Aaron J. Knoll » Uncategorized http://aaronknoll.com Planner / Programmer / Musician @ New York City Wed, 03 Aug 2011 18:00:00 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 What I’ve been doing the last week http://aaronknoll.com/2009/10/what-ive-been-doing-the-last-week/ http://aaronknoll.com/2009/10/what-ive-been-doing-the-last-week/#comments Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:40:00 +0000 Aaron http://aaronknoll.com/?p=43
Al-Iman Mosque, Steinway St.

Al-Iman Mosque, Steinway St.


I’ve also spent some time getting to know my neighborhood a little better. I recently discovered a book at work about Queens and the people that have lived their lives here- I was especially attracted to the chapters about people in Little Egypt in the neighborhood where I live. It’s always seemed such a peaceful neighborhood with a diversity of people from all walks of life and nationalities. I was unaware of the violence that had occurred in the wake of the September 11th attacks and how it had affected business owners and residents. I talked more about it in the ASHP Now and Then Blog here, and am now wondering if perhaps Little Egypt and the Steinway BID would make for an interesting thesis project.

New Ashp Website, Sept 09And finally, it is with great satisfaction I am able to say that we launched the new ASHP website at work. It was quite a challenge pulling all of the pieces together. I am very happy with the way I was able to use wordpress as a CMS to facilitate easier management of the websites by staff and still being able to faithfully implement the design that was created by the design team. It was a great feeling being able to have launched a website of this scale as the only programmer involved on the project. If there was anything I would have done different a second time around, I would have implemented more thorough server side handling of redirects and error pages for the nearly a thousand .html pages that were a part of their old site; however, overall, I think the site is a great accomplishment for myself and the organization. More information on other projects I’ve worked on is available on my Portfolio page.

]]> http://aaronknoll.com/2009/10/what-ive-been-doing-the-last-week/feed/ 1 The High Line http://aaronknoll.com/2009/09/the-high-line/ http://aaronknoll.com/2009/09/the-high-line/#comments Fri, 25 Sep 2009 14:44:02 +0000 Aaron http://aaronknoll.com/?p=37 Firstly, I want to say that the High Line is beautiful on the surface. It’s a fantastic looking re-use experiment than stands out in the meatpacking district.

High Line Park

However, that’s where the accolades end. It floors me that despite so many neighborhoods in New York City failing to meet the NYC2030 plan requirements of 1.5 acres per thousand people that a neighborhood as park rich as this one can somehow lay claim to the most expensive to maintain park in the entire city. (one block away lies the Hudson River Park)

The news has started coming to the forefront that the park was also constructed using Amazon rain forest trees. Rain forest preservation issues aside, its hardly a sustainable practice to rely on wood from overseas.

Now clearly some things are going right: the park is seeking to create a BID to help offset the massive cost of maintaining the park. I support strongly the rights of families and businesses within the vicinity of the High Line to support an amenity that gives them value. Where I think the City should draw the line is in the 1 million in support that they will give the park annually, and “The High Line has twice as many parks enforcement patrol officers as all of the Bronx“.

Though gorgeous, it seems that the High Line Park is an unfortunate example of the second class status of other neighborhoods where park space is more badly needed.

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