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Urban landscape

 UGH! I spent a day and a half putting in time writing a post about how mature pantings in the NYC public housing projects have turned the projects of the most beautiful verdant spots in their neighborhoods. My writing was turgid and unreadable, so I tossed that post.


I do want to thank Marc Kolman for writing a paper about how New York City public housing projects interact with the city landscape and how the architecture and the layout of the buildings help to determine safety. He wrote this paper all the way back when we were juniors in college but I have been 

 thinking about the subject since then because the public housing projects are my neighbors. My feelings about the NYC housing projects have changed over the years.


I assume that when the buildings were new the public housing projects may have looked bleak.


However, as the spindly trees of the 1950s have grown and the shrubbery has matured


it is hard not to love the lush gardens in the projects.


When I walked past the George Washington Carver Houses on Madison Avenue across from Mount Sinai Hospital all of the benches by the doors of the buildings and along the paths connecting the buildings were filled with people enjoying the sunshine. The plantings around the projects put on a big show in the springtime and another fabulous show in the fall.

Continuing on the theme of urban blooms.....

I offer you blooming roses from the median strip in the middle of Broadway at 100th street.



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