Abby Epplett, Historian

On October 24, 2023 at 6:00 p.m., I watched a talk hosted by Skyscraper Museum focused on the book Times Square Remade: The Dynamics of Urban Change by Dr. Lynne Sagalyn , published by MIT Press a few days ago. Sagalyn is a professor emerita and founding director of Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate at Columbia Business School . Her latest book is a sequel to Times Square Roulette: Remaking the City Icon published by MIT Press 20 years ago in 2003. Joining Sagalyn were Carol Willis , the founder and director of the Skyscraper Museum, and Alison Isenberg , a history professor in the Department of History at Princeton University and fellow author who specializes in urban architecture. Willis opened and closed the webinar, while Isenberg acted as a moderator during the conversational second half. Sagalyn began the webinar with a presentation covering the history of Times Square from the 1890s to the present. The area was originally called Longacre Square and served as...

Early tonight — Tuesday, September 26, 2023 at 6:00 p.m. — I watched the latest webinar hosted by the Skyscraper Museum , AT&T Building: Philip Johnson and the Postmodern Skyscraper . Previous webinars hosted by Skyscraper Museum and appear on this blog were The Great American Transit Disaster , CBS Headquarters , and Australia Square . The talk was led by Alan Ritchie and Scott Johnson (no relation to Philip Johnson ), both of whom worked on the AT&T project. Ritchie was picked by Philip Johnson soon after arriving in New York City from England as a young designer, while Scott Johnson went to New York City to be hired by Johnson after seeing preliminary drawings for the AT&T building on the front page of The New York Times . Scott Johnson began the talk by describing other buildings designed by Philip Johnson. For real estate investment company Hines Interests , he designed the “Lipstick Building” at 885 Third Avenue in New York City, which opened in 1986. H...

Earlier tonight — September 5, 2023 at 6:00 p.m. — I watched the webinar Harry Seidler’s Australia Square: Sydney’s First Modern Skyscraper presented by the architect, curator, and author Vladimir Belogolovsky and hosted by the Skyscraper Museum . I previously have watched other webinars hosted by the Skyscraper Museum, including The Great American Transit Disaster , which focused on the defunding of public transportation, and CBS Headquarters , an in-depth look at the construction of “Black Rock”, and other concrete skyscrapers. Although overshadowed by Sydney Opera House when considering Australian architecture, Australia Square continues to be a remarkable feat of architecture. Measuring between 170 and 182.5 meters tall, the skyscraper was arguably the tallest lightweight concrete building in the world when first built from 1961 to 1967. The skyscraper’s rival in height was Marina City in Chicago, IL , measuring about 179 meters tall and built at the same time. Whil...

Earlier tonight — Tuesday, August 15, 2023 at 6:00 p.m. — I learned all about skyscrapers and CBS Headquarters. Hosted by the Skyscraper Museum in Manhattan, NY , the talk CBS Headquarters: A Modern Concrete Skyscraper focused on “Black Rock”, a building regarded as the first concrete office tower in New York City, NY . Giving the talk was internationally acclaimed architect Matthys Levy , who assisted with the construction process of Black Rock and boasts an impressive design portfolio. As principal architect at Weidlinger Associates, Inc. (WAI) , an American structural engineering company that merged with a similar but larger firm, Thornton Tomasetti , back in 2015, his influence is evident on several great cultural venues that I have visited, including the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park, NY ; Art of the Americas Wing at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, MA ; and the Giant Ocean Tank at the New England Aquarium in Boston, MA . Additionall...

Yesterday, on May 16, I watched a webinar about The Great American Transit Disaster based on a book written by speaker Nicholas “Nick” Dagen Bloom and published by the University of Chicago Press . The Skyscraper Museum in lower Manhattan’s Battery Park City , which is part of New York City , hosted this talk via Zoom with a livestream available on YouTube . Museum founder, director, and curator Carol A. Willis introduced the talk and facilitated the Q & A after the main presentation. Robert L. Fishman , a professor at University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning , joined Bloom and Willis in conversation near the end of the talk. Bloom began his talk with the question, “Was the destruction and subsequent poor quality of mass transit inevitable in twentieth century America?” Some historians believe the rise of automobile culture in the 1940s and 1950s brought the end of mass transit such as streetcars, trolleys, and local trains. This p...