NYC thread

Hi ! I am Carmelo, this is my freshly opened blog here in New York City during my Urban Design studies at Columbia University. The title of this blog takes inspiration from the mythological legend of Ariadne’s thread in Crete. She helped Theseus by...

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Queensway _ a linear park for Queens

For more than 50 years, the old Rockaway Beach Branch Line has lain abandoned. During this time, trees have sprouted and matured along the former right-of-way, creating a dense canopy and a diverse habitat for birds and other  wildlife. Today the Queensway represents a great opportunity for Queens. The thread of this green infrastructure could link the major parks of the area, offering a safer connection with recreation spaces (especially for the 73,000 kids living within 1 mile from the former RBBL) and commercial activities.

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Queensway _ promenade

This video shows the commons of the Queensway: green spaces (parks and cemeteries), education network (huge variety of schools) and ... because the Queensways is still a project it would create a new common: a Linear Park. It is interesting noticing that this new common would take the place of a previous one: transportation, not anymore used nowadays.

The section shows the different typologies nearby the linear park. 

Apparatus and Experiental view will be added soon.

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Promenade _ Queensway EX2a [updated]

1.     View of the entire fragment, showing the different connections that this infrastructure could offer to the neighbourhood such as an easy access to the Forest Park.

2.     Section in the Southern part of the Queensway (Jamaica Bay in the background). It shows the different building typologies that could be involved in this new design proposal for the Queensway, showing how places such as schools could utilize this space as a recreation area for free time.

3.     This section is mainly focused on the viewshed. In the part of the Queensway nearby the Forest Park, there is an interesting mixture between residential buildings and public parks. Thanks to this section it is clear that the vegetation could give more privacy to the residents facing the former railroad but also a direct access to the park.

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Dissa’s Ramadhan in NYC _ Carmelo

#RNYU #ramadhan 

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Dissa’s Ramadhan in NYC

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Queensway [work in progress] 

This will be the orientation of my section, so I can show the connection between the former railroad and the buildings. 

#DTEQ17, #EX2A, #promenade

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PROMENADE: Queensway, Queens (NYC)

1)    VIEWSHED [Pink= no visible; Green= visible] -> This analysis shows which areas are visible from a specific location. I tried to extend the analysis on the entire railroad but the computation process wasn’t supported by my PC, so I put some points on the railroad as observation points. The raster is a DSM (DEM + building eights). The result shows that a future project similar to the high-line in Manhattan, would guarantee the privacy of people who live nearby the Queensway infrastructure (especially in the Southern part) and, in the same moment, the Queensway would offer great views of the Forest Park.

 2)    RECREATION -> Queensway would be a great link between the built area of Southern Queens and the Forest Park which is not easily accessible nowadays. In addiction a lot of students could use the Queensway as daily path to reach their schools or other public facilities (Building in Blue). In this way there will be also a decrease of traffic congestion, because a lot of commercial buildings (Building in Red) are located nearby the former railroad. Last but not least Queensway could connect two areas of Queens with different Medium Age (Bordeaux Red > 40 y.o.; Yellow < 40 y.o.).

 3)    INFRASTRUCTURE -> Queensway could be easily reached by Metro thanks to 5 stops (1 in the Northern part, 2 in the middle, 2 in the Southern part) located within a distance of 300 m from the former railroad – (pink color =1000 ft). Queensway would be the only N-S link between the metro stops which are on  3 different lines.

 4)    Screenshot from Rhino-Grasshopper -> [Queensway (thick red line) + commercial (in red) + public facilities (in blue)]. The topography has been imported too. The file is almost unmanageable because of the size of the site. I wish I could have produced more if Grasshopper hadn’t been keeping crashing and deleting my work progresses repeatedly.  

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Cognitive Commute map from 112th St to Columbia University

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Queensway - promenade #EX1 #DTEQ17

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Broadway-74th St.

This small kiosk might have been designed for hosting advertising posters, but it looks like that parts of this urban element (especially the flying iron stork) are older than the rest of the structure, which seems relatively modern.

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Broadway-105th St

I am still wondering if this tiny place in the middle of a wide road such as Broadway could be used as a place to relax on a bench while you are .... enjoying the traffic !