A New Yorker's Take on Sustainability, Future of Cities, & Gaza

Interview with Michael Sorkin by yours truly. Full version to be presented here once magazine is sold out.

JO Magazine, February 2009

When Bigger Isn't Necessarily Better

"Although compared variously to Las Vegas, Manhattan, Orlando, Monaco and Singapore, the sheikhdom is more like their collective summation and mythologization: a hallucinatory pastiche of the big, the bad and the ugly." The Mike Davis take on Dubai.

Dubai: a city which presents itself in part as a Manhattan replicator & competitor. Manhattan: a borough which presents itself as itself.

I Am Not A Paper Cup

In New York City the paper cup is a hallmark of a particular case of urbanism: the dwellers & commuters are constantly drinking while on the go. Each block generates almost as many paper cups per day as the numbers of the people living on it (according to my crude reasoning). But then paper cups go a long way. The trash can is just the first journey along many for this paper cup to sustainably reincarnate itself in another form.


The metro-governance of the City of New York is busy untying big development knots like those going on at Ground Zero or at the yards of Hell's Kitchen. And it's busy selling porcelain cups that look exactly like their paper counterparts but that are more friendly to the waste management system. "I Am Not A Paper Cup" is officially brought to you by the Official Store of the City of New York. I say buy it and spare some more trees from your Caffeine rush.

A Katz Effect

5th Avenue. Spring. 365. Wednesdays with Katz. A write-up on Amman.

JO Magazine. October 2008. Published by Al-Farida.

The Bay Ridge View of Manhattan

Courtesy of Andrew Henderson

Even Google Can't Resist NY

So the other day I was saving an event on Google Calender. It was first thing on my schedule for the morning. Look what I got:

Mon, September 8, 9am – 10am What: e.g., Breakfast at Tiffany's

(With a paper cup and a Danish wouldn't I want too?)

A New York Moment

They claim that there is always a moment when you move into the city and realize that you have become a true New Yorker.

Mine was during one afternoon when I had grabbed a cab with a fresh newcomer to the city. Our trip started from Grand Central, heading towards Union Square (yep we grabbed a cab although a 4 or 5 train would have took us in less time, not to mention money), but I was out ruled for a treat. So, we entered and I asked the driver to take us to our destination. He asked "Shall I go through Broadway", and I answered "Yes". A few blocks and many conversations later, the driver mumbles something that sounds English but makes no sense. I looked out the window and there we were on 14th street, but Union Square was nowhere to be seen. I asked him where we were but he couldn't tell, then I shrieked: "Please don't tell me we are near the blue line." He was clueless but I went on in a high-toned frustrated voice "The A, C, E lines, there isn't a subway station at the upcoming corner on the right, is there?" Then I saw it, we were in Chelsea! "How can you do that, we are on the wrong side of the island, Union Square is on the East, we're on the West, why didn't you stay on Broadway?" I went on, then I turned to the newcomer, who was witnessing a rant hopeless to help, and explained that the square is on the intersection of Broadway and 14th, and that it's outraging how a cab driver wouldn't know it. We turned back and headed East, with the meter off, and back on when we hit Broadway, the only sign of proper interaction from the driver. I leaned back thinking that my moment had come.

*If you can't see the interest in such a topic, then most probably you haven't lived NY at all.