Architecture Commons^™

We Have A (Home) - Co-Operative Homes For Sunset Park, Lisa Qiu

Masters Theses

The thesis believes that the speculative nature of land as property is at the root of the rising cost of quality living space. The combination of profit-driven market force and policies has produced inequality in the accessibility of property ownership.This reality is entangled with a culture that perceives exclusive rights and private ownership as superior to sharing for almost everything, especially the home.

This project believes affordable urban density can be achieved in a city like New York by pushing forward a sense of possibility and desirability in collaborative efforts to create and manage homes. These homes will not be …

Building Home In Diaspora: New York’S Jewish Left And The History Of The Bronx Housing Cooperatives, Micah Benjamin Wilson

Honors Projects

This thesis investigates three predominantly Jewish housing cooperatives that emerged in the Bronx in the late 1920s. The Amalgamated Housing Cooperative, the United Workers Cooperative Colony (the “Coops”), and the Sholem Aleichem Houses offered garment workers utopian retreats from the drudgery of Lower East Side tenements where Jewish immigrants arrived in droves between 1890-1920. With each cooperative housing a distinct faction of the Jewish Left––from socialists to communists to Yiddish nationalists––the Bronx housing cooperatives, more than experiments in communal living, were the site of a highly contested battle over competing Jewish cultural and political worldviews across the 1930s and 1940s. …

How American Transit Agencies Determine Fare Policy: It All Comes Down To Politics, Julian Thesseling

CMC Senior Theses

This paper will provide readers with an understanding of the variables that US transit agencies grapple with when developing fare policy, with a particular focus on the political process. The framework chapter will examine the objectives of public transportation and how agencies face difficulties in achieving these objectives. While this paper will focus on American transportation policy, the framework will draw from the experiences of cities across the world. Three case study chapters will then each discuss an American city or region’s approach to fare policy, and how variables have either complicated or enhanced agencies’ ability to develop effective fare …

Robert Moses And The Real Estate City: A Reexamination Of The Legacy Of New York's Master Builder, Jack Fascitelli

Senior Theses and Projects

The history of New York City would not look the same without Robert Moses. For over three decades, the city's "master builder" reshaped its urban landscape during an era of unprecedented top-down planning and mega-projects. The ideas of this era, once reviled, have seen a revival in the modern day, particularly in the first two decades of the twenty-first century. This essay seeks to reconcile this revival with the ongoing legacy of Robert Moses and to present an argument that such a reconciliation argues for a reconsideration of his career and his ideas.

Counter Institution: Activist Estates Of The Lower East Side [Bibliography], Nandini Bagchee

New York State City & Regional

In the midst of current debates about the accessibility of public spaces, resurfacing as a result of highly visible demonstrations and occupations, this book illuminates an overlooked domain of civic participation: the office, workshop, or building where activist groups meet to organize and plan acts of political dissent and collective participation. Author Nandini Bagchee examines three re-purposed buildings on the Lower East Side that have been used by activists to launch actions over the past forty years. The Peace Pentagon was the headquarters of the anti-war movement, El Bohio was a metaphoric “hut” that envisioned the Puerto Rican Community as …

Counter Institution: Activist Estates Of The Lower East Side [Notes], Nandini Bagchee

New York State City & Regional

In the midst of current debates about the accessibility of public spaces, resurfacing as a result of highly visible demonstrations and occupations, this book illuminates an overlooked domain of civic participation: the office, workshop, or building where activist groups meet to organize and plan acts of political dissent and collective participation. Author Nandini Bagchee examines three re-purposed buildings on the Lower East Side that have been used by activists to launch actions over the past forty years. The Peace Pentagon was the headquarters of the anti-war movement, El Bohio was a metaphoric “hut” that envisioned the Puerto Rican Community as …

Where Does Public Land Come From? Municipalization And Privatization Debates, Oksana Mironova, Samuel Stein

Publications and Research

This article illuminates contemporary land-use and disposition struggles in New York City by tracing the history of land’s passage between the private and public realms. The authors contend that government and community-controlled nonprofit organizations should govern the disposition of the city’s remaining public land supply, deliberately deploying this scarce resource to promote the well-being of the people and neighborhoods most at risk in a speculation-fueled real-estate environment.

Progress For Whom, Toward What? Progressive Politics And New York City’S Mandatory Inclusionary Housing, Samuel Stein

Publications and Research

In both its historical Progressive Era roots and its contemporary manifestations, U.S. urban progressivism has evinced a contradictory tendency toward promoting the interests of capital and property while ostensibly protecting labor and tenants, thus producing policies that undermine its central claims. This article interrogates past and present appeals to urban progressive politics, particularly around housing and planning, and offers an in-depth case study of one of the most highly touted examples of the new urban progressivism: New York City’s recently adopted Mandatory Inclusionary Housing program. This case serves to identify the ways in which progressive rhetoric can disguise neoliberal policies. …

Food Form Function, Travis Telemaque

Architecture Senior Theses

By 2050, the global population will have grown to over 9.7 Billion people. Traditional farming practices will no longer be able to sustain food production for the increasing population. This thesis demonstrates how architecture and urban food production can be used to educate and reconnect our cities with locally sourced food. Integrating food production into dense urban settings will create a more efficient and resilient city.

Amending The Building Code Of The City Of New York: Exploring Forces That Influenced Change, Dolores Spivack

Dissertations

This study seeks to understand the forces that influenced changes (i.e., amendments) to the Building Code of New York City over an approximately one hundred and ten year period spanning from 1898, the year of the city’s consolidation, through 2008, the year of the major code amendment following September 11, 2001. Although the emphasis is on this period, building codes specific to New York City since 1625 are researched to cultivate a broader understanding of the changes to building codes throughout the city’s history. In particular, the focus is on the building issues that the amendments sought to change and …

Active Density: Stimulating The Urban Domain In High-Rise Social Housing Developments, Heather Dela Cruz

Architecture Thesis Prep

I propose to retain the benefits of vertical housing and improve upon it by

up-zoning the block and building low-rise, high-density mixed-income structures

on the site’s perimeter. The new construction will include public amenities that are

lacking in the immediate area such as retail, restaurants, work space, and public

service facilities. Through adaptive re-use of mega blocks will be reclaimed. This

mixed-use approach to the expanded occupancy will also restore the diversity that

was lost when the towers were first built.

Preserving The Historic Garden Suburb: Case Studies From London And New York, Jeffrey A. Kroessler

Suburban Sustainability

The garden city or garden suburb was a response to the social and environmental ills of cities at the turn of the twentieth century. Letchworth Garden City, Hampstead Garden Suburb, and Welwyn Garden City were built outside London in the early 1900s, and each remains a highly desirable place of residence today. From the start, each was tightly regulated, and remains so a century later. By protecting the appearance and enhancing property values, the strict application of historic preservation principles contribute to the long-term sustainability of each place. Similar garden suburbs were built in the borough of Queens in New …

The Future Of Red Hook, Brooklyn: Learning From Evolving New York City Neighborhoods, Robin Lynne Wachen

Master's Theses

This master’s thesis identifies the potential impacts of planning policies and key stakeholder groups on Red Hook, Brooklyn given current development trends and the neighborhood changes such as gentrification. The premise of this thesis is that through understanding the catalysts and impacts of social and economic change in similar neighborhoods, together with the analysis of current zoning, planning policies, and neighborhood culture and demographics in Red Hook, it is possible to identify how future changes may generate positive outcomes for the neighborhood. A review of planning literature provides a perspective on the disinvestment to reinvestment process seen in many New …

True North: Transportation Issues In Riverdale And Edenwald, Amelia Zaino

African & African American Studies Senior Theses

No abstract provided.

Growing Greener In The City: Open Space Advocacy For Environmental Justice In Jackson Heights, Donovan Finn

School of Marine & Atmospheric Sciences Faculty Publications

Local residents in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of Queens, New York City, develop a do it yourself solution to the community's lack of park space. The case study shows how civic advocacy can address issues of environmental justice and open space access in urban communities. by harnessing local social capital and building coalitions with city agencies and non-governmental partners.

Reconnect The Urban Surface --- By Making Landscape And Infrastructure, Ming Gao

Architecture Senior Theses

Today in the post industrial city, the connection between different places relies mostly on transportation by way of automobiles, public buses, and subway. By walking or biking, people are able to talk with nature directly. However, by modern transportation, people are confined in a close machinery space which prevents them from experiencing nature directly. They are separated from nature by consciously choosing to use modern transportation during their daily lives, and they get less and less direct access to nature. Nowadays, nature experienced space within walking distance int he city is limited to the tiny front yard garden, where landscape …

Fluid Architecture : Synthesis : City, Adriana L. Zarrillo

Architecture Thesis Prep

"This proposal intends to manipulate the streams of the city and their potential overlaps and deviations in order to create an intervention that will revitalize both economically and aesthetically a localized area. By further developing the city streams that are already present, the pre-existing conditions, and subsequently introducing those streams that are not present in order to produce the desired result, a successful dynamic node of convergent streams with the potential to link back to larger scales."

Hotel In Nyc By Christopher Ruck, Christopher Ruck

Architecture Senior Theses

A hotel located in New York City.

Thesis Board, Britton Award Winner.