The Municipal Art Society of New York

On this, the seventh anniversary of Tribute in Light, MAS Senior Vice-President Frank Sanchis describes the origins of tribute and how the memorial is put together annually on September 11.

Tribute in Light will be visible from dusk this evening until dawn tomorrow in the sky over Lower Manhattan. It is produced annually by the MAS and made possible by a grant from the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation.

If you are taking photographs of Tribute in Light this year, or took some great shots in previous years, please visit www.flickr.com/groups/til and share them in our Flickr pool. The best shot, selected by a panel of MAS directors, will win a $50 voucher for Urban Center Books.

Tonight the Rockefeller Foundation will award the 2008 Jane Jacobs Medal to Peggy Shepard, executive director and co-founder of West Harlem Environmental Action, Inc. (WE ACT), and Alexie Torres-Fleming, founder of Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice (YMPJ) in the South Bronx, at a ceremony at the Morgan Library and Museum in Manhattan. The featured speaker will be Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Robert A. Caro, who won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Best Nonfiction Book of the Year for The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York. The awards are administered annually by the Municipal Art Society.

Click on the “play” icon above to watch a video featuring the two award winners discussing their work, and click here to read the official press release in full.

Later this month, a series of MAS Jane Jacobs-themed walking tours begins, including Toxic Hazards and Cultural Treasures, a tour highlighting issues of environmental justice in Harlem led by Peggy Shepard. For more information, visit www.mas.org/tours.

The Urbanists held their annual Summer Party at the soon-to-be-opened Galapagos Art Space in DUMBO on Tuesday, July 15. The venue was originally built in 1905 and has recently been skillfully converted into a LEED certified building. MAS Urbanists and their friends joined MAS staff to celebrate our current preservation efforts, especially those focused on conversion and reuse of historic buildings, with music and dancing.

To ensure that the success of the past two years in increasing the budget of the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) and improving its ability to protect the city’s most important historic buildings continues in fiscal year 2009, join MAS, Council Members, and other preservation groups this Wednesday, May 28, at 2:00 p.m., on the steps of City Hall to rally for adequate funding for the LPC. Bring a sign or prop illustrating your favorite undesignated neighborhood or building so that the Council and the public can see all of the various sites across the city that require the LPC’s attention. If you can’t be there, e-mail your Council Member and ask them to support the the renewal of $300,000 for the LPC’s budget for the coming fiscal year, and watch the new movie above explaining why this additional funding is so important.

MAS and City Lore — sponsors of Place Matters — held a party on June 11 to celebrate its tenth anniversary, salute the people that make these places possible, and honor 10 places that matter selected by a panel of place enthusiasts from the more than 650 places nominated by the public. The ceremony at the Municipal Art Society was a sold-out success, featuring 10 great honorees, music by renowned cuatro player Yomo Toro, a wonderful talk by New York Times reporter David Gonzalez, and, as icing on the cake, a proclamation from City Council member Rosie Mendez declaring June 11, 2008 “Place Matters Appreciation Day.” Mendez commended the project for “work that refreshes our own ideas about our city and ourselves.” Continue Reading>>

City of Water, the documentary film from the Municipal Art Society and the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance was aired on Channel Thirteen/WNET on Saturday, April 19 at 1.30 p.m.

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. Continue Reading>>

Click on the play icon above to watch OUTRAGE! the nasty newsracks movie.

Cities like Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas, San Diego, and San Francisco have all passed and are enforcing newsrack regulations that are both effective and workable. New York City is like the wild west when it comes to curtailing newsrack blight. Contact the Honorable John Liu, Chair of the Transportation Committee at the New York City Council, the Honorable Jessica Lappin, New York City Council Member, or the Honorable Janette Sadik-Kahn, New York City Transportation Commissioner, and let them know what you think.

MAS is pleased to announce that New York City Council Land Use Committee voted this morning to approve a proposed plan for the former Con Ed Site on the East River between 38th and 41st streets on the East River. The plan provides an easement that would enable the realignment of the FDR Drive and the construction of a deck over the highway which will facilitate the creation of a waterfront park on the East Side of Midtown Manhattan that MAS has been advocating for. Continue Reading>>

Imagine Flatbush 2030
Click on the play icon at right to begin watching the movie.

Click here to learn more about the Imagine Flatbush 2030 initiative.

The MAS joined almost 70 other groups in co-sponsoring the First Annual NYC Preservation Lobby Day on Wednesday, May 9, 2007. All of the groups have joined together to request a $1 million increase in the LPC’s Budget.

To view footage from the rally, click here.

Last year, led by Council members Lappin, Avella and Reyna, the City Council increased the budget of the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) by $250,000 for the current fiscal year. Click here for graphs on the increase. Consequently, the LPC was able to hire five new staff dedicated to research and designation and is on target to designate more than 1,000 historic buildings by the end of this fiscal year – a 2,000 percent increase in the number of buildings designated in 2005. We need to make sure that this year the LPC gets a larger increase so they can continue designating buildings at the same pace, and increasing their efficiency in issuing permits. Continue Reading>>