Queens architectural photography exhibit

From Curbed:

In 2012, architect Rafael Herrin-Ferri began photographing low-rise houses in Queens not just to understand the differences in the borough’s low-rise housing stock, but to examine how Queens’s attached, semi-detached, and detached houses, along with its small apartment buildings, reflected the rich diversity of the borough’s population.

To date, he has documented one third of the borough in over 5,000 photographs, and now his work is the subject of a new exhibition by the Architectural League of New York titled, All the Queens Houses.

The exhibit, which opens October 20 and can be seen by the public at the League’s office gallery on Fridays, is comprised of 273 of Herrin-Ferri photographs. Herrin-Ferri focused on the buildings’ facades, side elevations, and any other distinct features in his photographs.

At the exhibit, the photographs are lined up in alphabetical order by neighborhood, starting with Astoria. In addition, Herrin-Ferri has decided to give his photographs humorous names, which the Architectural League describes as “part academic, part broker listing, part New York magazine caption.”

Is there a "right to remain?"

From the Epoch Times:

Karina Hurtado-Ocampo, 26, born and raised in Jackson Heights, remembers getting out of the subway station at 74th Street in Queens and seeing the long lines, at the two taco carts, that would continue far down Roosevelt Avenue.

The abundance of street food was characteristic of the neighborhood, and many knew the vendors by name.

It’s a working-class, 24-hour neighborhood, Hurtado-Ocampo explained, and the residents could buy from the vendors no matter when they got home from work.

Now the vendors have been replaced by a pizza chain store. It’s just one piece of the rapidly changing neighborhood, but it prompted Hurtado-Ocampo to start taking photographs, to document her home and community lest it be lost forever.

“You grew up in the space, and all of a sudden the memories that were once there and the physical reminder of those memories are no longer there,” said Hurtado-Ocampo at the opening of Right to Remain, an exhibition of photos taken by people documenting their own communities across various neighborhoods.

The photos are on display Oct. 5–19 from Wednesdays to Sundays, 1 p.m.-7 p.m. at 11-27 44th Road in Long Island City, Queens.

Communities across the country are fighting to remain in the neighborhoods they helped create, and in New York City it will be a test of the de Blasio administration’s commitment to community-oriented development.

New museum exhibit highlights World's Fair

From the Daily News:

A new exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York that opened Wednesday provides a view into that time when dishwashers and toasters were considered exotic and a wise-cracking, cigarette-smoking robot enchanted millions.

The exhibit, which examines all six fairs of the era, is a travelling show from the National Building Museum. But the Museum of the City of New York dipped into its vast archives — including Kodachrome slides and original design drawings — to expand the experience for visitors.

Along with photos and drawings, the exhibit includes pavilion models, guidebooks and modernistic lamps and chairs.

One highlight is a full-scale replica of Elektro the robot, who dazzled fair audiences at the Westinghouse Pavilion.