nickelcobalt:

The ‘Boneyard,’ World’s Biggest Plane Cemetery, Revealed By Google Earth (PHOTOS)

#planning porn ?

Slowly but surely catching up on J.B. Jackson’s Landscape in Sight.  His essay, “The Vernacular City,” sang praises to American’s streets as an integral part of our landscape.  In my response, I considered just how much better that portion of our landscape could look.  Because it’s currently a disaster.

I love how, especially in New York, street plans are meticulously planned, but then the subway lines just sort of… happened.  (Well, not exactly, but just look at it.)  All criticism aside, I love these scale drawings of subway systems around the world.

My favorite: Beijing.

South Street Seaport today:

(Image via thenewseaport.com)

Meh, if not bleh.

The Seaport tomorrow?:

(Image via Curbed)

Uhh… A for effort, I guess.

The plan went to the Landmarks Preservation Commission yesterday, as the site is in a historic district.  Full report is up on Curbed.

It’s interesting to see the differences in circular plans between the Middle East and the West.

National Geographic put together some audio/visual tours of the mess of tubes, cables, and wires that are tangled underneath Manhattan!

What Manhattan could have looked like: a plan drafted in 1803 - click to enlarge.  (via NYPL)

For a comparison piece on the suburbs of Connecticut, Boston, and New York, click away. The piece is in relation to James Howard Kunstler’s The Geography of Nowhere. A class at Gallatin called “A Sense of Place” hosts an entire site with weekly blog entries from students. My blog is here, and will gradually get more interesting as the semester continues.

Stuff like this is just plain fun.  If only NY wasn’t about to be completely broke…the DOT could launch an initiative like this, instead of, say, randomly resurfacing streets.

Really Great: A map of New York City according to “their closest State population analogues,” via Curbed.  Imagine if population demographics (and their respective accents!) corresponded as well.

This site is beyond old news, but it’s new to me…  The architect Brian McGrath devised this concept of “Manhattan Timeformations” where he used computer models and interactive animations to map Manhattan’s skyscraper development.  Not only is the design of the site pretty, but the result makes for a clear, insightful resource for studying different parts of Manhattan’s infrastructure.  Also, he references different books and films that “characterize” the motives for building during particular eras.  It was on display at the Skyscraper Museum in 2000.  (…I’m really behind the times here…)

Mission somewhat accomplished.