Art and Urban Regeneration in New York City. Doris C. Freedman’s Public Project

<p>Given its positive economic, social and urban impact, even with low-cost or low-tech materialization, the urban creativity encouraged by the arts is of great interest today. This narrative reviews one of the most prolific careers in this regard addressing the pioneering work by Doris C. Freedman. The late 1960s and the 1970s, in the context of two financial crises, saw a groundbreaking effort to formalize innovative artistic programs that recycled the obsolete city and integrated local communities in the processes. Doris C. Freedman was the first director of NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, the Public Arts Council, and leader of the organization City Walls. These institutions promoted an unprecedented improvement of the public urban life through the cultural action. Such experiences led Freedman to the conception of her last project, the relevant and, still, ongoing Public Art Fund of New York City. This article focuses on her early professional years, when she began and consolidated herself in the task of legitimizing art as an urban instrument for shaping the city. This research provides a contextualized critical analysis on Freedman’s less-known experimental projects before the foundation of the Public Art Fund, enabling an extraordinary source of inspiration for a current creative city-making.</p>

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Mathematical Lens: Starry Night

Mathematics Teacher ◽

10.5951/mt.102.6.0408 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 102 (6) ◽

pp. 408-412

Keyword(s):

New York ◽

New York City ◽

York City ◽

Public Art ◽

Cell Phones ◽

Metal Detector ◽

Flat Surfaces ◽

The Public ◽

The People ◽

Led Lights

At first glance, James Yamada's Our Starry Night, on view at the Doris C. Freedman Plaza in New York City from April to October 2008, is a black, twelve-foot-tall sculpture with 1900 unlit colored LED lights on its two flat surfaces (see photograph 1). When one passes through the sculpture's rectangular passageway, however, patterns of light appear. The explanation, on a nearby plaque and the Public Art Fund Project Web site, states: “When visitors walk through the portal in the piece, they trigger a metal detector hidden inside the structure's casing. This activates the LED lights that perforate the exterior of the sculpture. Common everyday metal objects such as cell phones, keys, belts, jewelry, cameras, computers, and the like will trigger the lights; the luminosity and the light patterns seen in the piece will correspond to the quantity of metal detected. Our Starry Night is literally activated by the public, reinforcing the notion that art—and particularly public art—is dependent on the people around it.” Watching the colored patterns appear led Brigitte Bentele to consider some mathematical questions. She asked a friend to help by walking through the passageway numerous times.

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The Public Utteraton Machines: Recording What People Think of Public Art in New York City

Leonardo Music Journal ◽

10.1162/lmj_a_01031 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 28 ◽

pp. 48-50

Author(s):

Rebecca Hackemann

Keyword(s):

New York ◽

New York City ◽

York City ◽

Public Art ◽

Social Practice ◽

Quantitative Data ◽

Art Practice ◽

The Public ◽

Object Based ◽

The City

In 2015–2016 the author installed interactive public artworks on sidewalks in Brooklyn and Queens using ordinary city permits. The locations were chosen in counterbalance to the dominant choices of location for public art in New York, which tends to be placed in Manhattan or other tourist-concentrated areas. The works are entitled the Public Utteraton Machines and enable passersby to utter their opinions about other public art in the city as well as art’s role in society. The device’s earpiece recorded over 100 open-ended narratives and 391 responses to quantitative data questions via an integrated e-paper display screen. This public art project combines social practice with object-based public art into a conceptual public art practice that forms a commons or civic art. Sound archives of the responses can be found at local libraries in Queens and Brooklyn and at http://utteraton.com/ .

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Hospitals: N.Y. Appellate Court Denies Move to Privatize Public Hospital

The Journal of Law Medicine & Ethics ◽

10.1017/s1073110500012961 ◽

1999 ◽

Vol 27 (2) ◽

pp. 202-203

Author(s):

Robert Chatham

Keyword(s):

New York ◽

New York City ◽

York City ◽

Public Health System ◽

Municipal Hospital ◽

The Public ◽

Public Benefit ◽

For Profit ◽

Benefit Corporation ◽

The City

The Court of Appeals of New York held, in Council of the City of New York u. Giuliani, slip op. 02634, 1999 WL 179257 (N.Y. Mar. 30, 1999), that New York City may not privatize a public city hospital without state statutory authorization. The court found invalid a sublease of a municipal hospital operated by a public benefit corporation to a private, for-profit entity. The court reasoned that the controlling statute prescribed the operation of a municipal hospital as a government function that must be fulfilled by the public benefit corporation as long as it exists, and nothing short of legislative action could put an end to the corporation's existence.In 1969, the New York State legislature enacted the Health and Hospitals Corporation Act (HHCA), establishing the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC) as an attempt to improve the New York City public health system. Thirty years later, on a renewed perception that the public health system was once again lacking, the city administration approved a sublease of Coney Island Hospital from HHC to PHS New York, Inc. (PHS), a private, for-profit entity.

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The Search for Order in Municipal Administration: Herman A. Metz and the New York City Experience, 1898–1909

Accounting Historians Journal ◽

10.2308/aahj-18-019 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 47 (1) ◽

pp. 55-74

Author(s):

Ryan P. McDonough ◽

Paul J. Miranti ◽

Michael P. Schoderbek

Keyword(s):

New York ◽

New York City ◽

Internal Control ◽

York City ◽

Internal Controls ◽

Data Availability ◽

Financial Reports ◽

The Public ◽

Operational Activities ◽

The City

ABSTRACT This paper examines the administrative and accounting reforms coordinated by Herman A. Metz around the turn of the 20th century in New York City. Reform efforts were motivated by deficiencies in administering New York City's finances, including a lack of internal control over monetary resources and operational activities, and opaque financial reports. The activities of Comptroller Metz, who collaborated with institutions such as the New York Bureau of Municipal Research, were paramount in initiating and implementing the administrative and accounting reforms in the city, which contributed to reform efforts across the country. Metz promoted the adoption of functional cost classifications for city departments, developed flowcharts for improved transaction processing, strengthened internal controls, and published the 1909 Manual of Accounting and Business Procedure of the City of New York, which laid the groundwork for transparent financial reports capable of providing vital information about the city's activities and subsidiary units. JEL Classifications: H72, M41, N91. Data Availability: Data are available from the public sources cited in the text.

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Jared N. Day. Urban Castles: Tenement Housing and Urban Landlord Activism in New York City, 1890–1943. (The Columbia History of Urban Life.) New York: Columbia University Press. 1999. Pp. x, 262. Cloth $47.50, paper $18.50

The American Historical Review ◽

10.1086/ahr/106.2.577 ◽

2001 ◽

Keyword(s):

New York ◽

New York City ◽

York City ◽

Urban Life ◽

Columbia University ◽

History Of

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Quality of urban life among older adults in the world major metropolises: a cross-cultural comparative study

Ageing and Society ◽

10.1017/s0144686x16000957 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 38 (1) ◽

pp. 108-128 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

XI PAN ◽

JASLEEN K. CHAHAL ◽

ROSE MARIE WARD

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

New York ◽

New York City ◽

Factor Analysis ◽

Cultural Differences ◽

York City ◽

Cross Cultural ◽

Urban Life ◽

Quality Of Urban Life

ABSTRACTThe concept of quality of urban life (QoUL) can be interpreted quite differently across different cultures. Little evidence has shown that the measure of QoUL, which is based on Western culture, can be applied to populations cross-culturally. In the current study, we use data from the 2006 Assessing Happiness and Competitiveness of World Major Metropolises study to identify underlying factors associated with QoUL as well as assess the consistency of the QoUL measurement among adults, aged 60 and older, in ten world major metropolises (i.e. New York City, Toronto, London, Paris, Milan, Berlin, Stockholm, Beijing, Tokyo and Seoul). Exploratory factor analysis and multiple-group confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) are used to analyse the data. Findings of the study suggest that the measure of QoUL is sensitive to socio-cultural differences. Community factor and intrapersonal factor are two underlying structures that are related to QoUL among older adults in ten metropolises cross-culturally. Results from the CFA indicate that Toronto is comparable with Beijing, New York City, Paris, Milan and Stockholm in QoUL, while other cities are not. The results provide insights into the development of current urban policy and promotion of quality of life among older residents in major metropolitan areas. Future researchers should continue to explore the relationship between QoUL and socio-cultural differences within international urban settings, while remaining cautious when making cross-cultural comparisons.

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A statewide analysis of SARS-CoV-2 transmission in New York

10.1101/2021.02.20.21251598 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Erica Lasek-Nesselquist ◽

Navjot Singh ◽

Alexis Russell ◽

Daryl Lamson ◽

John Kelly ◽

...

Keyword(s):

New York ◽

New York City ◽

York City ◽

New York State ◽

The United States ◽

York State ◽

Multiple Introductions ◽

The Public ◽

Travel Restrictions ◽

Westchester County

AbstractNew York State, in particular the New York City metropolitan area, was the early epicenter of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in the United States. Similar to initial pandemic dynamics in many metropolitan areas, multiple introductions from various locations appear to have contributed to the swell of positive cases. However, representation and analysis of samples from New York regions outside the greater New York City area were lacking, as were SARS-CoV-2 genomes from the earliest cases associated with the Westchester County outbreak, which represents the first outbreak recorded in New York State. The Wadsworth Center, the public health laboratory of New York State, sought to characterize the transmission dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 across the entire state of New York from March to September with the addition of over 600 genomes from under-sampled and previously unsampled New York counties and to more fully understand the breadth of the initial outbreak in Westchester County. Additional sequencing confirmed the dominance of B.1 and descendant lineages (collectively referred to as B.1.X) in New York State. Community structure, phylogenetic, and phylogeographic analyses suggested that the Westchester outbreak was associated with continued transmission of the virus throughout the state, even after travel restrictions and the on-pause measures of March, contributing to a substantial proportion of the B.1 transmission clusters as of September 30th, 2020.

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