2009 Jane Jacobs Medal Recipients Richard Kahan (left) and Damaris Reyes (center) with Judith Rodin, Mary Schmidt Campbell, and George Campbell.

The Rockefeller Foundation announced today that it is opening the public nominating process for the 2010 Jane Jacobs Medal — awarded to two living individuals whose creative vision for the urban environment has significantly contributed to the vibrancy and variety of New York City. Nominations can be submitted by anyone, but must be made by Monday, March 1, 2010. Nominations should be made online here.

The Municipal Art Society is honored to again administer the Jane Jacobs Medal nomination process on behalf of the Rockefeller Foundation, as we have done since 2007 when the Foundation first established the award to honor the activist, author and urbanist who died in April 2006 at the age of 89. MAS will also sponsor a series of walking tours and the annual Jane Jacobs Forum this fall to coincide with the medal presentations.

The Jane Jacobs Medals are presented in two categories — one for Lifetime Leadership, and one for New Ideas and Activism — and are accompanied by prizes totaling $200,000. The selection of the Jane Jacobs Medal winners and allocation of the prize money will be determined by the members of the Jane Jacobs Medal Selection Jury. The Jury is co-chaired by Rockefeller Foundation President Judith Rodin and trustee David Rockefeller, Jr. and includes Mary Schmidt Campbell, Dean of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts; and Bruce Nussbaum, assistant managing editor in charge of BusinessWeek magazine’s innovation and design coverage.

“This is a time of great opportunity for the development of our city,” said Darren Walker, Vice President of Foundation Initiatives for the Rockefeller Foundation. “Fifty years ago, Jane Jacobs’ activism helped build a neighborhood based on the combined principles of community, diversity, and environment. As communities throughout New York continue to weather the difficult economic storm, there is a new generation of activists who are creating dynamic change in their neighborhoods from the inside out, and once again working to make New York City stronger and more unified. The Rockefeller Foundation is pleased to continue to award the new generation of influencers with The Jane Jacobs Medals as a means of celebrating and encouraging a continued dialogue and civic action within our great city today.”

The 2010 Rockefeller Foundation Jane Jacobs Medal winners will be announced in July of this year. The Medals will be awarded to the recipients at a reception in September 2010.

Thus far, six New Yorkers have received the medal: Richard Kahan of the Urban Assembly and Damaris Reyes of Good Old Lower East Side (GOLES) in 2009; Peggy Sheppard of West Harlem Environmental Action, Inc. and Alexie Torres-Fleming of Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice in 2008; and Barry Benepe, founder of the New York Greenmarkets program and Omar Freilla of Greenworker Cooperatives in 2007. Videos featuring all past recipients are available here.

The Rockefeller Foundation’s relationship with Jane Jacobs dates back to the 1950s, when it launched an Urban Design Studies program that helped foster the emergence of the new discipline of urban design and theory. As part of this initiative, one of the Foundation’s first grants was to the then-obscure writer from Greenwich Village, for the research and writing of Jacobs’ seminal book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities.

The restaurant that became Gage & Tollner was originally opened by Charles M. Gage in 1879.  When Gage partnered with Eugene Tollner a few years later, the restaurant was renamed for the two of them.  In 1892, Gage & Tollner moved from its original location near present-day Cadman Plaza to the 1870s Italianate row house at 372 Fulton Street. The building’s wooden Neo-Grec storefront, which is still intact, was likely added at this time. Gage & Tollner’s clientele were among Brooklyn and Manhattan’s elite, and throughout the next century, the restaurant was renowned for its food quality and excellent service.  The Landmarks Preservation Commission’s 1974 designation report for the building’s exterior refers to Gage & Tollner as “one of Brooklyn’s best known restaurants.”

In a city where restaurants seem to come and go constantly, Gage & Tollner’s elegant interior and exterior appearance, superior service, and excellent food remained constant for over a century. The Landmarks Preservation Commission’s 1975 designation report for the restaurant’s interior quotes then-Brooklyn Borough Historian, Joseph Palisi, as praising Gage & Tollner’s reputation. He stated that the restaurant embodied “exquisite food, excellent service and a sense of timelessness through which something of a carefully preserved past is made to contribute to the fullest enjoyment of the present.”

Gage & Tollner is one of only two New York City interior landmark spaces that were built exclusively as restaurants (the other is the Four Seasons restaurant, designed by Philip Johnson). Although landmark designation cannot control which establishments occupy landmarks or how these spaces are used, it does regulate what changes can be made to the protected architectural features.  Therefore, when Gage & Tollner closed in 2004 due to dwindling business, its 1890s appearance was not destroyed by either the TGI Friday’s, which occupied the space until 2007, or the newly-opened Arby’s (pictured to the left).

To read the full nomination for Gage and Tollner, log on to Place Matters. Please tell your friends about these places of history, memory, and culture and invite them to join the Place Matters e-mail list.

The 2010 Awards Committee members are Vishaan Chakrabarti, Marc Holliday Professor, Columbia University GSAPP and Founding Principal, VCDC, Thomas Woltz, principal, Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects, Paola Antonelli, senior curator of architecture and design at MoMA, Toshiko Mori, Robert P. Hubbard Professor in the Practice of Architecture at Harvard University Graduate School of Design and principal, Toshiko Mori Architect, and Alan Suna, developer and CEO, Silvercup Studios.

MASterworks Awards honor architecture projects completed within the last year in the following six categories:
• Best New Building for outstanding new design;
• Best Restoration for the restoration of a historically significant commercial, residential or institutional building and/or publicly accessible lobby;
• Best Storefront Design for innovative design that contributes to street life;
• Neighborhood Catalyst for a project that has been a catalyst for change in its neighborhood;
• Best Privately-Owned Public Space for an outstanding public space created as part of a private development; and,
• Best Green Design Initiative for the renovation of a building that integrates sustainable design principles.

Winners will be announced at a ceremony to take place in the spring of 2010. The program is sponsored by Helaba, Landesbank Hessen-Thuringen, the international banking and investment group.

“The MASterworks Awards celebrate the year’s ingenuity in architecture and urban design by honoring contemporary projects that significantly contribute to the urban fabric of New York City — projects that influence the way we live, work, and experience the city. We are honored to have this distinguished committee to deliberate on this yearʼs MASterworks nominees,” said Vin Cipolla, president of MAS.

To nominate a project, or for more information on the awards, click here. The deadline for entries is Sunday, February 28, 2010.

Donnelly Marks (pictured) is a professional photographer who decided to become more involved in her community (Astoria, Queens), in 2002. As part of the Norwood Neighborhood Association (NNA), Donnelly quickly learned that “…pictures were a very useful tool; helpful when making a presentation to the community board, the press, City Council, etc.” Donnelly uses pictures to document areas of concern and to highlight achievements on her neighborhood association’s website. In October of last year, she attended the Livable Neighborhoods Program (LNP) training at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, taking workshops in Historic Preservation and Using Maps and Data.

What made you want to devote a Saturday afternoon to learning more about neighborhood planning?
Juan Camilo Osorio from MAS attended our community board meeting (Astoria CB1) last fall. Our son made comments in the meeting and afterwards Juan told us about the GIS (Geographic Information Systems) workshop and Livable Neighborhood workshops. The program name alone “Livable Neighborhood” says it all. When Juan Camilo explained the LNP workshop offered a chance to learn from planning, preservation and GIS experts in a professional and friendly setting, how could anyone resist?

What did you gain from the training? Were there any “a-ha” moments?  
As a member of a community association in Astoria, our group had been working hard to improve our neighborhood and address some important quality of life issues, so the workshop sounded perfect.

I found the information and resources shared in the LNP workshops to be extremely useful. For those new to preservation and community service like myself, it has not been easy to navigate the city agencies, rules and processes, to understand the “big picture” or who or what agency and resources would be most constructive for us to reach out to. The presenters consolidated information in a very user-friendly way.

How have you been able to put what you learned to work for your neighborhood?
I was able to take home and put GIS to use immediately. GIS was used to create a presentation to our community board related to quality of life issues our neighborhood was addressing (see map). In addition, alternative courses of action for “special neighborhood” preservation were shared and we hope to make use of these ideas in the future.

Any parting thoughts for those considering the training? 
Getting involved has been challenging and hard work but it’s been wonderful meeting neighbors and those in City offices who are working to make our community a better place. Being involved has also made our neighborhood feel much more like “home” which is a great feeling.

The group voted to pursue a 197-a plan—one of the City’s most comprehensive planning tools. Named for the section of the City’s Charter that enables them, 197-a plans provide a way to capture a community vision and translate that vision into policies and strategies. (You can view summaries of all of the City’s adopted 197-a plans here.) The Chinatown Working Group has already begun work identifying themes and principles that will guide their work over the coming year.

Chinatown’s 197-a planning effort is unique in that it reflects the involvement of multiple community boards—acknowledging that the diverse neighborhood spans administrative and political boundaries. Chinatown is under dual pressures: still recovering from the social and economic upheaval of 9/11 yet subject to development that has resulted in an erosion of affordable housing stock, neighborhood character, and protections to cultural heritage and the local economy. The initiative can capitalize on the recession-imposed lull in development to create a framework for growth and preservation that will reflect community priorities once the market bounces back.

Helping community organizations and neighborhood advocates confront the planning, land use, and economic development issues facing their neighborhoods is a core goal of MAS. Through public forums, tools for planning, workshops, publications and one-on-one assistance, the MAS Planning Center tackles neighborhood issues at grassroots and citywide levels.

Town Hall Meeting to Review the Plan
On Monday, February 1, at 7:00 p.m., the Chinatown Working Group will host a Town Hall meeting to review its plan with the community and brainstorm ideas on how best to preserve and enhance Chinatown. The meeting will take place at PS 130 Hernando De Soto, 143 Baxter Street (between Grand and Hester Streets in Manhattan).

The winning design, chosen by a jury including MAS Chairman David Childs, is titled Urban Umbrella and was developed by Young-Hwan Choi, a 28-year-old student at the University of Pennsylvania. His design will improve quality of life, reduce construction impacts on businesses, increase pedestrian safety, and increase available space for pedestrians on sidewalks, while also complimenting the city’s architectural beauty.

The Alliance for Downtown New York will fund the construction and installation of a full-scale prototype of the design at a job site in Lower Manhattan.

The new design will not be mandated, but it will be in the interest of contractors to use the new design due to the reduced maintenance costs and the interest of building owners and affected businesses, as the new design will obstruct less of a building’s facade and be more inviting to pedestrians. 

MAS fully supports this innovative competition and looks forward to the unveiling of the downtown prototype.

The Bell Laboratories, originally known as Western Electric and part of the larger American Telegraph & Telephone Company (AT&T), moved its headquarters to a newly-constructed building on West and Bethune Streets in 1898.  Over the years, the company expanded on the block while developing some of the most important technological advances of the first half of the twentieth century.  These include the transistor, the transmission for both black and white and color television, high fidelity recording, “talkie” movies, the transoceanic telephone cable, and lasers, among many others.  In 1966, Bell Laboratories relocated its facilities to New Jersey, leaving the New York City complex vacant.

The next chapter in the complex’s history started in 1968 when the J.M. Kaplan Fund and the National Endowment for the Arts partnered to purchase the former Bell Labs in order to develop artists’ housing.  The result, Westbeth, was the first federally-subsidized artists’ housing project in the United States, and today, it is still the largest.  Although the adaptive reuse of historic industrial complexes for artists’ live-work spaces is a now common idea, in the 1960s the trend was still in infancy and was not widely accepted by American developers, planners, and other decision-makers.  Westbeth was truly a ground-breaking idea for its time.

A young, then-unknown architect, Richard Meier, was hired for the conversion, one of his first commissions.  Meier created 383 studio, 1-, 2-, and 3-bedroom apartments in the complex, and included other amenities like a theater, a gallery, and community spaces.  For the most part, Meier left the architecture of industrial buildings unchanged, except for the creation of a now-iconic courtyard, the introduction modern architectural features in select places, and the insertion of a plaza.  Westbeth opened in 1970, and over the last forty years, it has housed painters, sculptors, musicians, writers, and other visual and performance artists.  John Scofield, Diane Arbus, and Moses Gunn are just some of the artists who have lived in Westbeth.

The success of Westbeth inspired the city and state to develop incentives and polices to reuse manufacturing and industrial buildings that were functionally obsolete. Across the city, buildings were retained and when appropriate, reused for other uses. Neighborhoods like SoHo and Tribeca were completely reborn by re-purposing former industrial lofts.   MAS’ Save Industrial Brooklyn initiative urged the city to encourage similar initiatives along Brooklyn’s industrial waterfront in the 21st century.

Westbeth’s significance as the home of the Bell Laboratories has long been recognized.  The 1898 building on West and Bethune Streets was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and declared a National Historic Landmark in 1975.  However, the building’s history as an artists’ complex has only been more recently acclaimed.  Last year, the entire site was listed on the National Register. The nomination, written by architectural historian Andrew Dolkart and sponsored by the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, extensively outlines Westbeth’s pioneering founding and the Richard Meier conversion.  In addition, last week, the Landmarks Preservation Commission held a public hearing on the individual landmark designation of Westbeth, recognizing both eras of the complex’s significance.

To read the full nomination for Westbeth, log on to Place Matters. Please tell your friends about these places of history, memory, and culture and invite them to join the Place Matters e-mail list.

Urban Center Books will be open until January 23 at the Villard Houses, 457 Madison Avenue.  There is currently a pre-moving sale, with all stock 40% off.

If you don’t get a chance to say goodbye to the Villard Houses in person, you can read the lovely farewell to the Municipal Art Society at the Villard Houses in last week’s New York Times, available here.

Until then, we are holding a sale with 40% off all stock. Print this voucher and bring it to the store to claim your discount. Come in today to take advantage of the sale in its final week. UCB stocks books on a diverse range of topics including, architecture, design, New York, landscape, urbanism, sustainability, interiors, construction, theory, magazines, journals, and much more.

We expect UCB to reopen in a new location in the fall. In the meantime, visit us at www.urbancenterbooks.org to order books and receive your MAS member discount.

If you’re a young person living or working in New York, you play a vital role in this city. More than one-third of all New Yorkers are under the age of forty and the collective influence of young New Yorkers on this city’s future will be substantial.

Whether you’re a new or a native New Yorker, your voice and passion for urban living is something we at MAS recognize and share. For over ten years, MAS has offered hundreds of individuals, early in their careers, broad exposure to the critical issues of urban planning, design and public space through our Urbanist program.

We invite you to join us! MAS seeks to engage an even larger group of young New Yorkers in our work, by adding a new level of membership in 2010. Consider joining at the basic-Urbanist level, $65 annually, or at the Leadership level, $250 annually.

Urbanist members are invited to join MAS President, Vin Cipolla twice a year for a policy briefing and private reception. Our next meeting will take place at MAS on the evening of Wednesday, January 13, 2010. E-mail Alexis Meisels for more information.

Click here to read more about the MAS Urbanists, additional member benefits and upcoming events.