London and New York top world's best department stores

The Global Department Store Summit(GDSS) was held in New York this year from 10-11 June. Participants included top executives from over 280 stores worldwide with Selfridges in London taking the title of world's best department store followed by Bloomingdales in New York City. Lane Crawford in Hong Kong came in third. Criteria which were assessed included strength of brand, innovation, in store experience, customer service and financial results.

Selfridges

Harry Gordon Selfridge founded Selfridges and is widely credited with coining the expression "the customer is always right". Techniques for marketing at Selfridges are techniques that were adopted by department stores all over the world such as placing the highly profitable perfume counters at the front of the store in the middle. Unusual and interesting exhibits were also features which attracted shoppers to come back to the shop. In 1909, Louis Bleriot's monoplane was exhibited in Selfridges after it's first cross channel flight. Innovation in bold marketing is epitomised by Selfridges world famous window displays which have been pored over by photographers for generations and published in many magazines worldwide including Vogue, Design Week, Harpers Bazaar and the New York Times. 1-27 April 1925 saw the first public demonstration of the television which was given from the first floor of Selfridges by John Logie Baird. Selfridges stores are also known for their architectural excellence and the London flagship store was designed by Chicago architect Daniel Burnham who also designed the Marshall Fields department store in Chicago.

Bloomingdales

Window displays also became a trademark of Bloomingdales with many imported European products used as a centrepiece to elaborate theatrical backgrounds. Another trademark is the small medium and large brown bags which have became a part of a shopping trip to Bloomingdales from 1973. Bloomingdales target market became the affluent young professional classes in New York and around the same time as the brown bag was brought into use, many expensive designers were supplying the store. Famously, in 1976 traffic was reversed on Lexington Avenue so that Queen Elizabeth II could exit her vehicle on the right hand side and enter the store through the main entrance.

Photo of the day: 1 World Trade Center under construction in New York City

Night shot of 1 World Trade Center under construction in New York City

11 Times Square, New York City

Statistics

• Completed 2010
• Height 600ft (183metres)
• 40 floors
• Architect
• 1.1 million sqft

The construction process of 11 Times Square was the first time in New York's history that a core was completed before the steel superstructure. The design features a sculptural composition of forms sheathed in various combinations of sheer glass curtain wall and unique "silk glass"panels. In keeping with the Times Square streetscape there are large-scale illuminated features including a 40' diameter iconic globe at the corner. 11 Times Square is LEED certified and is a state-of-the-art, environmentally responsible building with high performance glazed curtain walls which facilitate ample penetration of daylight, optimize views and provide excellent environmental control.

This compilation of stills shows the time lapse of the building's construction.

Photo of the day: Shard under construction in London

A wonderful angle of the Shard under construction from the end of October

Top Architectural Practices: Foster & Partners

Sir Norman Foster is arguably the closest anyone has ever come to achieving celebrity status in the world of modern architecture. Foster & Partners is a practice that was only founded in 1967 and has since been the lead architect on many world famous commissions with Sir Norman Foster himself being the spearhead of the PR campaign behind the firm. Foster gained a masters at the Yale School of Architecture before setting up an outfit called Team 4 with Richard Rogers, which quickly earned a reputation for high tech industrial design although by 1967, Team 4 dissolved and Foster went on to set up Foster Associates. The firm was kick started by the commission of The Willis Faber & Dumas building in Ipswich and today, many of the world's most famous buildings can be credited to the Foster portfolio. Similar to KPF, there are not many commissions in the world where Foster & Partners have not been considered for the design.

Completed in 2003, 30 St.Mary Axe, The Gherkin, is perhaps the most recognised work by Foster in London, being the first tall building in The City with ecological credentials using around half the power that a similar tower would typically use. London City Hall was a precursor to the Gherkin, sitting on the River Thames it's offset domes appearance might suggest it is related to The Gherkin, it's reduced surface area, simlar to the Gherkin, increasing it's energy efficiency.

In New York City, Foster's 597ft Hearst Tower was the voted the best skyscraper built in the world the year after the September 11th attacks on the city and was also the first new skyscraper to break ground after the event (click here for separate article on this tower). The Hearst Tower along with 200 Greenwich Street (click here for separate article on this tower), part of the redevelopment of the World Trade Center, both aimed to achieve the gold standard under the US Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Programme (LEED) and being involved in the World Trade Center project served to further cement Foster's position as one of the leading architects in the world today.

The Foster portfolio spans many different sectors and environments but outside of the realm of commercial office architecture, Foster & Partners design of the new Wembley Stadium in London reassured football fans across the world that no chances were being taken in turning the world's most famous football stadium into the best stadium in the world, at a record breaking cost of £798million ($1.26billion). For this money Foster & Partners delivered a stadium in which all 90,000 seats had more more leg room than there was in the royal box of the old stadium. For this, no one can deny Lord Foster the Knighthood he received from the Queen in 1990.

The love affair with Concorde

Concorde flew regular transatlantic flights from London Heathrow to New York JFK, operated by British Airways, between 1977 and 2003 when the aircraft was retired. This enabled passengers to travel between the two cities in less than three and a half hours, travelling at over mach 2, or twice the speed of sound.

Concorde was the aircraft of choice for the rich and famous between London and New York and amongst the celebrities that used the aircraft were Diana Ross, Phil Collins, Mick Jagger, Joan Collins, Sean Connery, Elton John and Rod Stewart. This video, which shows the farewell and very last departure of Concorde from JFK, always puts a lump in my throat from the loss of a baby which Londoners and New Yorkers had fallen in love with and which offered the best way to have breakfast between London and New York.

What Financial Reform Means for Both Sides of the Pond

Financial blogger for Reuters Felix Salmon and Bloomberg Business week's Roben Farzad discuss fiscal reform in both the US and UK, the dynamics between the countries' finance industries and whether London and NYC have a stronger financial future.

Audio-

Finalists Revealed For The New NYC Taxi

Yesterday New York City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg gave a preview of the three designs competing to become the next official NYC taxi. Nisssan, Ford, and Turkish manufacturer Karsan are offering designs that are more minivan based rather than resembling a passenger car. The reason for the competition is to find a successor to the discontinued Ford Crown Victoria and the mixed collection of hybrid cars and sport utility vehicles that are temporarily filling in.

Full article -

http://www.psfk.com/2010/11/finalists-revealed-for-the-new-nyc-taxi.html

10 Biggest Selling Music Acts from London and New York City

London and New York are true heavyweights when it comes to entertaining the world having produced music acts which pepper every list and compilation of the best music acts of all time from Rolling Stone magazine to VH1 and from true rock hall of fame legends to modern day heroes and villains. This is a list of the biggest ever selling music acts from London and New York City by highest reputed sales followed by London giants Led Zeppelin performing at New York's Madison Square Garden in 1973 - a legendary band at a legendary venue.

1. Led Zeppelin, London - 200 million-300 million

2. The Rolling Stones, London - 150 million-300 million

3= Mariah Carey, New York City - 200 million

3= Pink Floyd, London - 200 million

5. Whitney Houston, New York City - 170 million

6= Frank Sinatra, New York City - 150 million

6= Genesis, London - 150 million

8 =David Bowie, London - 140 million

8= Barbra Streisand, New York City - 140 million

10. Status Quo, London - 118 million

Top 10 Largest Companies in London and NYC by Market Capitalisation

A list of the top ten largest companies with headquarters in London and New York by market capitalisation. The total value of just these top ten titanic companies exceeds an astonishing $1.2 trillion (£750 billion) split almost equally between London and New York (source: market data digital outlook close: 22/11/2010)

1. HSBC, London - $184,311m (£115,628m)

2. JP Morgan Chase, New York City - $149,604 (£93,834m)

3. Pfizer, New York City - $132,885m (£83,349m)

4. BP, London - $129,109m (£80,997m)

5. Citigroup, New York City - $121,430m (£76,168m)

6. Shell, London* - $113,210m (£71,020m)

7. Phillip Morris International, New York City - $107,235m (£67,263m)

8. Glaxosmithkline, London - $103,304m (£64,807m)

9. BHP Billiton, London** - $81,543m (£51,159m)

10. Goldman Sachs, New York City - $81,495m (£51,118m)

*Royal Dutch Shell shares headquarters with The Hague, Netherlands

**BHP Billiton shares headquarters with Melbourne, Australia

Shard becomes London's tallest building

Statistics

• Due for completion 2012
• Height 310m (1,017ft)
• 72 floors
• Architect Renzo Piano

Congratulations goes to London and the Shard which yesterday became the tallest building in London and the UK, surpassing 1 Canada Square which has held the title since 1991. Here is a short video tracking progress of the building to date, courtesy of hodderr1 on youtube.

A few facts on Grand Central Station, NYC

This short and easy video gives a few interesting lesser known facts on Grand Central Station

Carnegie 57, New York City - quietly rising

Statistics

• Due for completion 2013
• Height 306m (1005ft)
• 75 floors
• Architect Christian de Portzamparc

One of New York's project that I have been curious about for sometime is Carnegie 57, a mixed use hotel and residential building which will stand 75 floors and 1005ft tall on West 57th Street. The vertical pattern of stripes on the building evoke the energetic cascade of New York's verticality and the dynamic cladding reminds me of buildings which have been constructed in the UK in recent years, such as the Beetham Tower in Manchester.

Carnegie was originally lined up as being the tallest residential tower in North America, although there has been no fanfare apparent with the building rising out of the ground and it's difficult to find any information on the building, even on the developers website. All we know is that the building will be green, LEED certified and house New York's latest Hyatt luxury hotel. The silence of Extell Development Corp means people may have to wait until the doors open to find out much more about the building.

The New York Subway and The London Underground

Which is the better transit system, The New York Subway or The London Underground? It's pretty easy to sit and push the merits of both into a keyboard but for me, the answer is easy - as long as you can have two answers. It's an emotional answer - not for me but for the people that have made it, watched it, used it and not only been part of it but made it a part of their city and life.

Better start off with throwing a few statistics into the pot and see where we end up then. The London Underground was the worlds first underground transit system when it opened in 1863 and the first to operate electric trains. Nowadays the tube network transports about 3.5 million people on any given weekday along 250 miles of track stopping at 270 stations. By comparison, New York has a larger ridership of 5 million on a weekday covering 229 miles and 468 stations. Yet these kind of statistics are all a bit shallow in comparing them and to me serve as the precursor to the pages of information you could pull up from a quick search.

For Londoners, the Underground is a lot more than a way of getting around. It's the lifeblood of the City, and at no time more than during the second world war. We have a housekeeper where I live in Kent, England who said that everytime the German aircraft flew over the countryside to bomb the hell out of the big smoke, her mother would say, "oh those poor Londoners". The

underground played a key role in saving the lives of people from the Nazi bombs. Government policy prior to London being bombed said the underground was not to be used as a shelter for fear that people may develop a "deep shelter mentality" and refuse to come back to the surface. However, heavy raids on London on 7th and 8th September 1940 led to public shelters being critically overcrowded to an unhygienic level. In October that year it was decided to build several deep level shelters, each with a capacity to hold 8,000 people and providing sanctuary for more than 60,000 people that lived in the worst affected areas of the City. In reference to the underground's role in ww2, Winston Churchill said,"London is like some huge prehistoric animal, capable of enduring terrible injuries, mangled and bleeding from many wounds, and yet preserving it's life and movement." Churchill always had a way with words but he was right, the underground saved the lives of thousands of people in the war - it protected people and then humbly went on to do what it does normally.

For New Yorkers too, the subway is a lot more than a way of getting around and their subway faced a different type of bombing in the 1970s. I first came across the New York subway when I was 12 years old with the publication of a book called Subway

Art by Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfont (right). This book is now legendary in the world of graffiti and was one of the first books to give the world an insight into the graffiti movement, why it had come about and it's expressionism, artists running from the authorities whilst trying to display what they do to the public on New Yorks subway trains. It also contributed massively to the perception that modern graffiti's roots lie deeply embedded in the New York Subway. Maybe but nowhere was it more prevalent. Critics said that it showed how out of control New York was when in the 70s and 80s subway trains were completely drowned in writers tags, window down pieces, window up pieces, whole cars - it was war between artists. Although not what one might expect an artist to be although early protagonists such as the writer "Seen" have gone on to develop successful careers out of graffiti and related arts. Seen is now 'seen' as the godfather of graffiti. The importance of graffiti in the history of the New York subway can be seen in the size of some of the pieces and planning that went into the trips to train yards. Writers faced competition from one another in a bid to become the best known writers or the best painters alongside normally having to steal the paint and escape the law. For hundreds of youngsters it was a way of life that ordinary members of the public were exposed to in the most colorful, criminal, messy, imposing and beautiful way. Everyone had a view on it. It took years and millions of dollars to clear up New York's trains but the old images of New York subway trains colorfully screeching into stations with a top to bottom whole car painted the night before will remain etched in my head forever - I love it.

Above ground in both cities, station entrances are like the gateways to a different world. Modern, art deco, tired, classical, funky - with hundreds of stations to choose from there are as many styles of architecture as there were styles of graffiti in New York's graffiti heyday.

Hearst Tower, New York City, distinctive and sustainable

Statistics

• Constructed 2003-2006
• Height 597ft (182m)
• 46 Floors
• 80,000 sqm (861,100 sqft)
• Architect Foster & Partners

The Hearst Tower was the first tower to break ground in New York City after September 11th, 2001. It was also the first green skyscraper in the city shifting building technology in New York into a new era and became the city's first LEED Gold designated building (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). The building features a tank in the basement which stores rainwater collected from the roof which is used for the cooling system, plant irrigation and also in the water sculpture in the main lobby. It's diagrid triangular framed design even uses about 20% less steel than conventionally designed and constructed skyscrapers. Water is circulated under the flooring through polyethylene tubing for cooling in the summer and heating in the winter.

The atrium of the Hearst Tower is befitting of a corporation whose publications include magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Esquire, Harpers Bazaar and Marie Claire and you could be forgiven for thinking the atrium was part of an elaborate art gallery. The escalators run through 'Icefall' which is a 3 storey water sculpture featuring thousands of glass panels which cools and humidifies the air in the lobby and is complemented by a 70 ft tall painting called 'Riverlines' by Richerd Long making the Hearst Tower a truely unique building for Hearst employees and visitors.