Part of our collection of tiny tapes.

nymoon:

Remapped

Hurricane marks the
beginning of a vulnerable era

by Editors of the Moon, Illustration by John Lee

On October 29, Earth’s full moon brought tides to their highest levels in New York harbor.

Fatefully, on the same evening, a tropical cyclone, Sandy, slammed into the coast. Hard rain and 80mph wind pushed the churning East River over its banks, inundating the canyons of downtown Manhattan, The Rockaways, Staten island, Red Hook, and Coney Island.

In 24 hours, the city remapped itself. Drowned subways returned to primordial underground waterways, prompting the MTA to issue revised maps of a disturbing new topography. The dark-zone of lower Manhattan stood dully against the light of the city, its precincts emptied out. New neighborhoods emerged in evacuation centers. Overnight, the seamless flow of people, capital, and information faced the isolated reality of island geography.

At worst, these dislocations have had mournful consequences: businesses, homes, people were erased in the flood. Thousands in Brooklyn and Staten island are still without power, even as Manhattan shudders back to life. Yet, we recognize that dislocation also reframes, challenging our understanding of the old condition.

We urge our readers to help with the effort not just to return, but to renew and rethink this city’s way of life in what is likely to be a new era of extreme weather:

Donate to the Red Cross
Volunteer through Occupy Sandy

Meet Team Rubicon, military veterans and post-crisis first responders active in Far Rockaway, Queens following Hurricane Sandy. 

This series of images from the U.S. Geological Survey documents coastal erosion in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. The yellow arrows indicate the same point on each image. 

Images documenting the storm’s impact on the New Jersey coastline are here.

The subway comes back, in GIF. 

datanews:

Since Sandy left town, we’ve been downloading MTA subway-recovery maps to feed WNYC’s Changing Trains map. Our Steve Melendez put them together in a time-lapse GIF. Click through to the full-size image.

(Photo by Stephen Nessen)

The alleged terror suspect in the plot to blow up the Federal Reserve lived on the second floor of this Queens apartment building. So far, neighbors tell us he was quiet and never appeared suspicious.

(Getty Images/WNYC photo illustration)

Chief Justice John Roberts in a 2007 case wrote that “the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

What do you think?

architizer:

Fresh Kills, the world’s largest landfill soon to be transformed into a productive and beautiful cultural destination. Open to the public for Open House New York weekend.

October 16 and 17 people!