Inside the Reviewnaissance

Aaron Timms, a writer and critic, was standing in a corner at TJ Byrnes, an Irish pub in New York’s financial district, explaining the Paris Métro. “They’re building a network that is going to allow better connections between the different suburbs,” he was telling me when a woman cut him off. “Hey,” she said, making her way through the busy, low-lit backroom. “I loved your piece.” Timms had written about the suburbs in the newest issue of the New York Review of Architecture (NYRA). The roomful of young media types and design buffs had gathered under the pub’s stained-glass lamps that evening to celebrate the issue’s launch.