As lighting designer Herve Descottes’ car barreled down Interstate 78 toward Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, he arranged for flights from New York to L.A., then to Paris and Istanbul. Bethlehem, amidst the list of world capitals on his agenda, struck a decidedly incongruous note.

Among the many promises coming from the new Emanuel administration is one to the make elevated Bloomingdale Trail a reality. The mayor has promised full support for Chicago’s Bike Plan and that includes completing the 2.65-mile trail by the end of the first term. The bike transportation—as well as pedestrian—aspect of the trail may help it qualify for monies with the reauthorization of the 2005 Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient, Transportation Equity Act (SAFETEA), the federal transportation bill.

Amtrak and developer Akridge unveiled plans for an ambitious development atop tracks leading into Union Station in Washington, D.C. The 3-million-square-foot project promises to unite the neighborhoods of Capitol Hill and NoMa, a former industrial area transformed into a leafy residential neighborhood.

To drive up Broadway in New York is to stream past armies of smiling muliculti faces projecting the images of self-satisfied cell phone users, happy drugstore customers, and shoppers on a tear. And that’s not even the people on the sidewalk; it’s the larger-than-life advertisements featured in the chain-store windows proliferating where once neighborhood hardware stores, boutiques, and grocers were the norm.

Soon the public will be able to set foot on a small island in the Schuylkill River that has kept watch over Philadelphia’s Boat House Row for more than half a century. The island, which didn’t exist until a buildup of sediment from a dam created the formation, is just one component of a larger park design behind the Philadelphia Museum of Art, overseen by Susan Weiler of OLIN. Access to the island will replace public land lost to parking when the museum’s expansion plans (designed by Frank Gehry) are realized. OLIN’s new project will act as a gateway between the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, which runs from City Hall to the museum, and the adjacent Fairmount Park.

Bill Brinkman moved into the caretaker's house in Pleasant Hill Park after the Japanese surrendered to MacArthur in '45. He was a paratrooper in the 11th Airborne over New Guinea and the Philippines before he served on land in the honor guard, around the time the Japanese signed documents of surrender aboard the USS Missouri. "We were there to make damn sure there was no hanky-panky," Brinkman recalled.