Community board review, surveys, neighborhood impact assessments, public hearings. Traditional methods of soliciting public input on major design projects can be a little dry and uninspiring. And that’s if you even know about them — public participation is often limited to those motivated few who know to show up and have the time to do so. But when a project — say, a new public park on a 172-acre island in New York Harbor — requires a ferry ride to visit, the vitality of the space depends on getting people to show up. So, how do you create a destination? The answer might be as simple as this: ask people what they want, make it easy for them to tell you, and then give it to them. That’s the theory behind the extensive public outreach effort that led up to and is now responding to the Governors Island Park and Public Space Master Plan, an effort masterminded by Leslie Koch, President of the Governors Island Preservation and Education Corporation (GIPEC). We sat down with Koch in Building 110 on Governors Island, where visitors can view and respond to an exhibition of the master plan, to talk about the ideas and efforts put into envisioning New York City’s future island oasis: the outreach methods they employed, the challenges of identifying an audience for a park on an island with no existing constituency, why designers need to engage with the public, and how Post-it notes and hammocks can lead to the thoughtful design of public space. Listen to her thoughts below:

Click audio player to listen to Leslie Koch. Running time: 9:52.
Right click here to download the mp3.

For nearly two centuries, Governors Island was used as a military base. In the mid 1990s, when the Coast Guard closed its operations on the island, interest developed in identifying a public use for the island. Beginning in 1995, a coalition of civic groups called the Governors Island Alliance, along with local community boards, elected officials and other interested parties, worked to build public support for the transfer of the island from the Federal to the State and City Governments and to solicit public input on how the island should be developed and used. The State and City of New York co-purchased the land (at a cost of $1) from the Federal Government in 2003 with goals of revitalization and development. (Earlier this year the State relinquished control to the City after ongoing funding problems impeded progress.)

In 2006, Leslie Koch was appointed President of GIPEC, the agency responsible for the planning, redevelopment and operations for 150 acres of Governors Island (the remaining 22 acres are designated as a national monument and are thus operated by the National Park Service). She has since led the charge to “bring Governors Island back to life” and put into motion the process of creating a vision for its future; a process that encompasses everything from designing a park in the 100-year flood zone (the first project in New York City designed with climate change in mind, according to Koch) to reminding New Yorkers of the majesty of the Statue of Liberty (just for tourists you say? Take a look at it from Picnic Point).

In the fall of 2006, GIPEC launched a design competition for a preliminary vision of the park. Five teams were selected and the call for public response began. The teams’ ideas were presented as part of two exhibitions (one on the island and one at the Center for Architecture), a public forum, public tours and online. The success of the public feedback effort and its impact on the jury process encouraged Koch to pursue similar methods once the winning team was chosen – West 8, led by Adriaan Geuze, with Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Mathews Nielsen and Rogers Marvel – and they began work on the master plan. Online and off, on the island and around the city, using photo booths and rubber stamps, the team took great strides to discover what New Yorkers are looking for in their recreation space. -V.S.

"We collected 1,500 Post-it Notes. People were really thoughtful, whether they were saying "don't screw it up" or "I want a place to walk with the person I love" -- that was a big part of our public input in 2008." -Leslie Koch

"You think of a hammock as a place for contemplation in the shade. ... Well, on Governors Island, hammocks are everything -- they're play devices, they're napping devices, they're gathering devices. ... That has led to a whole host of insights." -Leslie Koch

"We have repurposed our bus shelters ... you can stand somewhere and imagine what it will look like in the future." -Leslie Koch

Percent of respondents who report that these potential improvements are very important or important. From 2008 survey conducted on Governors Island.

All images courtesy of the Governors Island Preservation and Education Corporation. Rendering of Hammock Grove by West 8 / Rogers Marvel Architects / Diller Scofidio + Renfro / Mathews Nielsen / Urban Design +.

A conversation with Adam Friedman

Click audio player to hear Salazar’s interview with Adam Friedman. Running time: 9:36.
Right click here to download the mp3.

The collapse of the financial markets and their subsequent rescue has brought the need for a “real” economy into sharp relief.  While the financial sector was shedding jobs earlier this year, I sat down with Adam Friedman, then executive director of the New York Industrial Retention Network (NYIRN), to talk about the manufacturing industry in New York City and why it’s important.

“Manufacturing today is overwhelmingly very high end and provides very well-paying jobs.” -Adam FriedmanThroughout the five boroughs New Yorkers are producing high end garment and paper products, building green construction materials, furniture, the kitchen sink, and so on. While much needed infrastructure investments and talk of a Green Economy are getting long overdue attention from Washington, many New York businesses are doing the kind of work the national economy seems to be dreaming about. Steady growth in this corner of the economy goes to show the viability of potential investments nationwide.

These jobs also contribute to the vitality of the city and our neighborhoods. High wages, unionized workplaces, benefits, the high walk-to-work ratio of blue-collar communities – for many people, industry jobs are the only jobs in the city that offer a living wage and decent work. Even so, there are tremendous pressures on manufacturers in the city to leave. High rents and inadequate and outdated zoning laws are squeezing manufacturers out of the city.

Political and private interests are also at work, as always. A recent proposal supported by the Bloomberg administration to eliminate zoning protections in the garment district in Midtown means 4,600 workers are battling for survival. Once upon a time (in the 1950s and 60s), 95% of apparel sold in the United States was made here. Today, that number is down to 5%.  With the Garment district under threat of extinction, we should expect to see that number plummet further. If the proposal goes through, designers will not be able to afford the rents for production in the Fashion Capital.

The work by The New York Industrial Retention Network and Adam Friedman, who has since been appointed Director of the Pratt Center for Community Development, are critical voices on how we can make our communities stronger, more innovative, and more resilient. Now more than ever we should bring their work to the forefront.


Nicole Salazar is a Multimedia Producer at the independent TV / Radio news program Democracy Now!. Previously she studied Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University. She lives in Gowanus, Brooklyn.


Image: 3rd Street, Gowanus, Brooklyn. Photo by Nicole Salazar

The views expressed here are those of the author only and do not reflect the position of Urban Omnibus editorial staff or the Architectural League of New York.

Does that sound impossible? Politically unpalatable and financially unsound? Like it will take too long and is just too hard?

Well, we have an example of exactly that kind of accretive process in one of the city’s most beloved places, Grand Central Terminal. Why does it work so well? Listen to Vishaan tell it like it is. First, he reflects on some design details of the spectacular Main Concourse. Next, he wanders down Park Avenue and shares some of the history of how private sector competition led to a major public amenity and transformed the entire metropolitan region. Then he explores the terminal’s tentacular North-end Access and reflects further on how the terminal has transformed urban and regional economies. Finally, as he delves into the food court, he ponders lessons to be learned from Grand Central that could be applied to Moynihan Station.

Main Concourse

Lesson #1: Design matters. Beyond the obvious grandeur of its public spaces, Grand Central relies on a sophisticated layering of uses that has influenced the design of airports and train stations around the world.

Video running time: 3:22

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“It’s more than just the building. It’s about how hundreds of thousands of people move around a region.”Park Avenue and Midtown East

Lesson #2: The building is only part of a larger exercise in citymaking. Grand Central catalyzed the development of some of the most valuable real estate in the world. Running time: 4:27. Right-click here to download mp3.

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All great train stations… have tentacles that reach out into the city. There’s not just a front door. North-end Access

Lesson #3: Plan for phases. Grand Central wasn’t built in a day, and part of what makes it work can be found in the less than glamorous network of pedestrian access passageways. Running time: 2:41. Right-click here to download mp3.

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Train stations still have an openness about them. … as hubs [they] speak to the nature of the city that’s around them.

Lessons for Moynihan
Station

Lesson #4: Think big. If we could make a commuter terminal this nice – and one that’s had such wide-ranging urban and metropolitan ramifications – imagine what we could do with a major inter-city regional rail hub? Running time: 4:36. Right-click here to download mp3.

Six weeks ago on the Omnibus, we listened to Bob Yaro reflect on the destruction of the original Penn Station and imagine a new future for Midtown West. Perhaps realizing that future will require looking carefully into the city’s past. -C.S.

We are seeking information about the archival image of Park Avenue under construction posted above. If you know the source of the photograph, please email us.

Recently, he took Lisa Chamberlain, executive director of the Forum for Urban Design, on a tour of some sites of ambitious mega-projects – past, present and future – in Midtown West, including Penn Station, the Hudson Rail Yards and the Javits Center. Yaro’s comments reveal him to be equally comfortable discussing advances in tunnel-boring technology as he is delving into the fine grain of urban design or the sense of place a commuter feels arriving on a train platform.

Penn Station

“When you’re in the regional planning business, you have to take the long view.”Penn Station is the major intercity rail hub in New York City, and one of the busiest train stations in the country. The station is situated in the Pennsylvania Plaza complex, which includes Madison Square Garden, retail and offices. The original station – widely considered a masterpiece of Beaux Arts architecture – was designed by McKim, Mead and White, completed in 1910 and demolished in 1963. The controversial demolition of Penn Station was a galvanizing moment for the American landmarks preservation movement. The last decade has seen many iterations of plans to rebuild the station as Moynihan Station in the eastern half of the Farley Post Office.

Click the audio player above to stream Bob’s reflections on Penn Station. Click here to download the mp3.
Click on any of the photos below to view a slideshow of the spaces he’s discussing.

Hudson Yards

“The economics I’m convinced of; I’m not sure about the urban design. We have to be really clever about how we do the Yards.” Hudson Yards refers to the underutilized area bounded roughly by West 42nd Street and West 30th Street, Eighth Avenue and the Hudson River. It includes the MTA‘s 26-acre John D. Caemmerer West Side Railyard. The city adopted a rezoning in 2005 that changed the land use designation from manufacturing to residential and commercial. A proposed stadium for the New York Jets, to be built over the railyard, figured largely in the City’s bid for the 2012 Olympics. The stadium project failed to receive state approval. The Hudson Yards Development Corporation claims the area currently has capacity for approximately 24 million square feet of new office development, 13 thousand units of housing, 1 million square feet of retail and 2 million square feet of hotel space. Check out these Architectural League podcasts of the competing visions for the site, submitted to the MTA in response to their October 2007 Request for Proposals.

Click the audio player above to stream Bob’s reflections on Hudson Yards. Click here to download the mp3.
Click on any of the photos below to view a slideshow of the spaces he’s discussing.

Javits Center

“…with Javits gone, 11th Avenue could become one of the great addresses in New York.” The Jacob K. Javits Center is a large convention center, designed by James Ingo Freed of I.M. Pei & Partners and completed in 1986, that boasts over 675,000 square feet of exhibit space. In late May 2009, the Empire State Development Corporation voted in favor of a 100,000 square foot expansion and substantial repairs to the structure. The project currently awaits approval from the Public Authorities Control Board. As part of the Hudson Yards Redevelopment Project, the 7 train will extend beyond Times Square to a new terminus at 34th Street and 11th Avenue, providing improved access to the convention center and the surrounding area.

While walking around the Javits area, Yaro and Chamberlain discuss the prospect of “TGV” in the Northeast corridor. TGV stands for Train à Grande Vitesse, which is French for “high-speed train.”

Click the audio player above to stream Bob’s reflections on the Javits Center and surrounding area. Click here to download the mp3. Click on any of the photos below to view a slideshow of the spaces he’s discussing.

Urban Omnibus has a few more walks like this coming up with architects, planners, designers, scholars, artists and citizens. If there’s a particular individual you’d like to take a walk with, drop us a line and maybe we can call him or her up, take a walk, and share the conversation, observations and imagery. -C.S.

Interview and photography (unless otherwise noted): Lisa Chamberlain. Edited and condensed by Nick Buccelli.

Lisa Chamberlain is the Executive Director of the Forum for Urban Design and lives in Red Hook. Previously, she studied urban planning and Columbia University and covered real estate for the New York Times.

Robert D. Yaro is the President of Regional Plan Association, America’s oldest independent metropolitan policy, research and advocacy group. He co-chairs the Empire State Transportation Alliance and the Friends of Moynihan Station, and is Vice President of the Forum for Urban Design. He serves on Mayor Bloomberg’s Sustainability Advisory Board, which helped prepare PlaNYC 2030, New York City’s new long-range sustainability plan.

The views expressed here are those of the author only and do not reflect the position of Urban Omnibus editorial staff or the Architectural League of New York.

In the fall of 2008, Janette Kim and Kate Orff, co-directors of the Urban Landscape Lab at Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), and Glen Cummings, founder of the graphic design firm MTWTF, began collaborating on research into different models of ecological interpretation. The National Parks Service model, for example, has historically defined the national park as a preserved, natural and “unbuilt” system with the park ranger as tour guide. Janette, Kate and Glen felt the need to suggest an alternative that treats the city and its complex ecosystems as a national park, challenging the preconceptions that divorce theories of environment and ecology from the experience of architecture and the built environment.

One of the first steps was to develop a seminar for undergraduates at the Barnard and Columbia Colleges Architecture Program that used podcasts as a medium to read the political ecology of New York, along one of the city’s diverse spines: the 7 train. Read below for their introduction to the project and a self-guided podcast tour from Times Square to Flushing.

Listen to the podcasts below or download them for your next trip along the 7, and be sure to check in on the Safari 7 project often: many more phases are coming soon, starting this summer with new tours and maps, podcasts and interviews, and expansion into cellphone and social networking venues. - C.S.

Introduction
This past Saturday at 11:00 a.m. sharp, a group of architects, artists, and students boarded the 7 Local at Times Square Station to participate in the launch of Safari 7, a self-guided tour of urban animal life along New York City’s No. 7 subway line.

The 7 Line is a physical, urban transect through New York City’s most diverse collection of human ecosystems.  Affectionately called the International Express, the 7 line runs from Manhattan’s dense core, under the East River, and through a dispersed mixture of residences and parklands, terminating in downtown Flushing, Queens, the nation’s most ethnically diverse county. Here, in territories excavated by Robert Moses’ transportation networks, watersheds constructed by the World’s Fair, and tree canopies stretched across residential street grids, species find systems necessary for survival, develop mating rituals and behaviors amidst inter-species competition and cooperation, and respond to migration, colonization, and disturbances of this dynamic urban landscape. By mapping the complexity, biodiversity, conflicts, and potentials of our urban ecosystems Safari 7 aims to unpack the role of architecture and the related disciplines in the construction of networks, spatial patterns, enclosures, grounds, rituals, and policies that are the city’s life support mechanism.

The project uses a range of media – podcasts, maps, signs, schedules and social networking tools – to create a platform where commuters, school children, subway operators – and yes, architects – can connect to New York City’s ecosystems as they travel through it.  New York’s transit system acts as an eco-urban classroom, and passengers become their own park rangers, or safari guides.

EPISODE INFORMATION
Click on the links below to play the podcasts through your browser or here to download the podcasts and listen during your next 7 train commute. These podcasts were created by students in a seminar on urban ecology at the Barnard and Columbia Colleges Architecture Program.

Throughout the summer we will organize tours, publish new maps, podcasts and interviews, and expand to cellphone and social networking venues. We are working to initiate further dialogue with educators and community activists throughout the city. Please visit www.safari7.org to learn more. Listen in, and check back for more in the future.

Do you have information about sites of interest along the 7 line? Have you seen a curious landscape along the tracks that you have always wondered about? Are you interested in collaborating? We welcome your findings on New York’s diverse ecosystems in the comments field below, and we invite you to join the mailing list or say hello at info@safari7.org.

Listen to 12 current episodes below, download MP3 files, or download the M4A slideshow versions to watch in iTunes. Download all of the podcasts here.

Germs / 42 St – Times Square
Alex Cook, Ryan Johns

From Flushing Station to 42nd Street, more germs ride the #7 line each day than people do in a year. A closer look at the microecology of NYC’s microscopic commuters.

download mp3
download m4a

U Thant Island / Grand Central – 42 St
Alison Von Glinow, Lesley Merz

Off the grid and hidden in plain sight, U Thant Island is made from the leftovers from the 7 line’s Steinway tunnel and is home to NYC’s cormorant population. Interviews with John Mattera, Parks & Recreation Librarian, NYC Dept of Parks and Recreation and Dr. Susan Elbin, Director of Conservation, New York City Audubon Society.

download mp3
download m4a

Oysters / Vernon Blvd – Jackson Av
Aaron Hsieh, Evelyn Ting

Back in the day Queens Bay was NYC’s raw bar, home of the largest oyster population on the East Coast. Interview with Katie Mosher-Smith, NY-NJ Baykeeper.

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Dope Fish / Hunters Point Av
Alex Vial

The East River’s high level of estrogen has the local fish swimming sideways.

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Squirrels / Queensboro Plaza
Meg Kelly, Grace Robinson-Leo

The expansion of Manhattan’s East River parks mean a real estate boom for the indigenous East side squirrels.

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Dogs / 40 St – Lowery St
Sayli Korgaonkar

From 5th Avenue to Times Square, the price of real estate is directly related to what size dog you keep. Canine demographics across two boroughs.

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Ecology of Death / 52 St
Alex Cook, Ryan Johns

Calvary Cemetery, one the largest urban necropolises in the nation, has an ecology and chemistry all its own. A look at what goes in, what comes out, and what we should know about the dead in New York City.

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Courtyards / 82 St – Jackson Hts
Aaron Hsieh, Evelyn Ting

Away from the street and behind brick walls are well-tended garden oases. Are these historic landscapes, public playgrounds, or private gated communities? Residents, preservationists, and neighbors weigh in. Interviews with Donald Karatzas, Author of Jackson Heights: A Garden in the City, Ed Westley and anonymous residents.

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Reef Condos / 90 St – Elmhurst Av
Lesley Merz, Alison Von Glinow

Homo sapiens aren’t the only New Yorkers riding NYC’s subway cars. Aquatic New Yorkers strap-hang in decommissioned cars which have been used to build reefs around Manhattan Island.

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Pigeons / Junction Blvd
Alex Vial

New Yorkers have tried dozens of techniques, all unsuccessful, to control the population of the urban freeloaders otherwise known as Rock Doves.

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Chickens / 103 St – Corona Plaza
Meg Kelly, Grace Robinson-Leo

The urban chicken occupies two spots in Queen’s Corona Park, the egg-maker for suburban farmers and the heavy in backroom cock-fights. Audio footage of Owen Taylor is from Leonard Lopate, December 21, 2006, and of Martin Edmund and Charlie Johnson from Cockfighters: The Interviews by Stephanie J. Castillo.

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Flushing Meadows / Willets Point – Shea Stadium
Emily Glass, Stephanie Odenheimer

This former ash dumping ground became the site of the 1964 World’s Fair, and is also the site of some fishy and fowl activities. Audio footage from NPR’s All Things Considered.

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CREDITS

Our team is a collaboration among architects, designers, educators, and graphic designers from the Urban Landscape Lab and MTWTF.  The Urban Landscape Lab is an interdisciplinary applied research group at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation focused on the analysis and transformation of ecological processes and urban systems.  MTWTF is a graphic design studio specializing in publications, environmental graphic, and identity systems.  Safari 7 podcasts aired at the first launch were created by students from the Barnard and Columbia Colleges Architecture Program.

Urban Landscape Lab:
Janette Kim and Kate Orff, Directors
Lisa Ekle
Robin Fitzgerald-Green
Evan Sharp

MTWTF:
Glen Cummings, Principal

Barnard + Columbia Architecture students
Alex Cook
Emily Glass
Aaron Hsieh
Ryan Johns
Meg Kelly
Sayli Korgaonkar
Lesley Merz
Stephanie Odenheimer
Grace Robinson-Leo
Evelyn Ting
Alexandre Vial
Alison Von Glinow

Glen Cummings is a graphic designer and writer based in New York City. He is a partner at MTWTF (Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday) and a lecturer in design at Yale University School of Art, New Haven, Connecticut.

Janette Kim is an architectural designer, critic, and educator based in New York City. She is principal of All of the Above and teaches at Barnard College and Columbia University GSAPP, where she is director of the Urban Landscape Lab.

Kate Orff is a registered landscape architect and an Assistant Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at Columbia GSAPP. She is also director of the Urban Landscape Lab.

Thank you to Karen Fairbanks, Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Professional Practice and Chair, Architecture at the Barnard and Columbia Colleges Architecture Program; and Gavin Browning, Programming Coordinator at Studio X.

The views expressed here are those of the author only and do not reflect the position of Urban Omnibus editorial staff or the Architectural League of New York.

Here we explore the site’s challenges, opinions held and design strategies proposed. The Reinventing Grand Army Plaza ideas competition resulted in over 200 proposals — from the feasible to the fantastic — submitted from around the world. A distinguished independent jury judged the submissions through an anonymous review, and selected the top 30 proposals to be included in the public exhibit along with the four prizewinning designs. Here, we present a series of audio interviews with competition jurors and a video that illuminates the ideas competition and the challenges and opportunities of the site. Grand Army Plaza stands where several Brooklyn neighborhoods, municipal jurisdictions, and ideas of public space converge. Our intention in exploring this process is to help the reimagining process move from the idea generation phase to the community engagement process. This video evokes the grandeur of the site while bearing witness to the diverse and strongly held opinions on the site’s past, present and future, from residents, passersby and designers.

Juror Interviews: For the ideas competition, the Design Trust assembled an influential panel of experts – architects, landscape architects, planners, civil servants, transportation engineers, and cultural entrepreneurs – to evaluate proposals from across the world. Here we hear in each juror’s own words the principles, assumptions and priorities that each brought to bear on this process. They reflect on issues as diverse as traffic flow, gentrification, the nature of leisure and the role of design competitions in general, offering a selection of the issues at play in discussion of public space in the 21st century.

Elizabeth Streb, Founder, Streb Lab for Action Mechanics		Ellen Salpeter, Executive Director, Heart of Brooklyn
“Just as there are environmentally sustainable experts at the table, we need culturally sustainable experts at the table.”		“Flights of fancy inform a pragmatic design process in a delightful way.”
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Milton Puryear, Executive Director, Brooklyn Greenway Initiative		Alexandros Washburn, Chief Urban Designer, New York City Department of City Planning
“This city is unique in the amount that people walk.”		“Whatever we do in the city, it is ultimately the public space that’s judged.”
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Ken Smith, Landscape Architect		Ben Perez, Urban Planner
“Landscape architects have become more interested in infrastructure, to see how we can embed landscape into the body of infrastructure.”		“It’s a very large piece of transportation infrastructure with very large ribbons of park in and around it.”
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