Noah Kazis
Noah joined Streetsblog as a New York City reporter at the start of 2010. When he was a kid, he collected subway paraphernalia in a Vignelli-map shoebox.
Before coming to Streetsblog, he blogged at TheCityFix DC and worked as a field organizer for the Obama campaign in Toledo, Ohio. Noah graduated from Yale University, where he wrote his senior thesis on the class politics of transportation reform in New York City. He lives in Morningside Heights.
Recent Posts
When It Comes to Street Safety, NYPD’s Report Card Doesn’t Measure Up
| | 3 Comments
The preliminary version of this year’s Mayor’s Management Report is out and once again, the NYPD is grading itself on all the wrong things when it comes to street safety. The MMR is supposed to supply the benchmarks and metrics for success that data-driven government depends on. It’s released every year, as required by the […]
Eyes Under the Bridge: 138th Street Bridge Engulfed in Smoke
| | 4 Comments
Metro-North service in and out of Manhattan is suspended due to a large fire under the 138th Street Bridge, on the Manhattan side. According to NY1, the sound of an explosion was heard before the fire started, but no train cars were involved in the fire. A photo on Gothamist shows that the huge plumes […]
Park(ing) Day 2010: The International Phenomenon
| | No Comments
[smooth=id:32] Park(ing) Day keeps getting bigger every year. Since starting in 2005, it has grown each year; last year 700 parks were set up in 140 cities on all six continents. This year, it might be even bigger. And in the last year, the governments of San Francisco and New York City, at least, have made […]
Draft Plan for Waterfront Promises Greenways, Silent on Ferries
| | 6 Comments
With New York City in the midst of a wholesale rethinking of its more than 500 miles of waterfront, the Department of City Planning recently released a draft of its new comprehensive waterfront plan, Vision 2020. That plan lays out both broad citywide objectives, such as a commitment to building borough-wide greenways across the city, […]
Park(ing) Day on the Upper West Side
| | 2 Comments
Here at 113th and Broadway, the curb is normally used to house an empty car. After being transformed by a team of Columbia planning students, however, it could provide a downright luxurious living space for normally-cramped students. The makeshift dorm room had two walls, a TV and cabinet space, a four-poster bed and, on the […]
Park(ing) Day 2010: Where Will You Celebrate?
| | 3 Comments
Get ready to reclaim your curb tomorrow. It’s Park(ing) Day, the annual celebration of streets as public spaces. This year, 51 parking spaces in the five boroughs will be liberated from the chore of private car storage and given over to the full creativity of New Yorkers. Here are a few choice concepts: “South Bronx […]
Public Tells Planning Commission They Want a Walkable Riverside Center
| | 20 Comments
A hearing on the Riverside Center mega-development yesterday revealed a popular hunger for a more walkable West Side and perhaps some interest from the City Planning Commission in the same. Extell Development is looking to build a housing and retail complex, including 1,800 parking spaces, on this waterfront site equivalent in size to two Manhattan blocks. […]
In Deadly Week for Pedestrians, No Consequences for Drivers
| | 14 Comments
This has been a deadly week for New York City pedestrians, with three New Yorkers losing their lives in traffic collisions in three days, and another in critical condition. On Monday, an SUV driver hit and killed two-year-old Shamira Zaman in Queens Village as she crossed the street to greet an uncle. The NYPD told […]
Reading Between the Lines on East Side’s Missing Bike Lanes
| | 26 Comments
Select Bus Service remains on track to debut on October 10, confirmed NYC DOT and the MTA at a meeting of the project’s Community Advisory Committee last night. Bus service improvements along the corridor are as crucial as ever and will be bolstered by camera enforcement, which DOT announced would be in effect starting in […]
Dollar-A-Day Bike Parking Arrives at All Edison ParkFast Locations
| | 33 Comments
The combination of the Bicycle Access to Garages law and the market’s invisible hand are bringing cheap bike parking to locations across Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn. As of last month, every garage operated by Edison ParkFast, one of the largest parking companies in the city, is offering bike parking at the rate of $1 per […]
Rider Anger Grazes Incumbent Pols at Fare Hike Hearing
| | 3 Comments
Outside Cooper Union yesterday evening, the sidewalks were packed with news cameras, security squads, political campaigners and activists pressing passersby with their plans for the MTA. Inside, the transit authority held the first of ten mandated public hearings on its proposed fare and toll hikes. Though attendance was sparse, the citizens who lined up to […]
Driver Hits and Kills Toddler in Queens
| | 3 Comments
A driver hit and killed a three-year-old child in Queens at around 4 p.m. today, according to the NYPD. Streetsblog first learned of the fatal collision via a Twitter report which said the child was struck at the intersection of 89th Road and 211th Street in Hollis. The NYPD’s public information department can’t confirm that […]