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+Pool creators launch art installation that tracks East River water quality

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Plus, day one of the 14th Street busway—and more intel in our New York Minute news roundup

Courtesy of Family New York

Good morning, and welcome to New York Minute, a new roundup of the New York City news you need to know about today. Send stories you think should be included to tips@curbed.com.

See what a floating East River pool might look like

The creative minds at Playlab and Family New York have been working to realize a concept they call +Pool—a floating swimming hole, shaped like a plus sign, that would filter water from the East River to make it safe for paddling—for close to a decade now. And while we’re still a ways off from being able to go for a dip in the river, an art installation near the South Street Seaport conceived by those firms aims to show what the +Pool concept might look like.

Dubbed +Pool Light, the piece features 50 LED lights configured in the shape of the proposed pool, with the lights changing color based on the condition of the water at any given time. (How will they do that? By using an algorithm that’s “computed based on environmental conditions and data pulled from sensors placed in the East River at Pier 17.”) There’s also a public dashboard so curious onlookers can see what, exactly, is happening in the river.

Earlier this year, the NYC Economic Development Corporation issued a RFEI seeking ideas for a floating pool concept—so we may see the real thing in action at some point.

The 14th Street busway, day one

By all accounts, the first day of the 14th Street busway was a success, at least in terms of speeding up buses. AM New York’s Vincent Barone live-tweeted from 14th Street (and an M14 bus), and found plenty of traffic cops enforcing the new rules of the road, as well as one bus rider who said that the difference in speeds is “unbelievable.”

The Wall Street Journal reported that the lack of traffic on the thoroughfare made buses so fast that some drivers had to driver slower to stick to their schedules. The DOT and MTA anticipated that the new traffic restrictions would increase speeds on 14th Street by about 25 percent.

And in other news…

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Empire State Building, 1930

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Happy Friday, folks.