar that made the park entirely car-free--and a much more successful space (2010, 143). Road closure in the park resulted in a gain of one and a half acres of parkland according to Anthony Flint in Wrestling with Moses: How Jane Jacobs Took On New York's Master Builder and Transformed the American City .  Flint placed the closure of Fifth Avenue at "a few weeks before the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November 1963." Image: Park entrance at Waverly Place a

Stewarding the High Line photo illustrates an eco-city article in Die Gazette 28

Image: Captioned "Pflege des High-Line-Parks durch lokale Organisationen" in Die Gazette 28 (p. 55) Our photograph of a High Line staff person watering the Washington Grasslands was included in "Das nackte und - das Gute Leben" (The naked and - the Good Life) by Von Rainer Schmitz and Johanna Söhnigen published in Die Gazette 's Winter 2010/2011 issue.  (Thank you Dr. Fritz R. Glunk.)  Schmitz and Söhnigen considered "different visions of the eco-city of the future."  Images of the High Line Park, Buckminster Fuller's Dome over Manhattan, 1960 , among others accompanied the article. The High Line has been the subject of six posts.  Have you read all six?  You can, now! Autumn color on the High Line Opening day for Imagination Playground Every drop counts at the High Line Stewarding High Line Park Time on the High Line Manhattan's parks as green infrastructure

American sweetgums removed from the landscape design of the 9/11 Memorial Plaza

Image: Row of sweetgums in early fall, Berkeley, California In November 2006, New York Times reporter David W. Dunlap wrote about the selection of and caring for the sweetgums and oaks to populate the completed 9/11 Memorial Plaza.  A 9/11 Memorial document from 2009 advertising holiday ornaments described the inspiration for choosing the sweetgum and the swamp white oak for the memorial's landscape. In the fall, the lustrous green and white colored leaves of the Swamp White Oak trees, Quercus Bicolor , will change to colors ranging from amber to golden brown, and sometimes pink and will serve as graceful and hopeful symbols of life and longevity. The Sweet Gum trees, Liquidambar styraciflua , will ring the Memorial glade, a clearing within the grove for gatherings and ceremonies. Sweet Gum trees have star-shaped, glossy leaves that turn brilliant colors of red and gold around the time of the 9/11 anniversary. By reminding us of the natural cycle of life, the Mem

Uptown Normal's blue-green roundabout

The term "blue-green" is taken from the Blue-Green Building website maintained by Friends of Five Creeks in Berkeley, California.  We have used the term to describe a traffic circle in Uptown Normal, Illinois because the circle collects and filters stormwater (blue) and features a park and uses plants to filter runoff (green) .  All plan images were created by Hoerr Schaudt courtesy of Hoerr Schaudt Landscape Architects with the exception of the Uptown Circle rendering and the Potsdam Gate plan image. Uptown Normal's blue-green roundabout was designed by Hoerr Schaudt of Hoerr Schaudt Landscape Architects. The traffic circle is a sustainability feature of the Uptown Plan , a redevelopment plan initiated by the Town Council of Normal in 1999.  The circle "connects Beaufort Street, North Street, Constitution Boulevard" and "replaced a formerly awkward intersection at that location." A roundabout design was selected for three reasons. One, Fede

And the EPA Smart Growth Achievement award goes to...

...San Francisco's Mint Plaza by CMG Landscape Architects and Sherwood Design Engineers.  Thanks to a posting on Infrastructurist we learned that one of our favorite small, open spaces in San Francisco has won the EPA Smart Growth Achievement award in the Civic Places category.  We wrote about  the stormwater management elements of the plaza here . The EPA created the National Award for Smart Growth Achievement "in 2002 to recognize exceptional approaches to development that respect the environment, foster economic vitality, and enhance quality of life."  Mint Plaza received the award in its category because As many municipalities struggle with limited resources to improve and maintain the public realm, a local developer, working with the city and county of San Francisco, successfully transformed Jessie Street, a neglected city-owned alleyway, into Mint Plaza, a neighborhood public space. Since its completion in 2008, Mint Plaza has become a model of adapt

Finding Park Space in the City

Note: the title of this post was taken from a chapter in Urban Green: Innovative Parks for Resurgent Cities by Peter Harnik. Since we ran Aaron Odland's essay about the wildlife habitat potential of urban cemeteries and our own observations of the New Bowery or Second Cemetery of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, we have read several articles about the trend of urban cemeteries being used as parks. Most recently, Peter Harnik and Aric Merolli contributed "Cemeteries Alive" to Landscape Architecture magazine (December 2010).  In the article, Harnik and Merolli noted that cemeteries were often cities "primary green spaces."  Consider Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, MA and Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY.  The authors provided case studies of 11 "selected urban cemeteries that function like parks" including Cedar Hill in Hartford, CT, Grand View Cemetery in Fort Collins, CO, Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta, GA, and Evergreen Cemetery in Por

Tree care tools

Each student in the Trees New York Citizen Pruner course received a manual.  One of my favorite illustrations in the manual is Figure 3.2 - Tree Care Tools, shown below.  I have a few pairs of Felco hand pruners from my time as a community forester in New Haven.  (Also, I own a few dbh* tapes from my time as an urban forester in Boston.)  Tools on my wish list: a wire cutter/sheet metal snip, a lopping shear, a folding saw, and a pole pruner. Image: Tree Care Tools, Figure 3.2 in Trees New York Citizen Pruner Manual * dbh =  trunk diameter at breast height measured at 4 1/2 feet above the ground.

Fire hydrant marker

Have you ever seen a fire hydrant marker on the road?  I observed several in Hackensack, NJ on a recent trip there.  The markers are reflective, aiding fire department personnel to locate hydrants in low light conditions.  However, the markers are inconsequential if the road is snow covered.  The Hackensack Fire Department's "Adopt a Hydrant" program allows adopters to clear hydrants of snow in the winter and vegetation in the summer.  Other New Jersey cities, like Oradell, install reflective pole markers to assist fire fighters in locating hydrants in inclement weather. Image: Fire Hydrant Marking Device invented by Floyd L. Reardon (screen capture) ( source ) Vertical fire hydrant marking devices have been patented.  Floyd L. Reardon's Fire Hydrant Marking Device on July 17, 1962 and Kenneth D. Shrefler's Marking Device For A Fire Hydrant Or The Like on October 23, 1984. Image: Drinking water sampling station, Bedford Street Hydrant markers are on