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November 21, 2009 ... About This Site
Food, Green

Greenpoint Next Frontier in Commercial-Scale Rooftop Farms

By Emily Geminder | Friday, October 2, 2009 at 2:04 pm
in

This rooftop at 148-02 Archer Avenue
in Queens will grow your next arugula.

Viraj Puri believes the future of farming is not about tractors or rolling swaths of quilted fields or even soil. Co-founder of Gotham Greens, New York City’s first hydroponic commercial-scale rooftop farm, he envisions a three-dimensional agricultural landscape sprouting across the city’s rooftops.

Toward this green-tinged skyline, Gotham Greens hopes to build 100,000 square feet of hydroponic greenhouses throughout the five boroughs by 2030.

Brooklyn is the next horizon for these sky-high tomato dreams. The startup will transform the vacant rooftop of a Greenpoint manufacturing plant into a 20,000-square-foot greenhouse brimming with a litany of earthly bounty: salad greens, basil, squash, eggplant, to name a few. Gotham’s first greenhouse, on the rooftop of a church in Jamaica, Queens, is projected to produce 30 tons of fresh fruit, vegetables and herbs annually, starting next year.

“Hydroponics lends itself really well to the urban environment, specifically because we don’t have a lot of arable land,” Mr. Puri said. “It’s also very water and land efficient: it uses about 10 times less water than conventional agriculture and a lot less land.”

Politics, Green

Cool Roofs for the City and the Country

By Steve Cohen | Monday, September 28, 2009 at 4:35 pm
in
Flickr via basykes:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/basykes/

A few days ago, New York City announced its “Cool Roofs” initiative, an effort to save energy by combining volunteerism and green design. According to the Mayor’s press release:

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and former Vice President and founder of the Alliance for Climate Protection Al Gore today launched an NYC Service initiative, “NYC Cool Roofs,” to mobilize volunteers to coat the rooftops of participating buildings with reflective, white coating to reduce cooling costs, energy usage and greenhouse emissions… A cool roof absorbs 80 percent less heat than traditional dark colored roofs and can lower roof temperatures by up to 60 degrees and indoor temperatures by 10 to 20 degrees on hot days. The decrease in temperature reduces the need for air conditioning, lowering electric bills and reducing energy consumption.  Coating all eligible dark rooftops in New York City could result in up to a 1 degree reduction of New York City’s ambient air temperature – a significant and lasting change towards cooling the City.

While the city’s building code requires that new buildings include these types of roofs, the city has thousands of old structures that are not subject to these rules but could still be painted and help save energy. This is the low-hanging fruit of energy efficiency. The Mayor and his team should also be congratulated for integrating this program into the national effort to encourage greater volunteerism and public service.

However, in addition to the modest effort announced here, given the level of unemployment in the city and around the country, I wonder why we don’t take some of those billions of stimulus dollars still unspent and put a bunch of people to work painting roofs throughout America. We could start with public buildings, including the nation’s schools. Most people know how to paint or can be quickly trained, and it seems to me to be the kind of “shovel-ready” project that could do a lot of good in a hurry.

Transportation

For Urban Cycling, Some Growing Pains

By John Fischer | Thursday, September 17, 2009 at 4:06 pm

A few weeks ago a small Florida-based bicycle shop called Republic Bikes entered into a partnership with Urban Outfitters. The company, launched in March of this year, offered an eye-catching deal: one off-the-shelf frame (in three sizes), one set of parts, and an endless color palette—configurable over the Internet, all for $399.

The guardians of urban cycling did not react kindly.

The new bicycle, marketed as a gesture toward Amsterdam-style biking egalitarianism, was pilloried on bike message boards for selling out a culture, and for potentially arming a legion of wannabes with a shoddy set of wheels and a style that was stolen, not earned. 

Planning & Development, Politics

Post-Gehry, Brooklyn Nets Arena To Be Designed by New York Boutique SHoP

By Eliot Brown | Wednesday, September 2, 2009 at 2:15 pm
FCRC

Gehry's arena design was tossed earlier this year

After dropping famed architect Frank Gehry from the Nets basketball arena planned for Brooklyn, the developer of the massive mixed-use project has brought in New York-based architecture firm SHoP to assist in the design of the venue, according to a person informed of the decision.

The developer, Forest City Ratner, plans to unveil renderings of the $800 million arena later this month.

The choice seems a face-saving move for Forest City, as a substantial backlash from public officials and the press followed its decision to drop Mr. Gehry in the name of cost

Planning & Development, Politics, Tech, Transportation

Morning Roundup

By Joe Pompeo | Wednesday, September 2, 2009 at 9:49 am
  • Gov. Paterson is close to picking a developer to revive the Queens Aqueduct (Crain's)
  • There's a new social services data initiative in the city's Human Resources Administration (Government Technology)
  • Brooklyn cyclist becomes first to ride all the city's bike paths (City Room)
  • Fans of LivingSocial can now get deals on restaurants and leisure activities in New York (WebNewser)
  • New poll on congestion tolling versus a gas tax hike (Streetsblog)
Tech, Media

On the State of the NYC Startup Scene...

By Joe Pompeo | Tuesday, September 1, 2009 at 3:33 pm
in
via unionsquareventures.com

Fred Wilson.

When we caught up with Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey during his visit to the city last month, he told us he had been meeting with venture capitalists and others in the local tech scene to get their input on launching a startup in New York.

As we reported at the time, Mr. Dorsey is strongly considering moving his new company out here. (Judging by his Tweets over the past few days, it also looks like his personal move back to New York is complete.)

He said he was gauging whether New York was conducive to fostering startups and that he was also concerned about the challenge of scaling a new company here.

One of the people from whom he sought advice about these issues was Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures, who recalls his chat with Mr. Dorsey in a blog post today:

Transportation, Tech, Media

New York City Transit is Twittering

By Joe Pompeo | Tuesday, September 1, 2009 at 11:26 am
in

It looks like the M.T.A. has finally jumped aboard the Twitter train.

Sewell Chan reports on City Room that the agency's buses and subway arm, New York City Transit, quietly set up the Twitter account NYCTSubwayScoop after the ceiling collapse at the 181st Street No. 1 subway station a few weeks ago.

Initially, the account was used to detail and chronicle repairs and subsequent service restoration at the station. Since then, New York City Transit has used the account to dispatch updates on construction and service disruptions at other stations. Although, it hasn't yet promoted the account, and as of the time of Mr. Chan's posting at 5:25 p.m. yesterday, August 31, it only had 370 followers. (That number had grown to 533 as of this posting.)

From City Room:

Media, Tech

Morning Roundup

By Joe Pompeo | Tuesday, September 1, 2009 at 10:40 am
  • No recovery in sight for New York's non-profit sector (City Limits)
  • George Parker: "Social Media Won’t Save Madison Avenue!" (PSFK)
  • Report: Only 10 percent of NYC area venture capital has gone to NYC startups (Chubby Brain)
  • Need an affordable attorney? Try this virtual law firm. (Crain's)
  • Check out which cities' and states' Web sites got top honors in the 2009 Best of the Web awards (Government Technology)
Tech, Politics

Digitizing the NYC Public Data Directory

By Joe Pompeo | Monday, August 31, 2009 at 3:31 pm
in

Here's a bit of open data news.

Gov 2.0 advocates have been working on a ditigal version of the city's Public Data Directory, which compiles all public "computerized information" produced or maintained by city agencies. 

As Tom Lowenhaupt of Connecting.nyc explains, voters approved a city charter amendment to create the directory in 1988. But only one edition was ever published, and that was back in 1993.

1993 NYC Public Data Directory

 

So, Mr. Lowenhaupt writes, "In recent weeks we’ve been working with the NYC Open Government Coalition to help make a digital version of the paper Directory available. The thinking is that many of the databases still exist and that this will be a starting point for a more robust detailing of current city databases."

Here's a bit from Transparency Corps, which is spearheading the effort:

Tech, Politics

Startup 'Incubator' on Varick Street is Open for Business

By Joe Pompeo | Monday, August 31, 2009 at 2:52 pm
in

In his 2009 State of the City address back in January, Mayor Michael Bloomberg outlined plans to create thousands of new jobs and bolster the city's workforce.

The following month, on Feb. 18, he announced a series of 11 initiatives specifically targeting job creation and entrepreneurship.

One of those was to create "incubators" for startup businesses: "To help entrepreneurs launch new start-up companies, the City is partnering with academic institutions, property management companies and commercial landlords to establish high-quality, ready-to-use office space that comes with basic business services and administrative support."

Earlier today, Mr. Bloomberg welcomed 27 new businesses to the first such hub, the 160 Varick Street Incubator, for which the city negotiated a three-year lease between Trinity Real Estate and the Polytechnic Institute of New York University.

From the press release the mayor's office sent out this afternoon:

The businesses represent a cross-section of promising start-ups, including a green retrofitting company, a global fund management firm for feature film production and distribution, a digital forensics and data recovery product developer, an electronic fixed-income brokerage, and an online company that will help patients make informed healthcare decisions. More than 300 start-up companies have applied to lease space at the incubator, which is now fully subscribed and will be expanded this fall to offer space to another 15 start-up companies.

...

The 16,000-square foot incubator now offers high-quality, ready-to-use office space that comes with basic business services and administrative support. NYU-Poly is providing mentoring services, business seminars and networking opportunities for tenants, who can sublease space starting at $200 per person per month for six months with an option to renew. In addition, up to 2,000 desks are available at discounted rates starting at $180 per desk through City partnerships with the Coalition of Office Space Providers and the Office Business Center Association of New York.

The full list of tenants is below:

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