The Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan is expected to reopen Oct. 21 following a $450 million expansion. Each of the building's columns weighs 80 tons, according to MoMa Director Glenn Lowry, so the project team had to pull off an "engineering miracle" to get the floors to support the weight.

New York City is considering turning a 4.2-million-square-foot section of Governors Island into "a major center for climate adaptation research, commercialization, conversation and policymaking," according to a request for proposals sent to contractors. The project is expected to help finance the island's maintenance.

The Bella Abzug Park on the West Side of Manhattan is an example of how business improvement districts can take a once blighted area and make it inviting to the public. Over the past several decades, the once-controversial BIDs have proved their worth in New York City, but some communities do not possess the wealth to form one.

Two new residential towers from developer TF Cornerstone are beginning to take shape in Hunters Point, Queens. Photos chart progress on a 46-story, 394-unit structure at 52-41 Center Blvd. and a 56-story tower at 52-03 Center Blvd.

The city and several local groups are proposing an improvement plan for Broadway Junction -- Brooklyn's third-busiest transportation hub. The plan for the 25-acre site calls for extensive modernization to upgrade failing infrastructure and relieve chronic congestion.

Adding parks to rooftops, highway decks, water filtration plants and other functioning infrastructure is becoming common as a cost-saver and to provide green space in crowded urban settings. Such efforts can be "complicated from a design point of view and a maintenance point of view," says Adrian Benepe of the Trust for Public Land.

The combination of building information modeling and point cloud data from drones is helping builders develop 4D aerial imagery for projects, John Bleasby writes. The added dimension can help project stakeholders optimize design, deal with permit applications and keep accurate records.

Digital tools adapted from video game technology are now being applied in construction for more accurate and immersive 3D modeling. In the future, extended reality will facilitate greater convergence between manufacturing and construction, as well as increased interoperability between building-scale simulations and their surroundings, predicts Julien Faure, product marketing director at Unity.

Workplace safety hazards such as the "Fatal Four" in construction could be an area of focus under the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's new weighting system for fiscal 2020 inspections, said Edwin Foulke, a lawyer and former OSHA chief. About 60% of worksite deaths result from the Fatal Four, which are falls, caught-in-or-between, struck-by and electrocution accidents.

Six bills under the city's Climate Mobilization Act call for a 40% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030, but stakeholders are questioning how long it will take for advisory committees to do the work required to make necessary recommendations. "Most owners aren't going to do anything until they have some kind of concrete guidance from [the Department of Buildings]," says Frank Ricci, director of government affairs at the Rent Stabilization Association.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has requested a feasibility analysis of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's proposed $51.5 billion infrastructure spending program. Specifically, Cuomo asked that the continuing forensic audit of MTA's finances include the MTA Capital Program, which plans to back transportation infrastructure projects during the next five years.

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