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Several stellar Japanese architects recently converged on Manhattan, New York, for a symposium at the Japan Society called "Technology and Tradition in Contemporary Japanese Architecture," co-organized by the periodical "Architectural Record." The conference was launched with a lecture by Fumihiko Maki, recently appointed architect for a new United Nations building and a tower at Ground Zero. The focus then passed to younger architects, including Ware Kishi , Kengo Kuma, and the ebullient Jun Aoki. Aoki, Shigeru Ban and Kazuyo Sejima are rising architects. Each has built or is about to build in Manhattan: Aoki's work for Vuitton on Fifth Avenue, Ban's Paper Arch at the Museum of Modern Art in 2000, and Sejima's New Museum envisaged for the Bowery.

Reports that Rebuild Downtown Our Town (RDOT), a community advocacy group for Lower Manhattan, has issued a position paper recommending several strategies for attracting retail to the neighborhoods of Lower Manhattan as a stimulus to growth. Identification of shopping districts, retail destinations, and retail corridors by RDOT; Suggestions by RDOT to avoid siphoning retail traffic away from surrounding neighborhoods.

The article reports on the implementation of an optical wireless technology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan, New York City. The cancer center operates without paper or medical charts, so all data and voice connections need a backup pathway. The center installed equipment from LightPointe Inc. as a backup link between two buildings. Optical wireless is reliable, higher-speed, and cost-effective than the alternatives. And the information technology staff used rooms with windows instead of doing a more complicated rooftop installation.