About this item
New York City as it might have been: 200 years of visionary architectural plans for unbuilt subways, bridges, parks, airports, stadiums, streets, train stations and, of course, skyscrapersNever Built New York shows us the visionary architectural ideas of the city's greatest dreamers across two centuries of New York City history. Nearly 200 proposals spanning 200 years encompass bridges, skyscrapers, master plans, parks, transit schemes, amusements, airports, plans to fill in rivers and extend Manhattan, and much, much more. Included are alternate visions for Central Park, Columbus Circle, Lincoln Center, MoMA, the UN, Grand Central Terminal, the World Trade Center site and other highlights such as: Alfred Ely Beach's system of airtight subway cars propelled via atmospheric pressure; Frank Lloyd Wright's last project, his Key Plan for Ellis Island, on which he would have developed his dream city; Buckminster Fuller's design for Brooklyn's Dodger Stadium, complete with giant geodesic dome to shield players and fans from the rain; developer William Zeckendorf's Rooftop Airport, perched on steel columns 200 feet above street level, spanning from 24th to 71st Street, Ninth Avenue to the Hudson River; John Johansen's Leapfrog City proposal to create an entirely new neighborhood atop the tenements of East Harlem; and Stephen Holl's Bridge of Houses, offering options from SROs to modest studios to luxury apartments on a segment of what is now the High Line.
About the Author
Greg Goldin is the author most recently of Never Built New York. He was born and raised in Los Angeles, living at first in suburbia, next in the geographic center of the city in a neighborhood with two early Schindler houses and Gregory Ain's Dunsmuir Apartments. Those buildings inspired his interest in architecture. After many years as a political reporter, he jumped ship and became the Architecture Critic at Los Angeles Magazine, a twelve-year stint that led to the book Never Built Los Angeles (Metropolis Books, 2013) and the exhibition Never Built Los Angeles, which premiered at the A D Architecture and Design Museum, Los Angeles, in July 2013. He was the recipient of a coveted Getty Research Institute grant for Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in L.A. in 2011. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter, where he continues to unearth untold architectural tales and unbuilt architectural projects.
