• “Solar in the City” by Josh Radoff
  Solar Today, September/October 2004
• “Greening New York One Building At a Time” by Bomee Jung
  Progressive Planning, Spring 2004
• “GreenHomeNYC: Getting the Word Out on Green Building” by Josh Radoff
  LOOT, March 9, 2004
• “The Rebuilding and Greening of the World Trade Center Site: Why Green Building Could Play a Role in Lower Manhattan” by Ariella Rosenberg and Alison Drury
  The New American City, January 5, 2004
• “Green Buildings” by Josh Radoff
  Gotham Gazette, January 5, 2004
• “NYPV Blue” by Josh Radoff
  Alternatives Journal, Winter 2003
• “The Price of Wind” by Josh Radoff
  NY Opinion

This piece is no longer available on the Plenty Web site. GreenHomeNYC’s Lauren Gropper consulted on Adrian Grenier’s project

Includes statement from board member Gita Nandan.

Townhouses go green
By Lauren Elkies

Green features at 156 Reade Street include geothermal heating and cooling systems with air filtration. It is double-insulated, has purified air and water and features nontoxic natural surfaces.

New York City’s single-family townhouses are getting a green makeover.

Developers and architects are using ecologically friendly materials and methods to build and renovate houses on the Upper East Side, Upper West Side, Harlem and Brooklyn.

Read more at The Real Deal

Includes statement by GreenHomeNYC founder Bomee Jung

“Betting on a Green Building Boom” by Elizabeth Cady Brown

New York can become a leader in environmentally sound development–if big business buys in. Here’s how well-paid professionals are building a marketplace movement.

On a frigid morning in early February, about 30 building-industry executives gathered in the conference room of Bovis Lend Lease, on the ninth floor of the MetLife building. It was by all appearances an unremarkable event, except that this group of seasoned architects, developers, engineers, contractors, designers, and planners had come to plan an environmental revolution. They do this on the first Wednesday of every month, before scurrying off to jobs at many of the most prestigious building firms in the city.

The topic was indoor air quality, and Catherine Bobenhausen, a mild-mannered industrial hygienist who is one of New York State’s foremost experts on the subject, had been invited to address the group about testing for pollutants. She used a lot of jargon, but she didn’t mince words. Rather than constantly testing for noxious chemicals in our air ducts, said Bobenhausen, we should construct buildings that are less toxic and better-ventilated.

Read on at City Limits

Going Green to Save Green
A New Wave of Residential Development
By Debra A. Estock

Solar powered panels dotting rooftops. Recycled waste water replenishing toilets. Geothermal heat pumps for heating and cooling. Filtered fresh air into apartments. What’s next? Sheep grazing in the Sheep Meadow?

Not necessarily, but thanks to some government tax incentives and a newfound environmental consciousness, several New York City area buildings from Harlem to Brooklyn are being built in an earth-friendly manner, and in some cases at less per square foot than traditional development.

GreenHomeNYC, a volunteer non-profit organization that seeks to promote environmental awareness in the building community and supports environmentally-responsible building, recently conducted a daylong tour of residential buildings and public facilities currently under construction in New York City that would rival any contemporary home out in the wilds of Vermont.

Keep reading “Going Green to Save Green: A New Wave of Residential Development” at The Cooperator

Painting the Town Green
A Look at GreenHomeNYC
By Mary K. Fons

Did you know that every time you flush the toilet, you use around six gallons of water? Or that compact fluorescent light bulbs use nearly 75 percent less energy than incandescent bulbs and cost far less, too?

After the blackout of 2003, most newspapers and online magazines were inundated with energy saving tips and hints on how we could (and should) all be more energy-conscious. Even though it took a regional blackout to do it, a lot of New Yorkers began to actually read those tips and some of them even started to put some better habits into practice by shutting off running faucets, turning off lights when not in rooms, and so forth.

But all the “drastic times call for drastic measures” actions that have been suggested, however crucial, are band-aid sized solutions to a much bigger problem: New York City, like so many other cities in the U.S., uses an astronomical amount of energy to stay running. Granted, it’s a big city in a country full of people with huge appetites for their appliances, which sit in their big kitchens, kept at their preferred temperature. It’s difficult to ask people to cut back the level of luxury that many of them are used to - even if installing a better light bulb would save them from a blackout.

For years now, some people have suggested that perhaps the way to solve America’s energy problem is to address it before it gets to blackout proportions. Instead of making a building run more efficiently by shutting off the air conditioners whenever possible, we might think about building a cooler building.

GreenHomeNYC is committed to making these square one changes accessible and feasible to the architects, contractors, building managers/owners, and any New York resident who wants to be involved in building a more sustainable, energy efficient home or business. The company is young (only over one year old), and there aren’t many people on the payroll yet. But GreenHomeNYC has accomplished quite a bit since they established themselves as a non-profit 501(c)3 company in 2002.

Keep reading at The Cooperator