FDR Memorial Park To Open — Finally

MONUMENT WATCH: Decades in the making, the long-awaited, much-delayed Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park finally opens to the public on Wednesday, giving Roosevelt Island a sorely needed green lung, and some architectural heft to boot. The official dedication last week was packed with political glitterati; meanwhile, more than one critic is praising the posthumous work of 70s-era starchitect Louis Kahn on the memorial. [Via NYT, Vanity Fair; previously]

New York Wins Battle of the Naked Commuters

MORE SUBWAY SAGAS: After a woman was spotted riding the Vienna subway in nothing but a pair of leather boots, The Atlantic Cities decided to round up all the public-transit riders worldwide who have recently been caught in the buff. The list features the occasional appearance by other bustling metropolises, like San Francisco, Singapore and, um, Fort Lauderdale, but the clear winner in the arena of naked commuting is New York. Um, shocker. [Via Atlantic Cities]

Wall Candy for Urbanists

FONT FADS:

Check out this series of awesome, creative city posters — including a diverse lineup for New York — created and submitted by a roster of designers worldwide who are obsessed with the intersection of urbanism and typeface. Yup, fonts. Scrolling through the posters, it’s plainly obvious that many of these sickeningly talented creative folks took inspiration not only from clichéd stand-bys like landmarks and the city skyline but from more nuanced architectural elements of the Big Apple, like the grid system of the streets and its sheer density, verticality and propensity for neon.

The More Things Change…

BLAST FROM THE PAST: For the wonkiest of New York City history lovers among us, this essay in Guernica by Kanishk Tharoor, comparing the Occupy Wall Street movement and modern-day society at large with a 19th-century author’s lamentations about the glaring gap between the rich and the poor, is a must-read. More than 100 years separate the two sources of material, but the questions at the heart of both struggles are surprisingly similar. “Who should have access to the city?” Tharoor asks. “What is the purpose of public space? Should only the doyens of the market have the power to decide the structure of urban life? Or should, in some fashion, the rest of us?” He goes on to explore what makes an ideal city, and his answer is difference — but that kind of progress-making disparity has disappeared from many parts of the city due to (shudder) gentrification. As a result, “the ideal New Yorker has no past and no background,” the author adds, “only a wallet and a will to buy.” Now there’s a self-esteem boost to start your week off right. [Via Guernica]

Tory Burch’s Money-Losing Mansion

IN THE RED: Tory Burch’s ubiquitous medallioned shoes — heck, her whole brand — may be an unequivocal success in the fashion world, but her house in the Hamptons is the opposite of profitable. After several slashes in price, the designer’s waterfront manse in Southampton, bought for $22.5 million, sold for mere pennies: $11 million. With neighbors like Rachael Ray and Calvin Klein, East Enders are getting all jittery that it should have attracted a buyer with deeper pockets. But is this an omen for the demise of the Hamptons property market? With neighboring estates going for a cool $30-$50 million, we highly doubt it. [Via Zillow]

One57 Earns Its Crown

SUPERLATIVE SKYSCRAPER: Construction workers have finally reached the tippy-top of the much-anticipated One57 building, and it looks… just like the renderings. Okay, a skeletal version of the renderings. The whiplash-inducing back-and-forth between the architects who have worked on the curved crown of the 1,004-foot monolith — Pritzker Prize winner Christian de Portzamparc and local firm Goldstein, Hill & West — have left design fiends wondering just who can take credit for the glassy, elegant, half-completed cornice. But, in this case, do aesthetics even matter? The 90-story skyscraper in Midtown is set to be the tallest residential tower in the city, and though it’s set to open its doors next year, billionaires are already falling all over themselves to nab coveted apartments worth tens of millions. [Via NYO, NYT]