Where Was I?
Cities change faster than bookmarks.
THEREALMURPHY
Volume 2, No. 1
A R C H I T E C T U R E · A R T · D E S I G N
It’s been a little quiet around here. I’ve still been collecting things.
Welcome to Volume Two. New numbering. Same problem. It seemed easier than coming up with another pun.
This time I didn’t realize there was a theme until I was almost finished putting everything together.
New York has been changing a lot lately. Buildings are coming down. Others are going up. One is even leaning. People are climbing bridges and skyscrapers. Knicks fans are rappelling down walls. Meanwhile, Tokyo refuses to stop being Tokyo.
Anyway…
The Brooklyn Art Book Fair is this weekend near the Navy Yard
RSVP to the next New York Architecture + Design book club talk at Brooklyn bookstore, Head Hi
Meet the artists behind Noble Signs, a Brooklyn-based design studio that specializes in hand-painted and neon signs
An intimate look at how graffiti artist HOMESICK uses the streets of New York to hold onto places that no longer exist
Woman strolls across Brooklyn Bridge suspension cables, closing historic span
Couple climbs to top of Empire State Building, unfurls pro-peace banner, and then gets engaged
Philanthropist and collector Sonya Yu is on a mission to make museums free
Inside the New Museum’s new restaurant, where sleek steel meets subterranean design
Manhattan high-rise remains unstable after columns buckle during office-to-residential conversion
Why the collapse of the Pfizer conversion means it’s time to address the leaning tower of Lower Manhattan
Demolition complete for 47-story skyscraper in Brooklyn Heights
A look inside Manhattan’s newest residential tower
Development plans for former downtown Brooklyn Macy's unveiled
Second ship sinks in Red Hook, Brooklyn
Earthwork underway for new detention center in Manhattan’s Chinatown
Brooklyn Japanese Village gets 50,000-square-foot expansion that includes live sumo wrestling
Soho House’s 50th outpost lands in Tokyo
Japanese design interpreted through a Danish lens
Eight-room Tokyo hotel designed to feel like you’re staying at the home of a tasteful friend
A stuffed animal shrine in Kyoto invites visitors to honor cherished plush companions
Architecture for fish to enjoy after sea levels rise
Twenty aquatic centers building collective landscapes
Surrounded by concrete and apartments, the last farm in Manhattan was a citywide curiosity
Downtown Brooklyn's sidewalks have turned into a giant public art gallery
French artist JR installs giant inflatable cave on Paris Pont Neuf
Why should artists stay in cities like London and New York when financial pressures are making it harder than ever?
You can never go home again, but you can spend a lifetime trying
A photographer once walked from New York to San Francisco for a photo project
A 1908 Victorian gets transformed into a garden-first family home in San Francisco
How one California native manifested her dream New York City apartment
The Haas Brothers put their delightful madness on display in a new Los Angeles Studio
An incredible cabin in Los Angeles
18th-century estate tied to the Underground Railroad seeks $595K in Upstate New York
A minimal home in London and another in Glenties, Ireland
Brick-clad Brooklyn rowhouse creates welcoming threshold
A feather sculpture takes flight in historic SoHo loft
A minimal workspace on a skyscraper’s 28th floor
For $59.5M, you can live in the Tribeca penthouse from ‘Billions’
Architecture as a participant in living systems
What foreign architects get wrong in the Global South
How modernism became a language of liberation in West Africa
Celebrating the African diaspora through the photography of Armet Francis
Proposal reusing decommissioned buses as mobile playgrounds wins 2026 Davidson Prize
Warhol Foundation announces $5.2M in grants to 78 arts organizations
American Museum of Natural History to repatriate 2,700 Native American hair samples
With new seizures, value of the Met’s looted artifacts tops $95M
Jewelry heist at French Decorative Arts Museum is latest in spate of thefts
The ongoing dilemma for museums after high-profile heists
Five classical museums around the world
Striped rock dismissed as natural in 1928 reclassified as UK’s oldest cave art
Entire Herculaneum scroll deciphered by AI for the first time
What do artists daydream about?
Can artist corporations revolutionize creative business?
Alvar and Aino Aalto were never just a genius and an assistant
The Eames Houses explores the homes that shaped modern design
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Chicago buildings tell the story of the architect’s early years
The market for plugs and switches has finally brightened up (Shout out Dimwit!)
Why vintage furnishings are fashion’s new favorites
What collectibles crazes tell us about an entire era
Browse over 1,000 vintage t-shirts at Tokyo exhibition
Bed rot, doomscrolling and a single goldfish: the Melbourne art show blowing loneliness open
Biohacking has come for our homes
Film photography is making a comeback
The disposable camera is more popular than ever
A digital twin-lens reflex camera is long past due
Kodak's viral keychain camera gets a Y2K makeover
New exhibition explores the life and archive of Bill Cunningham, whose lens captured decades of New York style and street life
Lucy Sparrow on sewing a supermarket
Keith Haring carousel seat furniture
Lastly, Current Rothko transforms the weather into a perfectly matched Mark Rothko painting
That does it for now. Thanks for reading this far.
-TM