New York City exists as a physical and imaginary place, both a dense concrete maze and a blowzy personality. This course examines the many contours of this phenomenon by looking at the city across time. We explore specific historical moments, investigating the intertwining force of politics, economics, social struggles, artistic and cultural flowering, and consider those dynamics in planning for the city’s future. We explore how to know the city; how artists create the city; and what it means to live here, consulting classic materials alongside recent perspectives. We complement our broad overview of New York City in time by conducting a semester-long individual project. The project will mirror the themes that we discuss about the city overall, which offers the opportunity to think about and relay how a large-scale understanding of the city relates to smaller-scale changes.