What Dan Doctoroff Built

A daily mix of stories about cities, city life, and our always evolving neighborhoods and skylines. [Curbed]( WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 2 CITY PEOPLE [What the Builder Built]( Under Mayor Bloomberg, Dan Doctoroff remade the city at top speed. Now, as New York is again mired in crisis, he faces his own. Photo: Platon On the day I meet [Dan Doctoroff](, I walk across Manhattan from the Shed, which he created, to the East River Esplanade, which he planned; catch a ferry, which he launched; get off at the [Long Island City]( waterfront, which he reclaimed from industrial neglect; and enter a café overlooking [Hunters Point South Park](, where he once envisioned an [Olympic Village](. Eventually, I leave him by [Citi Bike](, which he dreamed up. Those verbs are a shorthand, of course. He didn’t create, plan, launch, reclaim, envision, or dream up anything single-handedly. His role as deputy mayor for economic development and rebuilding in the Bloomberg administration was to adopt ideas (some his, many not), convince others that they were feasible and good, then maneuver those fantasies into reality. Even so, it would be hard to spend a day moving around New York and not encounter at least one item on his long list of urban accomplishments. Every time someone sees a show at [the Whitney](, scans a brain in Columbia’s Greene Science Center, runs a mile at the Ocean Breeze Athletic Complex in Staten Island, buys a saw at the Home Depot in Bronx Terminal Market, watches [the Mets]( play at [Citi Field](, commutes by subway to [Hudson Yards](, boards a ferry to [Governors Island](, or watches the sunset from [Brooklyn Bridge Park](, that person is animating parts of the city that once existed only as documents on Doctoroff’s desk. His stint in government lasted from 2002 to 2008, surely among the most consequential half-dozen years of any city builder’s term in New York history. He wasn’t, as some have claimed, the 21st-century [Robert Moses](; he was Moses in a hurry. [Continue reading »]( [Learn more about RevenueStripe...]( The Latest [Airbnb Wants to Fix Loneliness With Gwyneth Paltrow And zoning.]( [An Island of Affordable Housing at the World Trade Center A third of the tower’s residents will have cheap rent and expensive neighbors.]( By Christopher Bonanos [New York City May Be Getting a Canyon Ranch The spa that practically invented the wellness industry will now have to compete with everything it’s wrought.]( By Adriane Quinlan [Learn more about RevenueStripe...]( [Read More From Curbed]( Introducing The City Desk, a weekly newsletter about New York. [Sign up to get it every Thursday](. [GET THE NEWSLETTER]( [logo]( [facebook logo]( [instagram logo]( [twitter logo]( [unsubscribe]( | [privacy notice]( | [update preferences]( This email was sent to {EMAIL}. Was this email forwarded to you? [Sign up now]( to get this newsletter in your inbox. [View this email in your browser.]( You received this email because you have a subscription to New York. Reach the right online audience with us For advertising information on email newsletters, please contact AdOps@nymag.com Vox Media, LLC 1201 Connecticut Ave. NW, 12th Floor Washington, DC 20036 Copyright © 2023, All rights reserved