• Now On Display in Union Square Park

    Here’s what’s on display in the park:

    Miranda July is a fiction writer (No One Belongs Here More Than You), a filmmaker (Me and You and Everyone We Know), a performance artist (Things We Don’t Understand and Are Definitely Not Going to Talk About), and an occasional sculptress. It’s that latter designation that’s the focus of a new public art installation, the comparatively terse “Eleven Heavy Things,” organized by Deitch Projects, which opened late last week in New York’s Union Square Park. (The installation will remain in the park through October 3rd.) The sculptures, many of which revolve around a line of text written in July’s own hand, prod the viewer into audience interaction. “What I look like when I’m lying,” reads one, a white tablet through which the viewer can stick his head. A trio of pedestals — labeled ‘The Guilty One,’ ‘The Guiltier One,’ and ‘The Guiltiest One’ — asks participants to gauge (and flaunt) their general culpability. Three of the sculptures are wordless “headdresses,” decorative sculptures that July compares to the dialogue-free stretches of a movie: “The shapes are those parts of this piece.”

  • Notice of Annual Shareholders’ Meeting

    The annual shareholder’s meeting will take place on Wednesday June 30th at 7PM at the Seafarers’ and Interational House at 123 East 15th St, second floor.

    At the meeting, the Board of Directors will be seeking at least one new member. If you wish to become a candidate for the Board and have your name placed on the ballot, please feel free to provide a short biography of yourself via fax (212) 986-0002 or e-mail to ymartinez@akam.com. The Board will also welcome nominations at the meeting itself.

  • New School Building Design Update

    As you’re well aware, the demolition and construction of The New School site at 65 Fifth Avenue is well underway. On Thursday, The New School revealed for the first time the official design of the building, which includes some of the elements from its earliest sketches, such as the exposed staircases, but is different in two notable ways: the building is smaller than originally planned, and it is partially class in brass, rather than entirely in glass.

    The building is being constructed as of right. There is no more debate over design or size. This is pretty much what we’re going to see: a university hub of about 16 stories with eight floors of campus space topped by a smaller eight floors of dormitory housing for 600 students.

    To get caught up on what the building looks like and see many photos of the model, click here.

    To read the somewhat positive New York Times architecture critic’s review, click here.

    A neighbor attended the public viewing of the model and came away with some great facts:

    –The loading dock is on 13th street at the eastern most corner of the lot.

    –The main entrance to the building is on the southwest corner. This is for everything except the dormitories.

    –The dormitory entrance is on 5th avenue, about 1/3 of the way down from 14th street.

    –The northern 1/3 of the building at street level is retail – no word on what though.

    –Directly above the retail is a cafeteria. It looks like seating for 300, which makes sense considering the 600 person dormitory.

    –The dormitory floors are set back on all sides, and shaped in a ‘C’ with a light well on the eastern side of the stack. They are four bed suites, with kitchenettes in them.

    –The set-back between the lower and upper halves is a green roof, and they say that for liability reasons it will not be open to the general building population. Pressing on this, and the answer was that while the green roof hasn’t been engineered yet, it is likely going to be possible to have foot traffic on it and will perhaps be open to supervised use (during a class, or for an experiment of some kind). (So no midnight keg parties, we hope.)

    The green roof is at the level of 7 East 13th St/10 East 14th St, so about the same height as our roof.

    — It looks like it’s designed to keep students inside the building, and not loitering on the street. The canopies are small, and the doors aren’t inset, so there isn’t any natural gathering space just outside on the sidewalk.

    We hope that this brings everyone up to date on a project that will be a big part of the pulse of the neighborhood for the next two years….and beyond.