
The New York Times' recent celebration of the city's "legendary literary hangouts" is an important reminder of one of the great features of city life. Cities have a way of mixing different people together and inspiring the creation of great things. And sometimes that happens rather informally. (That's one of the reasons why there's tremendous value in the nighttime economy.) Tina Jordan writes: "You might think of them as solitary creatures, furiously scribbling or typing alone, but as long as there have been writers in New York City, they have socialized together in an assortment of bars, restaurants, apartments and clubs."
For the full thing, click here.

The New York Times' recent celebration of the city's "legendary literary hangouts" is an important reminder of one of the great features of city life. Cities have a way of mixing different people together and inspiring the creation of great things. And sometimes that happens rather informally. (That's one of the reasons why there's tremendous value in the nighttime economy.) Tina Jordan writes: "You might think of them as solitary creatures, furiously scribbling or typing alone, but as long as there have been writers in New York City, they have socialized together in an assortment of bars, restaurants, apartments and clubs."
For the full thing, click here.


This past spring a new restaurant called Ooki Pavillon opened in the Sihlfeld neighborhood of Zurich. It's an izakaya-style Japanese restaurant that is housed in a seven-sided pavilion that was initially constructed in the 1950s. The place looks great (see above), but what you may also find interesting is that the pavilion was initially built as an amenity space (leisure room) for one of Zurich's first high-rise apartment blocks. Check it on street view, here. Supposedly there are only a handful of these sorts of pavilions remaining in the city. And so it is nice to see this one get repurposed (I don't know what it was prior to Ooki). It is also a good reminder that, while many of our post-war apartment blocks aren't the most urban in their approach, rethinking the ground plane can go a long way.
Images: Ooki Pavillon


This past spring a new restaurant called Ooki Pavillon opened in the Sihlfeld neighborhood of Zurich. It's an izakaya-style Japanese restaurant that is housed in a seven-sided pavilion that was initially constructed in the 1950s. The place looks great (see above), but what you may also find interesting is that the pavilion was initially built as an amenity space (leisure room) for one of Zurich's first high-rise apartment blocks. Check it on street view, here. Supposedly there are only a handful of these sorts of pavilions remaining in the city. And so it is nice to see this one get repurposed (I don't know what it was prior to Ooki). It is also a good reminder that, while many of our post-war apartment blocks aren't the most urban in their approach, rethinking the ground plane can go a long way.
Images: Ooki Pavillon
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