Queens Plaza to Transform into a Lush Urban Canopy?

If you think the High Line is cool, check out the plans for the new Queens Plaza. From Urban Omnibus:
The Queens Plaza Bicycle and Pedestrian Landscape Improvement Project transforms the tangle of urban infrastructure cutting through Long Island City from a harsh, disorienting industrial maze into a lush, navigable landscape, a gateway to Long Island [...]

The World at the Y: NGO Leaders from Abroad Gather in NYC

In what looks like a pretty impressive cross-sector, cross-continent, and cross-NYC collaboration,  18 leaders from NGOs in Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Estonia, Ethiopia, Israel, Latvia, Liberia, and Uruguay recently landed here for three weeks of “intensive training in nonprofit management and building civil societies.”
According to a press release from the 92nd Street Y, the Ford Motor Company [...]

The Lady Next to You on the Subway? She Just Might Be a Mushroom Hunter

I’ve only been here a few months, but I already catch myself going through the ritual of my commute on autopilot. Sometimes I put my newspaper down and look around the subway car and it hits me: I live in a city with eight million other people. These aren’t just faces on a Guess Who [...]

Fly a Kite to Benefit Architecture for Humanity

Between the summer-blue sky and the “Air Force One photo op,” I’ve been directing my gaze up at the skyline more often these days. On May 9, I’ll be even more excited to crane my neck: an international kite design competition is coming to Riverside Park!
FlyNY invites architects, engineers, artists, designers, and children to construct [...]

NYCStat Stimulus Tracker: Where’s the Money Going?

Back in March, we shared some information about how you can track the spending of economic stimulus money in New York. Since then, the NYT City Room blog has posted more. From City Hall Invites You to Track the Stimulus (March 30):
Want to know which local transportation projects are getting a piece of the $261 [...]

Get Out and Eat: Take a Local Food Tour

On a dreary day like today, the excursions offered by Food for Thought Tours sound like a belly-filling and soul-warming way to usher in springtime. And as a relative newcomer to New York, they strike me as a delicious way to learn a lot about the agriculture and economy of my new state.
Trips, scavenger hunts, [...]

SunlightNYC: Publicly Tracking Stimulus Money in New York

Want to see just how economic recovery money is being spent in your community?
From a February 26 press release:
Council member Bill de Blasio today announced he is drafting legislation to require transparency and accountability in the City’s spending of Stimulus funds. The proposed legislation would create a new government website, SunlightNYC, to help the [...]

Be a Top Chef in Your Community

Bright Knives. Big City. Tonight the Top Chef: New York finalists will duke it out for the grand prize, and if you’re feeling inspired to cook lots and cook local, you can apply to become a Just Food Community Chef.
We just learned about this community food education program via sustaiNYC:
Through Just Food’s Community Chef training [...]

Call for Applications: The Laundromat Project’s Public Artist Residency Program

Several months ago, I heard about 2004 Echoing Green Fellow Takema Robinson’s Laundromat Project:
Believing that tools of self-determination lie within creative practices, The Laundromat Project uses the space of local coin-ops to provide communities of color living on modest incomes with broad access to visual art as a tool of personal and social transformation.
Looks like [...]

Give a Valentine to New York: Donate Blood at CUNY on Wednesday

CUNY’s Graduate Center is hosting a “Pre-Valentine’s Day Blood Drive” this week. The drive will take place Wednesday, February 11 from 10:00 a.m.–3:30 p.m. in the CUNY Graduate Center (365 Fifth Avenue at 34th Street, Manhattan).
Details from the event website:
Call 212-817-8234 to make an appointment to donate blood at the Graduate Center or stop by [...]