WNYC Cityscapes: How Green is NYC? More Verdant Than You Might Think

Photo by Flickr user Aaron Freedman

The efficiency of New York’s infrastructure might feel--or smell--a little too obvious when you’re nose-to-neighbor’s-armpit on a packed subway car. But the unavoidable facts of city life such as tiny apartments, travel by transit and buildings huddled together are its greatest green asset. Architect Stephen Cassell, who will appear on the Brian Lehrer show Wednesday, has dedicated a great deal of time to understanding the city’s built environment. He has produced two videos online. The first, viewable here, addresses perhaps the biggest question: “How Green Is NYC?” He looks out his office window (Stephen's firm, ARO, is downstairs from WNYC, actually) at Hudson Square, where many of the former industrial buildings have been repurposed for media, advertising and arts companies. Stephen also made a video about the Queens Botanical Garden’s new visitor center, which is one of the only buildings in the city to earn a LEED Platinum rating from the U.S. Green Building Council. Stephen also shows us what a waterless urinal looks like. Whatever the city’s shortcomings now, the next steps for the city are relatively clear, and crisply described in PlaNYC, the mayor’s green blueprint, a document that deserves far more attention than it has received so far. Old buildings should continue to be retrofitted to become more efficient; new buildings should be green; add parks to make dense urban life more pleasant; push for fewer (and cleaner) automobiles; increase public transit offerings, and pay careful attention to how the city handles wastewater. (Oh, and fly less!) All good things. The piece of New York’s green puzzle I’ve become most interested in is the “image of the city”—how New Yorkers see it, and what it means to them. As a kid, my family used to drive to Jones Beach on hot summer days, but what I remember as clearly was the drive back: Manhattan appearing out of the haze, emitting wavy lines of heat like a cartoon pie. Then, it seemed like the opposite of nature. Now I realize that’s not really true. That view of the city—even at its densest and grittiest, like seen from the 7 train or the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway—today can be understood as a compelling vision of a sustainable future. So forget Yosemite. The symbol of today’s environmentalism should be the skyline.