Lectec Everyday Science

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Jared Ebersole

The MTA Headquarters Renovation That Became a Mob Case

The MTA Headquarters Renovation That Became a Mob Case

2 Broadway was supposed to consolidate the MTA's offices. Instead, its renovation became a case study in inflated costs, weak oversight, and alleged organized-crime influence.

How One South First Carries Apartments Over Open Air

How One South First Carries Apartments Over Open Air

One South First at Domino looks like part of it is floating, because its apartments bridge across a gap above the Williamsburg waterfront.

How Cleopatra's Needle Was Dragged Into Central Park

How Cleopatra's Needle Was Dragged Into Central Park

New York's ancient Egyptian obelisk survived thousands of years, but getting it from Alexandria to Central Park was its own engineering epic.

Why 325 Kent Avenue Has a Hole Through the Middle

Why 325 Kent Avenue Has a Hole Through the Middle

325 Kent Avenue's dramatic opening was a way to build housing at Domino without turning the Williamsburg waterfront into a wall.

Why Las Vegas Put the Eiffel Tower Inside a Casino

Why Las Vegas Put the Eiffel Tower Inside a Casino

Paris Las Vegas wanted a full-size Eiffel Tower, but the Strip, the airport, and the casino floor forced the replica into a stranger form.

The Glass Office Tower Hidden Inside the Domino Sugar Refinery

The Glass Office Tower Hidden Inside the Domino Sugar Refinery

Brooklyn's Domino Sugar Refinery could not be treated like an ordinary development site, so its new office building was slipped inside the landmarked shell.

How the Fountains of Bellagio Learned to Dance

How the Fountains of Bellagio Learned to Dance

The Bellagio fountains became a Las Vegas icon by treating water less like plumbing and more like a cast of performers.

Why the Las Vegas Sphere Only Works From Far Away

Why the Las Vegas Sphere Only Works From Far Away

Sphere's famous exterior is not a seamless screen up close. It is a huge optical trick made from millions of tiny light points.

The Courtscraper With a Tiny Central Park Inside

The Courtscraper With a Tiny Central Park Inside

VIA 57 West fused a European courtyard block with a Manhattan tower, creating Bjarke Ingels's first major New York building and a new hybrid type.

How Tammany Hall Became a Petco Under a Turtle Shell

How Tammany Hall Became a Petco Under a Turtle Shell

The old Tammany Hall building at Union Square preserves the facade of New York's most famous political machine, then crowns it with a glass dome inspired by Lenape imagery.

The Skyscraper That Used a Plaza to Save Lower Manhattan

The Skyscraper That Used a Plaza to Save Lower Manhattan

One Chase Manhattan Plaza used an old zoning rule to rise as a clean slab, then turned its leftover ground into one of Lower Manhattan's great modern plazas.

The Unauthorized Bull That Wall Street Could Not Get Rid Of

The Unauthorized Bull That Wall Street Could Not Get Rid Of

Arturo Di Modica installed Charging Bull without permission after Black Monday. The city removed it, New Yorkers demanded it back, and Wall Street got an icon.