TOPIC

Community Engagement

Toward a Stronger Social Infrastructure: A Conversation with Eric Klinenberg

Eric Klinenberg explains the complexities and importance of neighborhood networks and community spaces and discusses the opportunities they present to designers and urbanists.

El Timbiriche: Designing for Wellness in Williamsburg's Southside

Farzana Gandhi, Anusha Venkataraman, and Gabriela Alvarez explain the motivations behind and the design for a mobile health and wellness unit, sharing how the project can use a community's traditions to help solve some contemporary challenges.

Local Connections: The Red Hook WiFi Project

Tony Schloss and Alyx Baldwin discuss how their initiative leverages locally controlled infrastructure, community-based applications, and youth capacity building to provide a platform for local communication and Internet access in Red Hook, Brooklyn.

Paths to Pier 42

Hester Street Collaborative's Anne Frederick and Dylan House discuss a temporary pop-up public space on the Lower East Side that creates an asset for the neighborhood while informing and building momentum for the design of a future permanent park.

Young New Yorkers: Restorative Justice Through Public Art

Architect Rachel Barnard describes her new public art program for adolescents in the criminal justice system and reflects on the potential legal, social, and urban significance of an art- and architecture-based approach to restorative justice.

Naturally Occurring Cultural Districts

Hunts Point, Bronx

In our third of a series of profiles of Naturally Occurring Cultural Districts around the five boroughs, Joey de Jesus takes us on a tour of Hunts Point, Bronx, to explore how artists, activists, and educators have turned social and environmental challenges into opportunities.

Naturally Occurring Cultural Districts

Fort Greene, Brooklyn

In the second in a series of profiles of Naturally Occurring Cultural Districts, Mercedes Kraus looks at how a cultural community has flourished by leveraging its legacy of artistic production in the face of intensifying real estate pressure and outside influence and interest.

Restoring Pride of Place: A Conversation with Nancy Biberman

The founder and president of the Women's Housing and Economic Development Corporation (WHEDco) talks about the difference between building structures and building communities, the musical legacy of the Bronx, and how the persistence of memory affects neighborhood growth.

Naturally Occurring Cultural Districts

Corona, Queens

In the first in a series of profiles of Naturally Occurring Cultural Districts, Caitlin Blanchfield reports on how a robust network of community-based groups in Corona, Queens, has put local cultural vitality and institutional partnerships to work in reclaiming a public space for neighborhood use.

We Want it Back: Reclaiming the Bronx River

Amanda Schachter and Alexander Levi, of SLO Architecture, discuss the power of long-term community engagement, their proposal for an abandoned train station, and the potential of a long neglected river to connect the Bronx and the entire city.