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This research is concerned with individuals' symbolic interactions with the Charging Bull statue. We chose this statue because it is an extremely popular tourist attraction and the most visited nonhuman statue in New York City. However, there is no research devoted to understanding how visitors interact with the statue. To fill this gap in the literature, we examine people's interactions as a unique way of communicating with the Charging Bull statue in New York City through a photo analysis approach. Using the general framework of symbolic interactionism, the paper investigates poses, gestures, and more generally interactions of individuals near or with the statue to gain insights into the impact of the Charging Bull beyond a mere visual representation. The findings reveal various forms of interaction, including souvenir photography, active participation, unexpected interactions, and public-made symbolism. This study of these interactions contributes to the literature on collective memory and the study of statues. Additionally, this research highlights the inventiveness of the dynamic relationship between individuals and statues as symbols in the urban environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The investigation of linguistic landscapes (LL) among the Arab community in downtown Brooklyn, New York City, is an underserved public space in the literature. This research focused on social and commercial or 'bottom-up signs' in LL to understand their purpose, origin and target audience. Drawing upon discourse analysis, the study was conceptualized according to the principles of border theory and geosemiotics. The latter was used to analyze the data, which consisted of random photographs of shopfronts in Brooklyn taken with a digital camera during the summer of 2016. The three semiotic aggregates used for analysis consisted of interaction order, visual and place semiotics. The data analysis showed the multi-layered nature of LL in this urban community and the subjectiveness of spatial borders through a combination of text and symbolic imagery. The paper highlights the importance of commercial signs in the LL among ethnic minority communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses Nirmala Erevelles' Disability and Difference in Global Contexts: Enabling a Transformative Body Politic and Samuel R. Delaney's Times Square Red, Times Square Blue to examine the Giuliani administration's rezoning and redistricting of New York City's public sex spaces in the late '80s and early '90s as an example of "structural violence." This paper foregrounds Johan Galtung's theory of "structural violence" and Ervelles' definition of the social model of "disability" to argue that the Giuliani administration's spatial redefinition of New York (of Times Square, specifically) was a heteronormatively and capitalistically motivated initiative that effectively 'disabled' the homosexual population that frequented the homoerotic public sex spaces. The spatial redesign of Times Square supplanted Times Square's prior identity as an "entertainment area catering largely to the working classes who lived in the city," for a vision of a new Times Square that would capitalistically cater to a middleclass group of heteronormative families and tourists. This analysis reads the redistricting of New York through a disability theory lens to tease out the relationship between structural violence, capitalism, aberrant sexual identity, and conceptions of space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper turns to interdisciplinary museum and ruin studies with the objective to think about space, politics and the political. Situated in a post-foundational understanding of political difference, which roughly distinguishes between 'politics' as the realm of standardized, normalized positions and procedures of power, and 'the political' as the irreducible antagonistic dimension of political life, we explore the mutual interpenetrations as well as political divergences between ruins and museums. For this purpose, we consider 'museumification' as a socio-spatial process that tends to inscribe an order of 'politics', whereas we view 'ruination' as a potentiality to create socio-material voids, which may (re)activate moments of 'the political'. In this framework, the museum signifies an attempt to conserve, exhibit and transmit selected narratives of the past, potentially evoking a topographical notion of space, whereas the ruin dislocates, ambiguates and dismantles orders of the past, possibly leading to a topological understanding of space. After revisiting accounts of the museumification of ruins, we argue that the latter can be understood as a process which disambiguates, commodifies and thus depoliticizes ruins as polyvalent matters. We introduce the 'ruination of museums' as a material, discursive and affective process, bringing attention to the interrelated and conflicting modes of absence and presence in time and space. In 'ruined museums', museums and ruins coalesce into spatio-temporal tropes that attend to complex and complicated narratives of time, space and history. In 'ruined museums', the ossified politics of place(s) become mobilized via 'the political'. To illustrate this conceptual proposition of the 'ruined museum', we engage with the 9/11 memorial museum Reflecting Absence in New York City. Through this empirical case, we hope to advance a postfoundational understanding of space that acknowledges (urban) public places as inhabited and politicized by the agency, materiality and spatiality of ghostly presences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to present a new form of chart, which clarifies the inter-relationships between six fundamental urban design parameters that affect the quality and character of any urban layout. These parameters are: built-up area per capita; public ground area per capita (which includes streets and parks); plot factor (the ratio of land area given over to private development to land area available for public use, including that needed for circulation and area available for sport, recreation and public amenities (schools, hospitals, public toilets); floor space index (ratio of built-up area to buildable plot area); net density (population divided by the sum of all buildable plot areas); and gross density (population divided by total area). Mapping these six parameters in a chart shows the complicated trade-offs between one desirable feature and another, including combinations that show that higher densities do not necessarily mean small accommodation and inadequate public space – but they do mean high-rise, and there are severe limits on how high densities can go. The paper also plots diagrams that show the values of these parameters for existing localities in New York, Mumbai (including Dharavi) and Delhi. These diagrams are examples. With more data and more diagrams we might reach a better understanding of what particular values or combinations of values for these parameters we should aim for when designing a new development or modifying an old one. We might also understand the values or combinations of values that we should avoid. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Populations around the world are growing and becoming predominately urban, fueling the need to re-examine how urban spaces are developed and urban inhabitants are fed. One remedy that is increasingly being considered as a solution to inadequate food access in cities, is urban agriculture. As a practice, urban agriculture is beneficial in both post-industrial and developing cities because it touches on the three pillars of sustainability: economics, society, and the environment. Historically, as well as currently, economic and food security are two of the most common reasons for participation in urban agriculture. Urban agriculture not only provides a source of healthful sustenance that might otherwise be lacking, it can also contribute to a household's income, offset food expenditures, and create jobs. Social facets are another reason for populations to engage in urban agriculture. A garden or rooftop farm is a place where people come together for mutual benefit, often enhancing the common social and cultural identity for city residents. Larger urban farms also participate in community enrichment through job training and other educational programmes, many of which benefit underserved populations. Finally, urban agriculture can play an important role in the environmental sustainability of a city. As a form of green infrastructure, urban farms and community food gardens help reduce urban heat island effects, mitigate urban stormwater impacts and lower the energy embodied in food transportation. This paper will describe a multi-year study undertaken by the Urban Design Laboratory at the Earth Institute to assess the opportunities and challenges associated with the development of urban agriculture in New York City (NYC). The paper will present metrics on potential growing capacity within the City inclusive of both rooftop and land-based options, results from a survey of New York City based urban farmers that gathered information on the challenges and barriers to food production in NYC, with a focus on rooftop farming, and data from an environmental monitoring study on a commercial rooftop farm in Brooklyn. The paper will use the results of the multi-year study to provide insight into the potential role of urban agriculture to creating a more sustainable food system for New York City and cities elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes how the landscape of a public place in a New York City park embodies larger external structures within which sexual subjects actively organize local sexual culture. Controlling the configuration and utilization of such space is a technique of power used by the state apparatus. Based upon ethnographic fieldwork, we describe how the sexual culture situated within this public space is produced and reproduced in the micro-social practices of sexual subjects in the face of structural constraints. The social reorganization of sexuality occurs when subjects creatively refashion their local sexual culture through subtle alterations in the way they practice it. Such practical alterations occur in dialogue with larger structures. Ultimately, this analysis of sexual space in San José Park provides for an examination of the deployment of power and local sexual culture as the nexus of structure and agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New York City’s Interior Privately Owned Public Spaces (IPOPS) provides developers with bonus floor area in exchange for the urban amenity of publicly accessible space. Many issues can arise in jurisdictional overlap when city authorities and private owners govern space. Upon entering the front door of an IPOPS, one may encounter signage placed by private owners stating explicit rules discouraging specific uses, while city-mandated signage must state that the space is “open to the public.” Given recent efforts to replace publicly regulated POPS signage, this study provides a timely assessment. The research question is: Do private owners’ signs communicate in a manner that narrows the definition of “public”? Our research method includes transcribing all externally visible signage, including city-regulated signage and owner signage and performing a text analysis with R to discover the prevalence of language inviting use and regulating behavior. We analyze the data to discover how in contrast to city-mandated signage, owner signage tends to narrow the definition of “public.” We explore the implications for the governance and administration of public space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Every year, diverse Jewish communities around the world observe Tashlich (casting off), a customary atonement ritual performed the day after Rosh Hashanah. This performative ritual is conducted next to a body of water to symbolize atonement and purification of one's sins. Based on multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork in two egalitarian Jewish congregations in Tel Aviv and in New York City, I show how Tashlich performance is constructed as a political act to empower gender and sexual identities and experiences, as well as the socio-political positionality of LGBTQ Jews in various sites. By including new blessings, the blowing of the shofar by gay female participants, and by conducting the ritual in historical and contemporary queer urban spaces, the rabbis and congregants created new interpretations of the traditional customs. They exposed their feelings toward themselves, their community, and its visibility and presence in the city. The fact that the ritual is conducted in an open urban public space creates not only differing meanings and perceptions than from the synagogue, but also exposes queer politics in the context of national and religious identities. Furthermore, this comparative analysis illuminates tensions and trajectories of Jewishness and queerness in Israel and in the US, and sheds light on postmodern tendencies in contemporary urban religious communities as a result of the inclusion of the LGBTQ community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Playtime in urban cities has become an indoor activity for children due to limited access to natural outdoor environments. This product of urbanization makes the case for the introduction of biophilic design. However, playrooms are often neglected as a possibility in designing a natural space indoors. Interior designers and other specialists lack a reliable tool to identify and incorporate biophilic features into the design of these indoor environments in urban settings. The Biophilic Interior Design Matrix (BID-M) developed by McGee and Marshall-Baker quantifies 52 of Kellert's biophilic design attributes to assess their presence and absence within interior spaces. We expanded its use by testing the matrix in a new type of space, urban playrooms, and coded images of 45 children's playrooms within Manhattan residential buildings in New York City, including assessing a larger sample and reliability rate compared to McGee and Marshall-Baker's research. Inter-rater reliability of the overall design matrix and individual matrix items was measured with percent agreement and free-marginal multirater kappa. Reliability testing showed overall good reliability of the overall design matrix. Several matrix items had low reliability between raters. Our findings show that the BID-M needs to be modified to better assess urban interior spaces for children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on the significance of public assemblies at Tompkins Square Park in New York City between 1850 and 1880. The article examines immigration to New York city during the mid-19th century, the German-American population living near Tompkins Square Park, and conflicts between workers and employers at the park. The article also discusses the New York National Guard's Seventh Regiment, known as the Silk Stockings regiment, New York City politics, and public protests at the park.

This article, grounded on a fieldwork conducted in 2007 and 2008 in New York City, aims at analyzing the social usages and effects of artistic and ironic actions led by two activist collectives: Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping and the Billionaires for Bush. The first organization is opposed to excessive consumerism and denounces actors, like multinational corporations, involved in the privatization of public spaces in New York City. The second collective—by using forms of action and ironic slogans pretending to endorse US government decisions regarding tax cuts and, more generally, any law favouring privileged groups—condemns policies which widen social inequalities. The resort to artistic and ironic actions assumes denouncing and non-preaching characteristics. First, these actions target elected people or institutions perceived as responsible for the social, economic, and political problems identified by the collectives. Then, the activists tend to criticize and disassociate from connotations which to them are associated with certain forms of religious ceremonies and political activism, delivering sermons and preaching to the choir. A major interest of the non-preaching nature of these artistic and ironic actions would precisely lie in their capacity to sensitize outside the social circles of converted activists. The article first examines formal transfers between art and activism—narratives, costumes, musical repertoires—drawing on US cultural and religious references while taunting them. The analytical description of these actions will lead to a critical insight into their political and social effects. To which extent do these musical and theatrical forms of protest have the capacity to call political beliefs into question, to arm convinced activists, to convert the undecided, or even the opponents to the causes championed by these protest groups? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines how New York City's Union Square has come to serve as a symbol of American Democracy despite its original design being based on the city squares of London, England. The author identifies various historical occurrences that have come to define the square and its connection with American Democracy including political rallies held there in support of the Union during the Civil War. The author notes that the square was redesigned by architect Frederick Law Olmsted in 1872 to better accommodate public gatherings. The article also examines the square's connection with another New York City symbol of democracy, Central Park.

Urban areas have very complex spatial structures. These spatial structures are primarily composed of a complex network of built environments, which evolve rapidly as the cities expand to meet the growing population's demand and economic development. Therefore, studying the impact of spatial structures on urban heat patterns is extremely important for sustainable urban planning and growth. We investigated the relationship between surface temperature obtained by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER, at 90 m spatial resolution) and different urban components based on high-resolution QuickBird satellite imagery classification. We further investigated the relationships between ASTER-derived surface temperature and building footprint and land use information acquired by the New York City (NYC) Department of City Planning. The ASTER image reveals fine-scale urban heat patterns in the NYC metropolitan region. The impervious-medium and dark surfaces, along with bright covers, generate higher surface temperatures. Even with highly reflective urban surfaces, the presence of impervious materials leads to an increased surface temperature. At the same time, trees and shadows cast by buildings effectively reduce urban heat; on the contrary, grassland does not reduce or amplify urban heat. The data aggregated to the census tract reveals high-temperature hotspots in Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx region of NYC. These clusters are associated with industrial and manufacturing areas and multi-family walk-up buildings as dominant land use. The census tracts with more trees and higher building height variability showed cooling effects, consistent with shadows cast by high-rise buildings and trees. The results of this study can be valuable for urban heat island modeling on the impact of shadow generated by building heights variability and trees on small-scale surface temperature patterns since recent image reveals similar hotspot locations. This study further helps identify the risk areas to protect public health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last decade has witnessed the rise of private transnational institutions that increasingly influence the organization and management of urban space. Two institutions are especially powerful in this regard: bond-rating agencies and global security firms. Bolstered by a discourse of risk and the need to securitize cities, these institutions have garnered enormous amounts of power with respect to urban social and spatial control. They are implicated in the imprisonment and displacement of marginalized populations, the intensification of gentrification, and general shifts in municipal funding priorities. The authors illustrate these themes through a case study of New York City, followed by an example of the transnational movement of these forces and their exportation to sites such as Mexico City. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses public displays of noise in Harlem, New York City during the period between World War I and World War II. It was a part of Harlem's black culture to celebrate or mourn in public spaces. The author does point out that parades that began in white sections of New York City were seldom cheered until they reached Harlem. Some of the incidents that led to large public outpourings of emotion included the opening of "Macbeth," directed by Orsen Welles in 1936, when the Monarch Negro Elks Band led an estimated 10,000 people to the theater. The night that boxer Joe Lewis beat Jack Kracken with a knockout became a huge celebration in Harlem with people dancing, banging pots and trash cans, and yelling out loud for joy.

Abstract: The frequency of police aid to persons experiencing seizures m public in New York City in 1977 was examined as an index of uncontrolled seizure disorders, and as a pointer to variations m seizure frequencies by age. sex, and ethnicity. The overall rate of assistance to persons with public seizures was 5.4 per 10,000 person years. For Blacks the rate was more than double that for Whites and "Hispanics" (10, 4.7, and 4 per 10,000 person years, respectively). Males were assisted about 2.5 times more often than females (8.2 vs 3.3 per 10,000 person years). Among Black males, young adults and those of late middle age had the most pronounced excess over White males of the same ages (26.1 and 23.1 vs 7.8 and 4.0, respectively, per 10,000 person years). These variations underscore an unmet need for medical care for seizures that is especially marked in particular ethnic, sex, and age groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]