The Municipal Art Society of New York

Fashion designer and MAS Board Member Yeohlee Teng has been working tirelessly to promote a new vision for Manhattan’s Garment District as a hub for innovation and creativity for the fashion industry. In 2009, Yeohlee initiated the study Made in Midtown on behalf of the Council of Fashion Designers of America in partnership with the Design Trust for Public Space. Continue Reading>>

Earlier this month, MAS hosted a provocative panel on bringing equitable WiFi to all New Yorkers. NYC’s Chief Digital Officer, Rachel Sterne, delivered an informative keynote about the city’s plans to offer more services online, as well as the recent advances in providing access to 311 reporting data online.

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On October 21 & 22, the inauguralMAS Summit for New York City brought together hundreds of New Yorkers to debate how to make the city more livable.

Watch highlights from MAS Board Member Philip K. Howard’s keynote speech, the release of the MAS Survey on Livability, and The Rockefeller Foundation President Judith Rodin talking about the foundation’s commitment to sustainability.

* Over the coming days, all panels and keynotes are being made available in their entirety at http://mas.org/summitnyc/videos.

At dusk last Saturday, MAS presented its 9th annual Tribute In Light, twin blue beams of light honoring the victims of the September 11 World Trade Center attacks. At a private ceremony held on the site of the memorial, MAS Senior Advisor Frank Sanchis spoke about the beginning of Tribute In Light. “We took a parking lot, built scaffolds, found 88 lights which we had to get from around the country, and set it up that year on the six-month anniversary of the attacks on March 2002,” he said. “The Tribute immediately became popular and caught the public’s imagination, and the Municipal Art Society was inspired to produce it again the next year.” Continue Reading>>

On November 3, the 2nd Annual Jane Jacobs Forum focused on the question of whether New York can (and should) try to become more sustainable and grow its own food. Expert panelists Dr. Dickson Despommiers of Columbia University, Nevin Cohen of the New School, Jennifer Nelkin of Gotham Greens, Dan Albert of Weber Thompson architects and Colin Cathcart of Kiss+Cathcart architects discuss how this could happen answering questions posed by moderator Neal Peirce of The Washington Post.

For more information about the forum and related issues, visit Jane Jacobs Forum 2009.

The annual Jane Jacobs Forum is sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation.

In response to the deterioration of many of New York City’s outdoor statues and the limited resources to preserve them, MAS initiated the Adopt-A-Monument program in 1987. Since then, and with ongoing and generous support of corporate and private donors, many of the city’s most neglected public statues have been conserved and restored to their former glory.

In the short movie above, Director of MAS’ Adopt-A-Monument program, Phyllis Cohen, gives an overview of the program and tells the story of three notable restorations – the Die Lorelie Fountain in the Bronx, the Bellringers in Herald Square, and the Evangeline Blashfield Fountain in Midtown.

Last week, the Landmarks Preservation Commission approved the 850-building Prospect Heights Historic District, the largest district designated in two decades. MAS made a video about the process of creating the historic district, featuring Councilmember Letitia James, Chair of the Landmarks Preservation Commission Robert B. Tierney, historian Francis Morrone, and Gib Veconi of Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council (PHNDC), and showing how we worked with PHNDC to survey the historic buildings and promote the area for designation. The result was not just the designation, the act of engaging residents in the process brought the community together and provided a new sense of neighborhood identity. Continue Reading>>

Last Wednesday, MAS hosted an all-star panel of park designers, administrators, and other experts to discuss the latest on some of New York’s most exciting park projects. The projects ranged in scale from small — the new Concrete Park Project in the South Bronx — to extremely large — Fresh Kills in Staten Island and Riverside South on the Upper West Side. The presentations and discussion focused on the challenge of developing sustainable parks on challenging sites in a time of economic uncertainty.

For those who were not able to make the event, we’ve put together a highlight of the Fresh Kills presentation – a project that, as its administrator Eloise Hirsh acknowledged, MAS was instrumental in making happen. For more information, visit www.mas.org/freshkills.

Admiral’s Row on the edge of the Brooklyn Navy Yard is in danger of being lost. MAS will attend a meeting tomorrow at which the negotiations between the National Guard, the owner of the property, and the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation (BNYDC) will discuss the buildings’ future. The meeting is part of the federally-mandated Section 106 process that requires federal agencies to study the impact of their actions on important historic buildings.

MAS has been a part of the Section 106 process and has developed alternatives to demolishing the buildings that show it is possible to preserve them while also accommodating the Navy Yard’s program. In March, rumors surfaced that the National Guard may require the Navy Yard to retain only the Timber Shed and one of the houses on the site, which MAS believes is an inadequate solution. Continue Reading>>

The Department of City Planning is holding a hearing today about its proposal to rezone 25 blocks along the Gowanus Canal to allow for a mix of uses, including residential, commercial, retail, light industrial, community facility and artist spaces.

MAS believes that existing businesses in this thriving manufacturing district should be nurtured and safeguarded, and that the rezoning presents a tremendous opportunity to create space for new industries and jobs. We are concerned that, given the area’s industrial past and present, and the lack of adequate sewage and storm-water infrastructure, new residential development may not be the best solution for the Gowanus neighborhood. Read our full statement here.

The video above is also available as a podcast below, and through iTunes.

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For more information about MAS advocacy on Gowanus, click here.

City of Water, the MAS and MWA documentary about the future of the New York City waterfront, screens tonight at 6:00 p.m. at the Brooklyn Center for the Urban Environment. You can find out more about the screening, watch the trailer for the film at MAS.org/cityofwater, and read an interview with one of the filmmakers on Gowanus Lounge here.

Joining founder of the Waterfront Preservation Alliance of Greenpoint and Williamsburg Ward Dennis were: moderator and president of the Society for Industrial Archaeology Mary Habstritt; MAS director of advocacy and policy Lisa Kersavage; president & chief operating officer of the Brooklyn Navy Yard Andrew Kimball; and preservation consultant to the Austin, Nichols, warehouse rehabilitation Robert Powers. Continue Reading>>

Earlier this week, at the MAS panel discussion Solutions for Preserving New York’s Neighborhood Businesses, experts and New Yorkers pondered this and many other complex questions that relate to the increasing threat chain stores and banks are presenting to the survival of local business in the city. Click on the ‘play’ icon above to watch a short video summary of the program and (below) tell us what you think are the causes and solutions to this problem. Continue Reading>>

The MAS and MWA film City of Water screens this Saturday, October 11, at 4:00 p.m., as part of the Red Hook Film Festival. For more information on the screening and the film festival, click here.

Two years in the making, City of Water explores the aspirations of public officials, environmentalists, academics, community activists, recreational boaters and everyday New Yorkers for a diverse, vibrant waterfront at a time when the shoreline is changing faster than at any other time in New York’s history. The documentary features interviews with Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff, US Representative Nydia Velazquez, MacArthur Fellow Majora Carter, author Phillip Lopate, Sandy Hook Pilots’ Captain Andrew McGovern and others, and includes footage from Jamaica Bay, the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and many other places on the waterfront. To learn more about the film and watch a short trailer, visit www.mas.org/cityofwater.

The MAS and MWA film City of Water screens this Saturday night in Far Rockaway as part of the Rockaway Waterfront Alliance’s annual benefit. The screening and Q & A discussion is sponsored by HSBC and is free to the public. For details of the screening and to RSVP, visit the Rockaway Waterfront Alliance website. The executive director of Rockaway Waterfront Alliance, Jeanne Dupont, was this year’s winner of the 2008 Yolanda Garcia Community Planner Award. Read more about her and her organization’s work, here.

Two years in the making, City of Water explores the aspirations of public officials, environmentalists, academics, community activists, recreational boaters and everyday New Yorkers for a diverse, vibrant waterfront at a time when the shoreline is changing faster than at any other time in New York’s history. The documentary features interviews with Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff, US Representative Nydia Velazquez, MacArthur Fellow Majora Carter, author Phillip Lopate, Sandy Hook Pilots’ Captain Andrew McGovern and others, and includes footage from Jamaica Bay, the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and many other places on the waterfront.