How do you redesign one of the most beloved streets in television history—without losing its soul? 

Scenic designer David Gallo takes us behind the scenes of his work refreshing Sesame Street, balancing history with modern storytelling. From relocating Oscar the Grouch to uncovering forgotten set details, Gallo shares how he approached updating an iconic space while preserving its magic. Plus, hidden Easter eggs, unexpected storytelling opportunities, and what Stephen Colbert had to say about it all.

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• David Gallo Design

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1. The set was refreshed in 2015 for the 46th season.

David Gallo is an award-winning scenic designer and visual storyteller whose work has appeared in dozens of cities around the world. He has designed over 30 Broadway plays and musicals and is the recipient of the esteemed Tony Award and two Emmy Awards. He also designs media, video, and projections and directs and visually writes shows.

“Sesame Street stayed largely mired in 1968, which was great. But it didn’t reflect modern world to its audience. It was my function as the designer of the refresh to come in and add 35 years worth of history to a neighborhood, that would have evolved in a very particular way.”
-David Gallo

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Imagine a city where kids play safely in lush courtyards, neighbors bond over shared spaces, and errands are just a step away. Courtyard urbanist Alicia Pederson shares how this European housing model could transform American cities for families.

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• Find Alicia here: Bluesky & Twitter

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1. Courtyard Blocks as a Family-Friendly Urban Typology
   Courtyard blocks (or perimeter blocks) are characterized by buildings framing a city block, creating a shared green courtyard. This design supports family living by offering a safe, private outdoor space for children to play.

Alicia Pederson, Ph.D, is a member of the Greater Rockwell Organization’s Urban Planning & Development Committee, Strong Towns Chicago, and Urban Environmentalists. She is the mother of three children enrolled in a Lincoln Square elementary school.

“The buildings are built right up to the property line, and they completely frame a city block. Usually they are four to six stories tall, and they are common throughout continental Europe. The individual buildings are built wall to wall. So when the entire block is framed by building, the inner becomes a courtyard.”

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Imagine a world where your job, school, coffee shop, and parks are all within a 15-minute walk. Writer Addison Del Mastro joins us to discuss his passion for the 15-Minute City, while seeking more straightforward and accessible ways to define it for the public, policymakers, and urban designers.

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• Read Carlos Moreno’s The 15-Minute City

Here’s the 99% Invisible The 15 Minute City episode, listen to it to learn the background of the 15-Minute City, so we can critique it to make it better:

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1. Definition of the 15-Minute City: The 15-minute city concept reimagines urban living by organizing cities into interconnected neighborhoods where daily needs, such as work, education, and leisure, are accessible within a 15-minute walk or bike ride. Drawing inspiration from Jane Jacobs’ advocacy for walkable, human-scale cities, this idea combines traditional urban planning principles with a modern emphasis on sustainability and accessibility.

Addison Del Mastro writes on urbanism and cultural history. Find him on Substack at The Deleted Scenes: https://thedeletedscenes.substack.com/

“In many ways this is traditional urbanism, but also introducing something traditional in a society that has forgotten it, is in some ways revolutionary.”

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Maps are more than tools—they’re stories. In this episode, Andrew Lynch takes us on a journey through the subway systems of New York and Washington, revealing the secrets of abandoned lines, unrealized designs, and the choices that shape how we move through cities. If you’ve ever wondered what’s beneath the streets you walk, this episode is for you.

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• Check out Andrew’s work: Blog, Instagram, BlueSky, and buy some merch

The Washington Metro is more than just a transit system; it’s a statement about government’s role in public life. We chat with Professor Zachary Schrag about the Washington Metro’s history, its stunning brutalist design, and the larger ideals it represents

Garrett Corcoran shows us how design can be a bridge between the past and the future. Taking on the challenge of extending wayfinding to digital screens for the Washington Metro, Garrett shares what it’s like working with historical design legacies and figuring out how to make screens feel as natural as those mid-century hexagon tiles.

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1. Purpose of Maps: A good map depends on its purpose. It should clearly define parameters like orientation and navigation but can also tell deeper stories about history, context, and unrealized plans.

For over 20 years, Andrew Lynch has created maps that tell the story of what could have been, and what still yet might be. He uses maps to tell the story of the lost alternative realities our cities could have been. Lynch lives and works in NYC.

Track maps exist to show the system in more technical terms. Traditionally, track maps are simple schematics showing the location of tracks, switches, platforms, and signals.

Andrew’s track maps take this one step further and lay out an entire city in geographic terms, showing exactly where every piece is. Emphasis is made on non-revenue or abandoned sections to show the full layers of history that exist.

“I’m trying to understand how this whole thing really works. And to do that, you have to understand where things really are. A track map like mine isn’t necessarily useful for getting A to B, but it is useful for understanding how the subway network relates to the rest of the city.”

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Garrett Corcoran shows us how design can be a bridge between the past and the future. Taking on the challenge of extending wayfinding to digital screens for the Washington Metro, Garrett shares what it’s like working with historical design legacies and figuring out how to make screens feel as natural as those mid-century hexagon tiles.

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• Garrett Corcoran & Order Design

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1. Digital Wayfinding Evolution: The project aimed to modernize the wayfinding system for Washington Metro by incorporating real-time digital information that complements existing static signage.

Originally from Ohio and studying at the University of Cincinnati (DAAP), Garrett Corcoran is a graphic designer based in New York. Working as Design Director at Order, a Brooklyn based design office, his work is research driven, systematic, and practical. With an approach rooted in purpose, he believes design begins with understanding who it needs to serve, allowing for a strong but adaptable relationship between form and function.

“We think about them a little bit like a recipe book, where here are all these ingredients. Here are the best ways that you can combine them, or at least the ways that we think that you could start with.”

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The Washington Metro is more than just a transit system; it’s a statement about government’s role in public life. We chat with Professor Zachary Schrag about the Washington Metro’s history, its stunning brutalist design, and the larger ideals it represents.

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• Find Zachary Schrag at his website, Bluesky and Twitter

1. Metro Design Philosophy: The Washington Metro was designed with a sense of dignity, inspired by federal ideals of public architecture, aiming to create a system that would convey stability, enterprise, and aesthetic appeal for the nation’s capital.

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Zachary M. Schrag [silent c, rhymes with bag and flag] studies cities, technology, and public policy in the United States in the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries.

He is the author of four books: The Great Society Subway: A History of the Washington Metro; Ethical Imperialism: Institutional Review Boards and the Social Sciences, 1965-2009; The Princeton Guide to Historical Research; and The Fires of Philadelphia: Citizen-Soldiers, Nativists, and the 1844 Riots Over the Soul of a Nation.

“If this is going to be a subway for the federal city. It should look great. The station design for Metro has a couple of origins. One is the more idealistic sense of confidence in federal government confidence in the public realm that was expressed by the Kennedy administration in the famous guiding principles for federal architecture drafted by Daniel Patrick Moynihan that called on federal buildings, especially those in Washington to provide visual testimony to the dignity enterprise vigor and stability of the American government.”

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In the District where whispers hold as much power as regulations, Avery faces a crossroads: complete design of The Device which tracks movement to a very precise degree, or quietly resist? What happens when a simple traffic control device becomes a tool for surveillance—and survival? Avery confronts the ethical implications of their work in a city that’s always watching. 

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 Entry.

one fourteen four point seven eight.

This traffic control device shouldn’t be so hard to complete, thought Avery.

The request was to augment the previously designed and implemented traffic light and crosswalk devices. Both of these designs helped Avery advance to higher levels, granting more autonomy and better assignments.

This should be easy:

Take the existing design vocabulary and extend it to a new device to track moving objects. The device didn’t need to be that large since much of the compute would be offloaded to the district grid.

The problem wasn’t the design or the function.

Avery’s mind was preoccupied with the possibilities of new leadership.

The selection process for the Supervisor was almost complete.

The process was convoluted, and Avery wasn’t even sure what the options were for input.

Only Paulina knew Avery’s preference [00:01:00] between the two candidates, but in this part of the District, speaking out against the vocal minority had consequences.

Besides bodily autonomy, there were more insidious currents at play.

The whispers and side conversations ran rampant at the district office.

Questions kept coming up, without clear answers.

What if the new leadership asked us to work on something illegal?

What about something Unethical?

Were we even allowed to talk about it?

There are certain acts and regulations which barred staff from engaging in some forms of political activity.

Did talking about the Selection meet that criteria?

If we all had different red lines, how do we work together as professionals to service the district residents?

What if this Device was used to track certain people the Supervisor didn’t like, feeding that information into a centralized database in order to track and deport them?

[00:02:00] Avery wasn’t famous at all, so resignation would just mean no position and a need to explain a gap on the Codex.

So while the design of the device was elementary, the implication of the device put Avery in uncharted waters.

Avery asked Paulina to fill up the calendar for the next three days with enough design meetings for other teams and subordinates.

Avery could help others, if not herself. And sometimes ignorance is bliss.

End of Entry.

Vocalized by Audrey AI program one.

For more entries enter in your Control Panel

jwp.news/avery

end of control.

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NYC’s subway map isn’t an accident, but a century of contentious argument about more than just wayfinding. Peter Lloyd takes us on a ride through the history of New York City’s subway maps, exposing a world of visionary ideas, big personalities, and public opinion battles. The NYC subway map wasn’t just drawn up overnight—it’s the product of decades of creative tension, with each iteration capturing a new chapter of the city’s growth.

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• Find Peter Lloyd at Facebook, Twitter, Instagram

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1. Subway Maps as Cultural Icons: Subway maps serve not only as navigation tools but also as representations of the city’s identity, similar to how the London Tube map by Harry Beck or Paris Metro maps are instantly recognizable icons of those cities.

Peter Lloyd is, by profession, a software engineer. In the mid-1990s, however, he started collecting maps of underground railway systems, starting with London, where he lived, but branching out into a worldwide hunt. By the mid-noughties he had begun more seriously researching the New York City subway map – trawling archives and interviewing designers of the map. In 2012, Rochester Institute of Technology published his book, Vignelli: Transit Maps. Since then he has been working on a complete multi-volume history of the NYC subway map.

“ The subway map matters more than just it’s a navigation tool because it gives us a picture of the city we live in. Every map is a poem, a visual poem in a way. It’s a story, it’s a narrative about one person’s understanding of what’s out there.”
– Peter Lloyd

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Architectural history meets family road trips! Amy Talkington recalls her mother’s mission to protect historic neighborhoods and the creation of the iconic A Field Guide to American Houses. Dive into the world of architectural preservation, road trips, and the impact of one woman’s passion for saving America’s historic homes.

Amazing photo of Virginia by Steve Clicque, used with permission.

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• Buy A Field Guide to American Houses here and subscribe to the Field Guide to American Homes Insta

A Field Guide To American Houses by Virginia Savage McAlester (@afieldguidetoamericanhouses) • Instagram photos and videos

1. Virginia Savage McAllister’s Legacy: Virginia Savage McAllister, Amy Talkington’s mother, was an architectural historian and preservationist, most notably known for her book A Field Guide to American Houses.

Originally from Texas, Amy Talkington is an award-winning writer, director, producer and author currently living in Los Angeles. In the feature arena, Amy most recently wrote “Valley Girl” (MGM’s musical remake of the 80s cult film) and has written numerous other studio features that are in various phases of development, including “Undercover” at Lionsgate. In the television arena, Amy was a Co-Executive Producer and writer on Hulu’s hit series “Little Fires Everywhere” (starring Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington) for which she was nominated for both an EMMY and a WGA Award. Amy currently has multiple series in development including pilots at Max and 20th Television.

“She, woke me and my brother up at, 5 a. m., put us in the car and drove to the house and parked the car in front of the house to stop the bulldozers.”

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Ever wonder why cities look the way they do—or why they all seem to revolve around cars? In this episode, David White shares the untold story of middle housing and the zoning policies that have shaped our cities for decades.

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• David White and CivicWorks

1. Middle Housing Is Essential for Diversity:
   Middle housing—forms like duplexes, triplexes, and low-rise apartments—adds much-needed diversity to urban neighborhoods. It provides housing options that are more affordable and accessible, especially in areas dominated by single-family homes.

David is the Principal & Founder of CivicWorks. Under his leadership, the CivicWorks studio has established a reputation for design integrity and great city-building across a range of development typologies and scales of planning practice. His work is centered on leading multi-disciplinary teams through complex projects — negotiating community, political, and regulatory processes to achieve celebrated outcomes for a variety of land use and development scenarios.

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