Curbed February 2018 Are economic development megadeals worth the price—and the risk? With cities trying to outbid each other for Amazon’s new headquarters, it’s worth examining potential cautionary tales. Analysts say the recent Foxconn deal in Wisconsin, a blockbuster, multibillion-dollar investment in bringing more manufacturing to the state, is indicative of the sad state of big-ticket economic […]
Curbed February 2018 The South Merrill Community Garden on Chicago’s South Side fills a literal hole in its community. Slipped between between two brick apartment buildings, the small plot was established in the 1980s by neighborhood residents in the predominantly black part of town, who created a small flower garden using bricks from a demolished […]
Curbed March 2018 In the midst of the #MeToo movement, consider the following scenario: sexual harassment accusations against a powerful man, reinforced by an investigation and internal deliberation at his place of employment, leading to a widespread petition from his colleagues demanding action. But instead of resignation or prompt disciplinary action, the accused remains employed, […]
Curbed December 2017 Few building types have become as mythologized, meaningful, and, occasionally, mocked by the general public as corporate headquarters. Whether they’re anodyne rows of identical offices, glistening corporate campuses, or high-tech hubs for startups, the most famous become not just architecture, but narratives conveying corporate values. That’s why many were disappointed to learn Apple’s […]
Curbed December 2017 Months later, the new arrivals keep coming. At Orlando International Airport’s Terminal A, the steady stream of flights from San Juan, Puerto Rico, has tapered, but hundreds of Puerto Ricans still arrive daily, in search of stability, safety, and economic opportunity in the wake of Hurricane Maria’s devastation in September. It’s a “roller […]
Curbed December 2017 For Hamdi Ulukaya, founder and CEO of the Greek yogurt-making giant Chobani, Twin Falls, Idaho, helped his company expand in ways he could barely imagine when he arrived in the United States in 1994 as a Turkish college student who didn’t speak English. The small city of 48,000 in the Magic Valley, […]
Curbed June 2017 The caravan left on January 23, 1935: 30 people loaded in cars, station wagons, and a red truck, setting out from Spring Green, Wisconsin, for the promise of a desert in Arizona many of them had never seen before. At that point during the brutal winter—the temperature was 40 degrees below […]
Curbed August 2017 Tom Gaffney has the type of client list that other contractors and designers work a lifetime to assemble. Actors and celebrities, Fortune 500 companies, CEOs, the one percent—often the one percent of the one percent—seek out his Vermont-based firm for custom jobs in their homes and offices, both in the United States […]
Curbed October 2016 BURLINGTON The northwest face of a Flatiron-shaped brick building in Burlington’s Old North End neighborhood is graced with an image of Muhammad Ali, gloves up, a symbolic bee and butterfly orbiting around his head. The memorial to the boxer, painted the day after he died, was partially inspired by the experience of […]
Curbed October 2016 Pay a visit to Petronia Street in Key West, Florida, on a summer day, and density quickly becomes apparent. The humid air, a palpable weight, begins dragging you down by mid-morning. History starts making itself visible. The eastern edge of Petronia almost backs up to the island’s above-ground cemetery, which holds generations […]