We can learn a lot from great architecture, but what can we learn from architecture that is, frankly, disastrous? In today's episode, Dan and David visit two miserable attempts at majesty: the David M. Dinkins Manhattan Municipal Building and the Surrogate's Courthouse, both on the corner of Centre and Chambers Streets, downtown, and in the process learn some interesting lessons about the ambitions and self-regard of New York in early 20th Century.

What says New York City more than a street of Brownstones? It turns out, though, that this most beloved of city housing designs wasn't always so beloved, and they sit right on the front line of one of the most fundamental debates in urban architecture.

Today's episode brought to you by Audible.

The most famous park in the world? Maybe. Inevitable stop on the Manhattan tourist trail? Absolutely. But Central Park is also an amazing laboratory for a 150-year-old experiment in urban planning and social identity, and the masterpiece of America's first (and probably only) superstar landscape architect. Scenic vistas! Hot dogs! Gentrification! Paternalism! This place really has it all.

Seven years ago this week, this innocuous-looking downtown courtyard was taken over by Occupy Wall Street, and what resulted was one of the most exciting, chaotic, and controversial public protests ever held in New York. Our own Dan London was there in the thick of it.

In this episode Dan goes back to Zuccotti to remember how it became, for a moment, the most radical place in America.

Dan and David explore a largely unknown quasi-suburban corner of Queens - Sunnyside Gardens, a place so downright pleasant, it might be revolutionary.

A strange and unique spit of land in the middle of the East River, where we talk about the history of charity and looking to the future of the past.

We trek to Green-Wood Cemetery to find the final resting place of one of the all-time most quintessential New Yorkers, and talk about the the power (and limitations) of his quest to use the performing arts as a force for social progress.

Our very first episode takes us uptown to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and the strange pleasures of buildings designed to make you feel unimportant.