"'You have to be very careful,' said Mrs. Asen, who has lived for more than three decades in Lincoln-Amsterdam House on West End Avenue near 65th Street. 'You just don't know when the light is going to change and you can be stranded in the street.' Mrs. Asen is one of more than 200 elderly residents of the Upper West Side who took part in a yearlong study about pedestrian safety in their neighborhood, where 13 percent of the population is over 65. Armed with maps and disposable cameras, a small armada of those men and women were dispatched to document specific dangers on their streets." An armada of the undead! Ack!

Metropolis Executive Editor Martin Pedersen on architect Daniel Libeskind's presentation to the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation: "He was better than the best press secretary, the slickest politician. Libeskind called a question about the dangers of building retail space that looked like everyone else's retail space 'profound.' He dodged questions that he didn't want to answer by answering ones that he did. And when asked about how West Street would be resolveda dicey question that involves billions of dollars and, potentially, thousands of angry Battery Park residents-he disarmed us completely by outlining the limits of his power. 'That's a decision that goes higher up than the architect,' he replied."
The Danny Libeskind Show [Metropolis]

The editors of the Architectural Record and Metropolis believe architecture critic Herbert Muschamp's article slamming the Libeskind plan for the WTC wasn't even-handed. Muschamp's response: "I like conflict...I made my views on this very clear: One of the reasons it s great to write about architecture is that it promotes conflict."
Libeskind acolytes barrage the Times attacking Muschamp [Observer]

Kurt Andersen contributes an amusing short story inspired by 19th century New York architecture to the January issue of Metropolis.
New right now [Metropolis via Scrubbles.net]

There's something sad about a world in which the most fantastic buildings exist only in the imagination of movie set...