One of the first things that’s apparent about New York as a city is it’s sheer size. With over 1.6 million inhabitants spread over the tiny island of Manhattan alone there’s very little space to move on the ground, so where else is there to go but up? By constantly craning your neck to the skies you can see that the city has been building up and out since it’s earliest days, so much so that the city is now a veritable melting pot of new and old architecture and sculpture.
Walk down one street and there’s the famous steel giants, housing corporations and suited business folk, then walk down another and there’s columned buildings dating back to the early 19th Century. The High Line Park, parts of downtown Manhattan and a lot of Brooklyn are examples of this crossroads, where there’s a constant hum of regeneration amidst buildings and structures that are sometimes hundreds of years old. The work currently happening to rejuvenate of parts of Times Square and the entire structure of St Patrick’s Cathedral are working demonstrations of the city’s need to change with the times, but also it’s need to hold onto the it’s history too.