Dear HSC Friends and Family,

As the summer comes to a close, I'd like share some of our recent work around Parks & Open Space both in our neighborhood and city-wide. Our work grows out of the needs in our backyard - Chinatown and the Lower East Side, two perennially overcrowded communities where the open space is less than half the city average and over three times smaller than the recommended open space/resident in the NYS Governor's report. The burden on this neighborhood’s existing open space is huge: parks become residents’ backyards, living rooms, and gyms, yet all too often, these under-performing spaces don’t fully address their needs.

I hope you can take a few moments to learn more about the steps we are taking with our partners to provide communities with the tools they need to create change, the voice they need to become involved, and the empowerment they need to transform the parks and public spaces that are so vital to their neighborhoods. As always, your interest and support are essential to us!

Warmest Wishes,
Anne Frederick

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In this newsletter:

Introducing the People Make Parks Initiative

HSC Publishes Comprehensive Community Study for Allen and Pike Streets

Students Envision Memorials for Allen and Pike Streets

Volunteers needed for HSC's upcoming events!

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INTRODUCING THE PEOPLE MAKE PARKS INITIATIVE:

CHALLENGING THE STATUS QUO FOR PARK REDESIGNS
A new initiative by HSC and CPF will ensure that new park designs respond to community needs

“In this community, the spaces are small. In a way, the Allen Street mall really represents an extension of the family’s living room, where you can actually go and hang out with friends, sit with family:,have a little space. You just couldn’t do that in an apartment.”
 
This summer, during a community visioning process to improve the Allen-Pike Street Pedestrian Malls, Margaret Chin, a longtime resident and community leader in Chinatown, identified this key concern that residents of Chinatown and other low-income, under-resourced neighborhoods face. In communities where multiple generations pack tightly into tenement apartments, parks serve as the living room, backyard and summer home for residents struggling with the cost of living.
 
Park space provides a much needed escape from overcrowding and often dismal living conditions in communities all over our city. Frequently, the communities who need the most help to improve conditions have no voice in a process that could potentially improve their community’s quality of life. Without that essential community voice, even well-meaning park designers and decision-makers remain unaware of local needs, or are unable to reach out through a meaningful engagement process. As a result, park renovations can lead to capital improvements that do not benefit local residents.

Today, the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation embarking on its biggest parks infrastructure improvement initiative since the 1930’s, and community voices are becoming more important than ever. Unfortunately, the process of navigating the park re-design process is often daunting and inaccessible to new immigrants, non-English speakers, and under-resourced individuals who are occupied by more pressing challenges like housing, employment, and the rising cost of living.
 
In an effort to expand the role of community in park re-design, HSC is working in partnership with the City Parks Foundation (CPF) to launch an initiative called People Make Parks, which will help communities compile local knowledge to develop a vision for their parks and ensure that this vision is taken into consideration in the design of the parks. But in order to become involved, communities need access to an inclusionary, democratic process that will not only accept but encourage their input at every stage of the design process.  People Make Parks will focus on developing tools, strategies, and resources to empower residents throughout the city to get involved, make their voices heard, and help to improve the park redesign process that’s happening in their own back yards, living rooms, and open spaces.
 
People Make Parks is well into its planning and developmental stage; now, after almost two years of planning, we will officially launch the People Make Parks Initiative on Saturday, October 25, 2008 at the Sara Delano Roosevelt (SDR) Park site of  “ It’s My Park! Day.”  Please join us for this exciting Launch event (see next page for event details and volunteer opportunities) and check back with HSC in the coming months for moredevelopments in this groundbreaking initiative. 

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HSC PUBLISHES COMPREHENSIVE COMMUNITY STUDY

FOR ALLEN AND PIKE STREETS

“I’m worried about the pollution from the cars going by. I would like to see the Allen Street malls widened. I think that we could have bike lanes on both sides all the way down to the water, and it would be a wonderful thing.”

Like many of his fellow community members, Robert Humber of the M’finda Kalunga Community Garden wants to see improved safety on the Allen-Pike Street pedestrian malls. The malls, currently a string of derelict and unusable open spaces, are about to receive capital improvement funds and a major redesign, which is is good news in a neighborhood where open space per resident falls far below both city-wide and nation-wide standards.

Through a series of community engagement events this summer collectively called “Take Back Your Park,” HSC and the United Neighbors to Revitalize Allen and Pike (UNRAP) Coalition gathered input and opinions from residents of Chinatown and the Lower East Side to ensure that the soon-to-be-renovated malls will respond to local residents’ needs and desires for a safe, active, attractive open space. This input became part of a final report on the community visioning process recently released by the UNRAP Coalition.

Rather than starting from scratch, the “Take Back Your Park” visioning process built on earlier community input and formal studies and created a starting point for sustainable community care and programming of the malls once they reopen. The UNRAP Coalition has worked closely with the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation to ensure that the community is receiving accurate information about the bounds of the capital project and how their input will be integrated into the malls’ design. Ground is expected to be broken on the malls in the Spring of 2009. To learn more about this community visioning process and the exciting open space improvements about to take place on the Lower East Side, download a PDF version of the UNRAP Coalition’s Final Report of the Community Visioning Process to the right.                                                                                                               -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

STUDENTS ENVISION MEMORIALS ON THE ALLEN-PIKE STREET MALLS

New Design High School Students design installations inspired by local culture and history as part of a flagship summer program

"[My] design is meant to honor the immigrant's journey to New York. The New York waterfront was a gateway to the city for immigrants from all around the world. Without immigration, the United States wouldn't be what it is today. The mood created by my memorial will be one of liberation and freedom.The grassy area of the memorial is meant to evoke the feeling of independence felt by the immigrants as they passed through the entrance to the city. The memorial itself will include a grassy field creating a spacious environment for the community to take advantage of, an escape from people's homes. The trees in my design will symbolize togetherness, and they will be scattered around the field of the mall providing shade in the area. The space will be open to everyone, symbolizing the melting pot of the new world."

-Ahlem Dakhlaoui, NDHS student
Ground Up Summer 2008 Program participant

As part of an intensive two-week summer session of our Ground Up design education program, HSC, in partnership with Open Road, invited 20 students from New Design High School to re-imagine the Allen and Pike Street Pedestrian Malls and present their findings to the city.. Students researched the history of community-led efforts to renovate the malls and the suggestions that have come out of them, conducted interviews with community leaders, and ultimately developed design proposals and concise written and oral presentations.

The interactive, interdisciplinary course asked students to complete an architectural design and a memorial for the Allen-Pike Street Malls. Students interviewed a range of local residents for ideas as a jumping-off point for their own fresh design for the malls, and visited local memorial sites like the African Burial Ground memorial. Inspired by their local investigations, all 20 students then spent a week creating their own "memorial and remembrance" designs for the malls. They learned about basic architectural representation and developed architectural drawings of their mall renovations,. Students presented their proposals to representatives from Partnerships for Parks, local architects and artists, and community organizers in a presentation session that was both moving and insightful. Based on the great success of this two-week summer program, HSC is planning to provide both internships and Ground Up workshops with New Design High School during Fall 2008.
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DIRT DAYS! at P.S. 134
The last two Dirt Days of 2008:
Saturday, October 18th & Saturday, November 8th: 10 am - 1 pm

It's not too late to become a part of the growing community of friends, family, teachers, students, and neighbors helping to transform the garden at P.S. 134 into a beautiful, functional, and engaging outdoor classroom for students and the entire community. Fall is the perfect time to help clean and prepare the garden for the coming winter months, and we're also looking for helping hands to finish building our Garden Shed. Dirt Days run from 10 am to 1 pm, and HSC welcomes volunteers throughout the day: come lend a hand for an hour, or hang out all day with HSC and P.S. 134.

The Garden is located at P.S. 134, 293 East Broadway, New York.

Walk-in volunteers are welcome, but we love to know how many participants to expect!

To RSVP for one of these two Dirt Days or to learn more, contact Dylan House at dylan@hesterstreet.org.

It's My Park! Day & People Make Parks Initiative Launch
Saturday, October 25, 2008 11 am - 3 pm
Sara Delano Roosevelt Park at Rivington Street

Join us for this city-wide park improvement day at the Sara Delano Roosevelt Park site, where we will join the Department of Parks and Recreation to celebrate and maintain one of our city's most vibrant public parks throughpark cleanup and beautification, bulb planting, street-tree care, trash-can stenciling, and painting playground equipment and benches. Local groups will offer tai-chi and bike polo demonstrations. Snacks, giveaways, and essential information about park activities, advocacy, and plans will be available to the entire community.

At this year's event, HSC and the City Parks Foundation will also be launching our city-wide People Make Parks Initiative, and we need volunteers to make this event a success! Consider giving your morning, afternoon, or even just one hour of your day on October 25 to help facilitate activities, greet community members, or assist with cleanup.

To learn more about the launch of People Make Parks, please contact Anne Frederick at 212-431-6780
or anne@hesterstreet.org. For additional information about volunteer opportunities at It’s My Park! Day
at SDR Park, contact Kayan Chiu at kayan_chiu@aafe.org.