Getting big infrastructure projects done requires leadership beyond municipal borders. In order to finance and move complicated projects forward, cities need support at the state and federal levels. Hear leading urban researcher Rosabeth Moss Kanter speak about why the U.S. must address this issue in order to remain globally competitive, and about why a new Penn Station and revitalized West Midtown is so critical to the northeast economy.
Cities around the world are facing challenges similar to New York’s as they struggle with how to update and expand their aging infrastructure systems. In this session, we’ll hear from leaders involved in major transit development projects in other U.S. cities and abroad about how they successfully moved big ideas into implementation and how that should inform our approach to realizing a new Penn Station.
A modern, globally competitive city can't sustain itself on infrastructure built by our grandparents and great-grandparents. Finding funding for urgent projects like the Gateway Tunnels expansion is a major hurdle, but so is overcoming the bureaucracy, delays, and cost overruns that derail so many urban infrastructure plans. If we can't fix our "legal infrastructure," will we ever be able to deliver the bridges, tunnels, and roads New York deserves?
Major development is underway at Hudson Yards, and other large-scale planning efforts are underway for both Moynihan Station and the Port Authority Bus Terminal. Meanwhile, it’s been two years since City Council voted to limit Madison Square Garden’s operating permit to ten years. So how does it all fit together? We’ll investigate how to leverage the big changes happening in the surrounding West Midtown district to pave the way for improvements to Penn Station.
In this talk, MAS Board Director Vishaan Chakrabarti will outline the physical planning needed for a 21st century Penn Station, breaking down this enormously complex project into its core pieces. What are the design opportunities for connecting Amtrak’s Gateway project to Penn, and how could the project be phased to minimize service disruption and maximize impact?
Following up on the previous talk outlining the elements of a new Penn Station, this panel will cover how we get there. Building a modern train station and a new rail system will require a clear economic path, political will, smart governance, and visionary leadership. This panel will discuss strategies needed to overcome the numerous obstacles to realizing a new Penn Station, and the means of countering the cynicism that comes along with long-term, complex projects. Do we have what it takes to get this done?
New engineering feats coupled with the thrust of global capital have resulted in the rise of the supertall tower, sprouting up in cities around the world. In response to the proliferation of supertalls along the southern border of Central Park, MAS launched its Accidental Skyline initiative in 2013. In this presentation, New York magazine’s Justin Davidson will set the scene for a conversation on the implications of our city’s changing skyline.
The virtues and drawbacks of supertall skyscrapers in New York are the subject of much debate, but their true impact is hard to measure in the absence of an analytical approach. MAS partners Columbia’s Center for Urban Real Estate and KPF will delve into the “science of supertalls,” presenting a series of quantitative methods and qualitative interpretations for understanding the nature of new development in urban contexts. This analytical approach is contextualized by projects from around the world.
For the most part, this new breed of high-rise building is being built as-of-right, and once completed, hard to miss—often casting shadows on public parks, transforming our skyline, and affecting the surrounding neighborhoods. This panel will explore the trade-offs of super tall buildings and discuss whether New York's current regulatory process strikes the right balance between public benefit and private profit.
Jeremiah Moss, Vanishing New York blogger and founder of #SaveNYC, will narrate a pre-recorded piece about the recent history of New York City, suggesting a death by hyper-gentrification via the loss of key small businesses and cultural touchstones. Alongside startling before-and-after streetscape photographs by James and Karla Murray, Moss will make a case for halting what is happening to the city and then outline how it can be saved.
For centuries, Manhattan’s side streets have been home to a rich tapestry of small businesses, each uniquely special and woven together to bring character to neighborhoods. Betsy Bober Polivy, the founder of Manhattan Sideways, tirelessly walks and bikes the side streets of New York, discovering these businesses and sharing their fascinating stories. She has watched cherished shops struggle with rising rent prices and celebrated those that have managed to hold on. Hear about life on the side streets, the ebb and flow of the businesses opening and closing, and the individual, heart-warming stories of the owners so central to New York’s unmistakable flavor and flare.
Launched earlier this year at MAS’s CUE conference, the NYC Real Estate Investment Cooperative (NYC REIC) is a group of 300+ New Yorkers pooling their money and power to secure space for community, small business, and cultural uses. Consistent with the principles and spirit of the cooperative movement, NYC REIC makes long-term, stabilizing, and transformative investments for the mutual benefit of its member-owners and the community. Hear about NYC REIC's plans to move from incubation to realization, and become an independent, cooperatively, and democratically-governed organization during this session.
Diverse economies depend upon entrepreneurs, innovators, and artists, but in cities like New York, these groups are often the first to be crowded out by rising rents and rising barrier-to-entry costs. This panel will discuss the challenges facing our city's risk-takers and innovative solutions to overcoming those obstacles —from pop-ups to co-working spaces. How can globally competitive cities grow economically while simultaneously supporting entrepreneurs and innovators?
Urban Word NYC champions the voices of New York City youth by providing platforms for critical literacy, youth development, and leadership. Urban Word NYC spoken word poet Alyssa Saunders will perform an original piece responding to this year’s Summit theme, “The City We Want.”
Cities are getting smarter, embracing technology as a means to become more efficient and sustainable. But for the benefits to be equitable, high-speed internet access must be universal and affordable. Broadband is the future for civic engagement, along with new digital platforms that enable collaboration and co-development. Learn how civic-leaders, entrepreneurs and the City are working across sectors to democratize city building through technology.
Inspired by civic pillars such as Grand Central Terminal and the Pantheon as well as by the shapes and patterns of the living world, Santiago Calatrava discusses the intersection of art, engineering, and architecture in building grand public spaces across the world.
In every major city in the county, with the exception of New York, design-build has been tested and proven to work in fast-tracking projects and saving clients money.
Well-designed spaces of the highest caliber are essential to the success and quality of life in global cities. Can design be made more of a primary consideration as new buildings and public spaces are planned and constructed in New York City? This panel will discuss the need to bring conversations about design to the forefront of development and investment decisions, and the approvals process. Can we demonstrate the value of putting design first?
Richard Schulman has been documenting cities, buildings, and the people who create them for nearly forty years. With an introduction by Paul Goldberger, Schulman will present his newest publication, “Portraits of the New Architecture 2,” which features 32 new and exciting architects and architectural firms whose projects are shaping the future of design.
Creative place-making—integrating art and cultural programming into urban planning and design—was once seen as solely the purview of government in publicly owned places. However, in recent years, the private sector has started taking leadership and investing their projects with cultural infrastructure and programming, using place-making to gain a competitive advantage. In doing so, they generate higher revenue and greater appeal for residents, corporations, entrepreneurs, and tourists alike. In November, MAS will convene some of the world’s foremost corporate leaders and creative place-makers for an event titled, Global Cities at the Crossroads. Get a sneak peek here at the Summit.
390 Madison Avenue stretches the possibilities of as-of-right redevelopment. Millions of pounds of steel and concrete are being removed from the base of the building, and eight new floors are being added to the top. This is being achieved without the addition of a single structural column. New volumes of space, indoor and outdoor, have been conceived around the way modern companies aspire to work. 390 Madison Avenue is doing its part to reenergize the Grand Central neighborhood.
After years of vacancy and decay, Pier 57—a landmark shipping pier built in the 1950s—will soon be restored and reborn as a mixed-use complex. Planned uses at the Pier include a world-class food market, office space for the technology industry, new public open space, and more. Learn about the history of the Pier, the plans that will soon be implemented, and the unique public-private partnership between RXR, Young Woo Associates, and Hudson River Park Trust that is bringing this unique project to life.
Since the passage of the National Historic Preservation Act nearly 50 years ago, preservation and adaptive building reuse have become powerful tools for managing change, spurring economic growth, and contributing to the betterment of vibrant, sustainable communities. The National Trust for Historic Preservation, the World Monuments Fund, and the Municipal Art Society are three esteemed organizations that have worked tirelessly to advance the preservation movement and have served as ongoing stewards of its evolving agenda. Joined in conversation, representatives from the three groups will reflect on each organization’s legacy, assess how the field has changed since the passage of the landmarks law, and set the stage for the future of preservation.
Next generation parks, like the High Line here in New York and Zollverein in Essen, Germany, have proven the value of preservation and spurred us to redefine our conception of the 21st century park. Maker Park is envisioned as a new adaptive reuse public space that captures the creative ethos of the surrounding Williamsburg neighborhood, an area in the throes of accelerated change. Set on the site of Charles Pratt’s historic Astral Oil Works along the waterfront, Maker Park will pay homage to the area’s long legacy of manufacturing and help to preserve the neighborhood’s culture of collaboration and making that is so central to its character.
Originally built and used as a cultural space for the 1964/65 World’s Fair, the New York State Pavilion in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens is currently abandoned. With a hope to change this, Matthew Silva and Salmaan Khan co-founded People for the Pavilion, a nonprofit advocacy organization dedicated to developing a vibrant community around the Pavilion, to raise awareness about the structure. Silva and Khan tell their story and showcase the trailer to Silva’s 2015 documentary, Modern Ruin.
For decades, a spectacular 1950s glass mosaic mural by the noted artist Max Spivak lay hidden. Last March, it was unexpectedly discovered during renovation work on the façade of 5 Bryant Park (111 West 40th Street.) In the spirit of Joan Miro, this colorful abstract mural depicts tools of garment designers and makers, which link it to the legacy of New York’s historic textile industry. David Dunlap, who wrote a compelling article in the New York Times about the uncovered mosaic, will be joined in conversation by Steve Miotto, the skilled craftsman hired for the restoration. Peter Rose of the Blackstone Group, owners of the building, will introduce them.
Built at the height of the mid-century modern movement, Eero Saarinen’s TWA Flight Center ushered in a new era of jet air travel. Today, MCR Development’s Tyler Morse is advancing a privately-funded plan to rehabilitate the national landmark to its Jet Age splendor and deliver the first on-site, world-class airport hotel to JFK International Airport.
This year marks the 50th Anniversary of the New York City Landmarks Law, a groundbreaking piece of legislation that led to the preservation of thousands of buildings and sites throughout the city. This panel will explore the success of the law and what is in store for the next 50 years of historic preservation, especially as economic and social forces continue to shift.
Playwright Justin Rivers introduces an excerpt from his forthcoming two-man play that tells the story of an unlikely friendship forged during the demolition of New York's Pennsylvania Station. The Eternal Space premieres Off-Broadway at the Lion Theater on November 13, 2015. Tickets and more information are available at theeternalspaceplay.com.
Jane Jacobs Forum: Sensing the City
Hosted by the MAS Urbanists
This session is free and open to the public, but registration is required.
Reception at 5:30PM / Program at 7:00PM
Jane Jacobs' rallying cry that healthy cities must have “eyes on the street” has long served as a central idea of what it means to experience the city—to see and be seen, to feel safe and secure, to feel a sense of belonging in a community. But sight is not our only way to understand and experience the city. There are five senses New Yorkers can take to the street. This year’s Jane Jacobs Forum showcases new, innovative ideas of how we see, hear, touch, smell, and taste to be a part of our city.
SMELL: The SoHo Memory Project (Yukie Ohta, Founder/Director)
FEEL: The Tactile City (Teddy Koffman, Instructor, Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture, The Cooper Union)
SEE: Float (Sascha Mombartz, Founder)
TASTE: Museum of Food and Drink (Emma Boast, Program Director)
HEAR: Endangered Language Alliance (Daniel Kaufman, Co-Director)
Moderated by Mary Rowe (Executive Vice President, MAS)
Cities across the globe have emerged as key action centers for climate change mitigation, adaptation, and resiliency initiatives. More than 1,000 cities have pledged their commitment to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Knowledge partnerships that engage local researchers, governments, and community groups are essential for enabling cities to fulfill their leadership potential. The partnership between the New York City Panel on Climate Change and city policy-makers led to the co-generation of science-based policy solutions for resiliency in the wake of Superstorm Sandy. The Urban Climate Change Research Network is playing a similar role around the globe. Leading up to the COP21 in Paris and beyond, cities must continue to serve as world leaders in advancing action for climate change. How can we as New Yorkers provide leadership on climate change?
How can the arts energize what the sciences have already told us? Can they engage diverse audiences, call them to action, and awaken a movement that is impossible for lawmakers and industrialists to ignore? With these guiding questions, this session will look at Hudson Yards’ landscape design, France’s mobilization of international artists to push for a Paris climate accord, and the actions that artists and urbanists everywhere can be taking.
Buildings account for approximately 70% of New York City’s Green House Gas (GHG) Emissions. With population growth moving into urban environments it is imperative to reduce GHG’s released by multi-family buildings, especially in New York City’s densely packed environment. In 2011, Cornell University won the rights to build a new technology and innovation campus on Roosevelt Island. The University has ambitious plans for sustainability. As part of these plans, in partnership with the University, private developers The Hudson Companies and Related Companies are building the world’s largest high-rise residential Passive House building. Passive House is the most rigorous energy efficiency standard in the world created in direct response to reducing GHG’s and stopping global warming.
With the investments made in the OneNYC program, New York City will be better prepared for the risks of the future. In this session, Daniel Zarrilli, Director of the NYC Mayor's Office of Recovery and Resiliency, will share lessons learned from Hurricane Sandy and highlight the city's OneNYC resiliency commitment to prepare its neighborhoods, economy and public services to withstand and emerge stronger from the impacts of climate change and other 21st century threats.
Traffic congestion in cities is one of the most significant contributors to climate change. While investment in mass transit is widely regarded as a solution, these projects are hard to finance and take years to complete. The power of vehicle sharing facilitated by technology, however, has the capacity to help bypass these blockades and tackle these two persistent problems. GoKid is a tool to save families time and money while reducing congestion and emissions. Co-founder Stefanie Lemcke will explain how thousands of cars can be taken off the road using GoKid, and how partnerships between private and public entities and the continuing education of families can put New York City at the forefront of a new mobility solution that will help save resources and the environment.
Superstorm Sandy had a disproportionate impact on small businesses throughout the city, many of which lack the resources to invest in improvements to build their resilience. NYCEDC developed the RISE: NYC program to support small businesses to become more resilient, identifying and deploying innovative technologies in the energy, telecom, and building systems sectors through an international multi-stage competition. In this session, the people behind some of the winning designs will discuss their technologies and how they mobilize and engage community networks to promote resiliency.
The civic commons—which includes parks, libraries, community centers, markets, and squares—serve as a city’s backbone and provide shared places to celebrate, learn, rest, play, trade, make key decisions, and express collective aspirations. Yet there is no universal recipe for creating a successful civic commons, as the qualities that make a commons truly civic are deeply rooted in the specifics of people, time, and place. Join Stantec’s David Dixon as he examines places and spaces across North America that have met the civic needs and aspirations of the communities they are created to serve.
Operating under the motto “HERE FOR NOW,” PROXY is an investigation into the potential of impermanence. Too often, the slow process of developing underutilized properties and civic spaces leaves communities in limbo. A placeholder for a more permanent building, PROXY is a temporary two-block construct by the architecture and design practice envelopeA+D that sits on city-owned vacant lots in San Francisco—a hybrid form of public space as well as an engine of micro-commerce. A vibrant focal point for commerce, community, and culture, PROXY serves as a live experiment in the creation of new kinds of urban spaces and the role that the architect can play as a steward, curator, and civic risk-taker.
Once you develop an eye for opportunity, your experience of the city is forever changed. In the case of Meg Daly, Founder of Friends of The Underline in Miami, Florida, her light-bulb moment came after an unfortunate bike accident that resulted in two broken arms. Unable to drive—a challenge in itself in car-centric Miami—Meg found herself walking underneath the city’s elevated train, where she discovered 10 miles of transformative opportunity for new found green space, trails, and art. Find out how she has moved from incorporation to implementation in less than two years (and won MAS’s Pitching the City ideas contest along the way!) and how she has provided a template for other cities to leverage leftover land.
As part of the continued redevelopment of the four-mile Hudson River Park, the Pier55 project is poised to transform a section adjacent to the Meatpacking District into nearly three acres of vibrant new public parkland. Along with lush greenery, cutting-edge design, and waterfront performance spaces, the new park will feature a uniquely diverse array of arts, educational, and community programming. Learn how the partners behind this public-private venture are thinking big about park planning, sustainable design, and artistic programming, while also engaging local artists and residents to create a shared new community space on the Hudson River.
The W. Allison and Elizabeth Stubbs Davis Award is named in honor of the parents of former Parks Commissioner Gordon J. Davis and is awarded to a deserving employee of the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. This year the award will be presented to Eric Joseph Greene.
Accessible, attractive, healthy, vibrant—these are the qualities that define a city built for people. But development priorities often favor large infrastructure investments and commercial projects that seem to relegate the people who actually live in cities to an afterthought. What is the role of the planner in the modern city? Or are global cities like New York now solely focused on zoning? Join a diverse panel of voices to discuss the fate of urban planning and the challenges planners working both within and alongside city government face.
Over the past five years, twelve projects have emerged from Ennead Lab, an outgrowth of Ennead Architects. In collaboration with artists, professionals, scholars, community activists and governmental agencies, the studio’s architects have leveraged design to address a variety of civic challenges and opportunities. While these projects have ranged from bird-friendly glass to rethinking refugee communities, each initiative supports the Lab’s mission to advance innovative solutions as catalysts for civic discourse, community improvement, a sustainable environment and urban progress.
New York is home to an array of inventive industrial, manufacturing, and commercial hubs. These centers provide the space needed for businesses to thrive in the 21st century economy yet they face a number of challenges. From finding the right funding streams to the need to adaptively reuse historic buildings for modern manufacturing and commercial activity, what are the obstacles, and what should we be doing to help these hubs thrive?
Neighborhoods across the five boroughs are enriched and enlivened by cultural anchors and the vast array of programs they make available for visitors—locally and globally. As the pressure to reach new audiences and deliver on their missions in new ways drives them to expand their physical presence in neighborhoods, can these important organizations work with local communities to continue contributing to the success of their neighborhoods, and not overtake them?
Urban Word NYC champions the voices of New York City youth by providing platforms for critical literacy, youth development, and leadership. Urban Word NYC spoken word poet Jared Green will perform an original piece responding to this year’s Summit theme, “The City We Want.”
What makes a neighborhood complete? Mayor de Blasio’s Housing New York plan proposes re-zoning neighborhoods to spur housing production and address the city’s affordability crisis—but housing is only one piece of the puzzle. A vibrant, engaged, and diverse neighborhood needs other forms of investment and development activity to ensure its dynamism. Civic spaces, infrastructure, commercial and retail spaces, arts, cultural, and educational institutions are all necessary components, and achieving good outcomes calls for a broad range of partnerships. What kind of policy leadership is needed and how can we effectively incentivize, cultivate, and finance neighborhood necessities?
One of the most isolated and disadvantaged neighborhoods in New York City is being transformed: the activity around the Astoria waterfront is demonstrating how community groups, developers, and government agencies can work together to create balanced development. Jay Valgora of STUDIO V describes the radical and innovative approaches being employed in five projects that will transform Astoria and the New York City waterfront. From co-generation to black water treatment, from innovative parks and playgrounds to a new water taxi network reconnecting an isolated community, big changes are coming to the Halletts Peninsula.
Since the first human settlements, people have understood that proximity to nature and open space is fundamental to every aspect of quality of life. But cities are not organized to optimally develop open space, because the landscape of a city falls under many ownerships, both public and private. With Mott Haven in the South Bronx as its laboratory, the Haven Project aims to demonstrate—through a revolutionary combination of capital renovation and data collection—that optimizing the built environment will measurably increase local health, safety, economic activity, and joy.
Federal leadership and investment is crucial to addressing transportation problems across the Hudson River, expanding Penn Station, and securing the future of the tri-state region. Senators Charles Schumer of New York and Cory Booker of New Jersey will discuss the vital importance of modernizing our nation’s infrastructure, and the key roles played by public and private sector partners in completing complex and challenging projects.
In Cape Town, South Africa, centuries of formal segregation have left a legacy of fragmented cities and damaged citizen-state relationships. Twenty years into democracy, the work to create just cities and empower residents about their civic rights is still underway. Future Cape Town’s founder Rashiq Fataar, will explain his work to advance this agenda, fostering a more engaged citizenry by placing people at the heart of urban planning processes and demystifying city-making at all levels.
What is the vision of the "Just City?” What are its characteristics? Twenty-four writers from around the world were invited to contend with this question as part of a collaboration between the J. Max Bond Center for the Design of the Just City, NextCity, and the Nature of Cities. The elements of a Just City cut across issues of race, ethnicity, gender, the environment, housing, economies, safety, access to information, and the rights of communities to create their own cities. Four contributors to this series talk about their visions of the Just City.
Play is critical to all aspects of childhood development and yet kids who live in disadvantaged neighborhoods often face many barriers. Safety issues, lack of access to places to play, and a deficit of free time with parents and other caregivers are some of the factors that prevent kids from playing. James Siegal, President of national non-profit KaBOOM! will explore how designing cities with kids in mind – at the playground and beyond – is a competitive advantage for cities that not only benefits kids, but also makes communities more livable for all of us.
A year and a half has passed since Mayor de Blasio announced his plans to create or preserve 200,000 units of affordable housing. A check in on the progress so far, this panel will engage a range of perspectives in exploring the successes to date and the challenges ahead.
New York City has undergone significant rezoning in recent years, with a staggering 40% of New York rezoned under the Bloomberg administration. The current administration continues this momentum with an ambitious affordable housing program set to reshape even more neighborhoods. What can be learned through examining the changes that those rezoned neighborhoods have undergone in past years? What are the community-based approaches that may limit neighborhood displacement during this current wave of rezonings? Are there mechanisms to ensure that promised community benefits are realized over time—and over administrations?
A truly democratic planning process is inclusionary and transparent. With Mayor de Blasio’s affordable housing plan set to significantly alter the physical and environmental landscapes of communities across the city, MAS has made it a priority to empower local residents to take part in the planning decisions that will shape their neighborhoods. This session will mark the official launch of two planning guidebooks designed to serve as key tools for citizen engagement. The first is The NYC Neighborhood Planning Playbook, an interagency collaboration between the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, the Department of City Planning, and the Economic Development Corporation, seeks to simplify the planning process and help the public engage in neighborhood planning efforts.
Employed as part of MAS’s Livable Neighborhoods Training Program, Who Gets It Done and How? is MAS’s new guidebook to ensure that community stakeholders and neighborhood organizations speak the same language as government and private industry counterparts, and can collaborate and build consensus around a future vision for their city.
The good, better, and best ideas from this year’s Summit, plus some highlights of from past years showing how ideas generated at this annual convening have advanced important initiatives across the city.
2016 marks the 100th anniversary of urban activist Jane Jacobs’ birth. MAS—and organizations around the world—are gearing up to celebrate her legacy and promote her transformative ideas. With this short film, all will be called upon to join in the global celebration.
For the finale to the 2015 MAS Summit for New York City, MAS is proud to present a special excerpt from the forthcoming opera about two visionary urban theorists: Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs. It’s a story about those who live in cities and the power struggle that exists in striving to build the city we want. Visit mosesjacobsopera.com to hear more about this new work in development.