I lived in the States for two years from 2013-2015. Having caught the architecture bug in Tokyo before, I set out to explore the places I lived in and traveled to with an eye for important buildings and their stories.

There is probably no better place in the world to satisfy these passions than New York. During countless rectilinear walks, I tried to get an understanding of the postwar period and modernist architecture here. I did so from our base in Harlem, which then became the blog’s mainstay for a while.

I started with the modernist jewels, the Lever House and the Seagram Building, even managing to have lunch at the latter’s iconic Four Seasons before it closed in 2016. I wrote a lot about verticality and inequality, e.g., about the controversial middle finger, the Sky High exhibition, the new WTC and NYC’s soul and again on the World Trade Center. I also wanted to know more about (ugly?) 375 Pearl Street and the ominous Criminal Courts Building so I took some photos and notes. I went up the good old Empire State Building a few times, appreciating the panorama view.

Working my way uptown, I was fascinated by the Borg cube-like hospital and its scarring visual impact on New York’s green lung in Mount Sinai vs. Central Park. One of this blog’s most read posts is about Schomburg Plaza (a residential tower at the top of Central Park) and its controversial history. Cutting West from there is another bastion of law enforcement, the Lincoln Correctional Facility. Further afield, I took a stroll around the 1964 New York World’s Fair ground in Queens with a friend of mine.

In Harlem, I stepped outside our door to learn more about History on Seventh Avenue, I acquainted myself with one of the founding fathers and his Hamilton Grange, I admired the townhouses of Strivers’ Row, I didn’t get the language 100% right in Harlem housing projects, I wondered about the uninviting looks of the State Office Building on 125th, and I explored the Spiritural Harlem, prompted not only by walking past many houses of worship, but also living on top of one. I returned to Harlem in spirit after reading a few related books more recently, discussing the Hotel Theresa (pictured above) in a little bit more detail.

Outside of New York, I was amazed by Mies’s Chicago Federal Center on a beautiful trip up to the Windy City. I cycled past the former Iranian Embassy on Massachusetts Avenue in Washington, D.C. regularly during my one year there, took in Habitat 67 in Montreal and appreciated Peabody Terrace in Cambridge, Mass.

I am simultaneously dreading and yearning to return to New York one day, particularly Harlem. Dreading because of the steamroller of gentrification and the real estate state having shifted up a gear since. Yearning, well, because it’s New York, and its people usually being very good at overcoming the trials and tribulations of what’s thrown their way, eventually. Maybe the mayoral elections 2025 are an auspicious sign in that respect, and yes, maybe it’s time to go back!