Japan

As summer heats up, our thoughts return to garbage--specifically New York City's garbage. As I've mentioned before, it would be hard to invent a more environmentally damaging, or more expensive system of waste management, than the one we use. To reiterate--in New York City we collect the garbage that residents place on the curb and then dump it on the floor of huge warehouses that tend to be located in low-income neighborhoods. We then scoop it up and load it on to trailer trucks and ship it far away--mostly to landfills (dumps), or waste-to-energy plants (incinerators). In the old days, when we had more vacant land in the city, we dumped the garbage in our own landfills.  read more »

A breakdown of the city's latest tourism estimates suggests that Britons (1.46 million), Canadians (880,000), and Germans (470,000) comprised the biggest crowds of international visitors to New York in 2007.

Numbers were up among all groups last year -- including the roughly 300,000 residents of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, weirdly categorized as "BeNeLux" -- except for one, the Japanese.  read more »

Japanese retailer Muji has signed the first retail lease at the future New York Times headquarters on Eighth Avenue. The retailer, with products supposedly based on a "philosophy of simplicity, minimalism and consumer functionality," has taken 5,000 square feet in the tower for its American flagship.

The store, according to a release from Times tower developer Forest City Ratner, will overlook "the moss-and-birch-tree garden on the ground floor," and will open in time for the 2007 holiday season.  read more »

Full release after the jump.

- Tom Acitelli

The lease for the New York Times Building was pretty specific about keeping out downmarket chain stores. So it's no surprise that the first retail tenant to sign up is MUJI, an "environmentally conscious retailer based in Japan," whose products can be picked up in the MoMA Design Store.

Full release after the jump  read more »

• Hamptons Post-Mortem: Now that the neighborhood is officially dead, isn't it nice to remember those 3-acre estates with private marshes and cutesy docks and six-bedroom Mediterranean castles and "heated infinity pools" and spas and putting ranges and basketball courts? It really brings back some great memories. (Luxist)
• Out in Queens, NYC is buying 24 acres of Long Island City waterfront for $100 million. There won't be any spas, but 5,000 new units of housing is a good idea anyway. (Crain's, via Real Deal)
• In case you haven't seen its 7,239,103 advertisements, Japan's chic UNIQLO is opening a New York flagship on Broadway. Western designers will be designing the high-end (but inexpensive) sweaters and (slim) trousers. Hipsters rejoice. (New York Mag/D.I.)
• There are over 500 people waiting to see the new condos at 365 Bridge Street--once called the New York Telephone Building, now "The Belltel Lofts." Art Deco is so in right now. (Brownstoner)
• But the mayor's plan to "pimp" the Red Hook/Cobble Hill waterfront into a "maritime-themed tourist attraction" is not so popular. Why? Because it will kill Brookyln's maritime industry. And because it's a maritime-themed tourist attraction. (Brooklyn Papers)
- Max Abelson
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• The Must-Read of the Day is an angst-ridden NY Press interview with a graphic artist who's left Manhattan for Japan. Apparently our "artist-driven metropolis has slowly given way to the rising tide of the corporate imperative." Other social foibles (The Gap, Brooklyn SUVs, and Starbucks) may force all cool Manhattanites to flee to Tokyo. Because apparently it's easier to "keep a roof over one's head" out there. (NY Press)
• Harvey Weinstein's ex-wife Eve got the couple's old duplex after their divorce--and now the lucky lady has unloaded the 15-room apartment for a reported $23 million. The buyer is Mr. Robert DeNiro, who in a gesture of his humane egalitarianism had been living in a rental. Now, thank god, he has great views of the Thanksgiving Day Parade. (NY Post)
• The Mayor better hurry on his efforts to make New York "the foremost environmentally sustainable American city"--and Brooklyn should speed up those green condos too. Why? NYC is going to get 12.5 degrees hotter by the end of the century. (New York Times)
• What's life like for 21st-century starchitects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron? Out of nowhere, the Royal Institute of British Architects bestowes the 158-year-old Royal Gold Medal upon them, then the Miami Art Museum awards the pair a $120 million commission--without a competition, of course. That officially makes 40 Bond even more glamorous. (Architectural Record)
- Max Abelson  read more »
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As part of our continuing, exhaustive (exhausting?) series on Mark Warner in New York, here's a write-up from Observer contributor Niall Stanage on an event that was covered by him and one Japanese reporter and, as far as Niall could tell, no one else:

Addressing the annual dinner of the Japan Society at the Hilton Hotel, Mark Warner delivered a speech that borrowed much of its lexicon and its worldview from Sen. Clinton's husband, emphatically underlining his centrist credentials.

At times, it could almost have been the former president at the lectern. Warner spoke frequently of an "interconnected" and interdependent world.

In a supremely Clintonian formulation, he asserted that the current moment held "tremendous" opportunities, "but only if we see the key questions of our day . . .are no longer based on the ideological fault lines of the past: left versus right, liberal versus conservative, or even open versus closed markets. Issues must be looked at through the prism of the future versus the past."

A lack of foreign policy experience could clearly be a weakness if Warner presses ahead with a presidential bid. He seemed intent on dispelling any impression of ignorance or naiveté last night.

More after the jump.  read more »

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