Never Built New York

New York City as it might have been: 200 years of visionary architectural plans for unbuilt subways, bridges, parks, airports, stadiums, streets, train stations and, of course, skyscrapers

Never Built New York shows us the visionary architectural ideas of the city's greatest dreamers across two centuries of New York City history. Nearly 200 proposals spanning 200 years encompass bridges, skyscrapers, master plans, parks, transit schemes, amusements, airports, plans to fill in rivers and extend Manhattan, and much, much more. Included are alternate visions for Central Park, Columbus Circle, Lincoln Center, MoMA, the UN, Grand Central Terminal, the World Trade Center site and other highlights such as: Alfred Ely Beach’s system of airtight subway cars propelled via atmospheric pressure; Frank Lloyd Wright’s last project, his Key Plan for Ellis Island, on which he would have developed his dream city; Buckminster Fuller’s design for Brooklyn’s Dodger Stadium, complete with giant geodesic dome to shield players and fans from the rain; developer William Zeckendorf’s Rooftop Airport, perched on steel columns 200 feet above street level, spanning from 24th to 71st Street, Ninth Avenue to the Hudson River; John Johansen’s Leapfrog City proposal to create an entirely new neighborhood atop the tenements of East Harlem; and Stephen Holl’s Bridge of Houses, offering options from SROs to modest studios to luxury apartments on a segment of what is now the High Line.

Fact-filled and entertaining texts, plus sketches, renderings, prints and models drawn from archives across the country tell stories of ideas that would have drastically transformed the way we inhabit and move through the city.

Sam Lubell has written seven books about architecture: Never Built New York, Midcentury Modern Architecture Guide, Never Built Los Angeles, Julius Shulman Los Angeles: The Birth of a Modern Metropolis, Paris 2000+, London 2000+ and Living West. He is a contract writer for Wired and has written for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Magazine, New York Magazine, Architect, The Architect’s Newspaper, Architectural Record, Architectural Review, Wallpaper*, Contract and other publications. He co-curated the A+D Architecture and Design Museum, Los Angeles, exhibition Never Built Los Angeles in 2013. He lives in New York City.

Greg Goldin is co-author of Never Built Los Angeles (Metropolis Books, 2013) and was co-curator of the exhibition Never Built Los Angeles, which premiered at the A+D Architecture and Design Museum, Los Angeles, in July 2013. He was the recipient of a coveted Getty Research Institute grant for Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in L.A. in 2011. For more than a decade, he was the architecture critic at Los Angeles magazine. His work has appeared in The Los Angeles Times, Architectural Record, Architect’s Newspaper, Rolling Stone, Playboy and dozens of other magazines. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter.

Architect Daniel Libeskind is an international figure in architecture and urban design. As Principal Design Architect for Studio Libeskind, Mr. Libeskind speaks widely on the art of architecture in universities and professional summits. The Studio has completed buildings that range from museums and concert halls to convention centers, university buildings, hotels, shopping centers and residential towers. His architecture and ideas have been the subject of many articles and exhibitions, influencing the field of architecture and the development of cities and culture. Mr. Libeskind lives in New York with his wife and business partner, Nina Libeskind.