New York's seasonal design issues, always favorites around Curbed HQ, take a peek into the past this time around with a then-and-now approach that cleverly incorporates, um, famous people. (Famous people are awesome.) Of the lot, we're most taken with Jared Della Valle and Andrew Bernheimer's overhaul of architect Paul Rudolph's Beekman Place duplex penthouse (above) in midtown east. Click through for a slideshow and other goodness.

And, hey, there's controversy not just in the fact that Rudolph's crumbling but iconic apartment was redone at all, but also in the more standard New York real estate feuds: "When Rudolph submitted his plans for adding his modernist apartment atop this townhouse in 1977, the neighbors objected. Today, its owner is embroiled in a civil suit against his immediate neighbor, who erected a wall high enough to block the southern-facing windows."