RSVP Now: Urban Revitalization and East Harlem Rezoning

New Panelist: CIVITAS Advisory Committee Member Matthew Washington

Wednesday, December 4
6:30 pm - 8:00 pm

Admission is FREE for CIVITAS members. Find out how to become a member.

CIVITAS's discussion series continues this December with an investigation of urban revitalization through the lens of East Harlem rezoning and updated land use policies. This panel of neighborhood leaders and experts will look specifically at projects currently under way in East Harlem, including the renovation of the former P.S. 109 into affordable live-work space for artists, and the transformation of La Marqueta, a marketplace under the Metro North railway tracks between East 111th and East 116th Streets that was once the economic and social center of the neighborhood.

Moderator:
-Karrie Jacobs - Contributing Editor, Metropolis; founding editor-in-chief, Dwell

Panelists:
-Matthew Washington - Chair, Community Board 11, Advisory Member of CIVITAS
-Peggy Shepard - Co-founder and Executive Director, WE ACT for Environmental Justice
-Gus Rosado - Executive Director, El Barrio's Operation Fightback

All discussions in the series will take place at the National Academy
1083 Fifth Avenue at East 89th Street. map

Admission:
CIVITAS members: FREE
General Admission: $15
Seniors and Students: $10

For tickets, visit the National Academy online or call (212) 369-4880 x 201.
CIVITAS members can RSVP by calling the museum at the above number.

NYC Benches on the Rise

Roberta Hodgson 

The elevated subway grates on East 116th Street are designed to prevent flooding and also serve as public art and a bench. 

“I came down the front steps of my house into a world that was sunny, warm and clean….

with benches, where mothers sat with their carriaged babies,” novelist E.L. Doctorow wrote recently in New York magazine, describing his Depression-era childhood in New York City.

Seventy five years later, benches still provide comfort and convenience in what serves as our common outdoor living room: the sidewalks of New York. The problem is that there are not enough benches to accommodate seniors, shoppers, and families looking for a spot to sit. Seniors often find it difficult to walk several blocks without a place to rest. And New Yorkers of any age appreciate a bench to sit on, chat with a friend or share an ice cream with a child. Interrupting the relentless pace of the city by stopping to sit and smell chestnuts roasting or to notice pear trees in bloom can only be good for everyone’s peace of mind.

Now a solution to the problem of too few benches is at hand–a new program from the NYC Department of Transportation (DOT) known as CityBench. In order to increase the amount of public seating on our streets, DOT is now installing attractive and durable benches around the city, particularly at bus stops, retail corridors, and in areas with a high concentration of senior citizens. As DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan explained in a recent interview, “New York has it all but it also needs places to take it all in.”

For Sandra Talavera, a social worker, resident of East Harlem and wife of CIVITAS President Felipe Ventegeat, this is not a new story. Over the past few years she worked with the city’s Department for the Aging, and has found that a major concern is the lack of seating in public areas. “The seniors,” she said, “actually just wanted a place they could sit down and rest close to their supermarkets and bus stops."  Working with the New York Academy of Medicine at 103rd Street, Community Board 11 and Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito, Sandra helped draw up a strategic plan to place more than 300 benches for seniors throughout the city. 

A DOT CityBench installed outside the Leonard Covello Senior Center. 

Stressing the importance of these plans, Ruth Finkelstein, senior vice president for policy and planning at the Academy explained, “For older adults, benches are exercise to get to, and they are social engagement and anti-depressants.” East Harlem was one of the first areas with a CityBench. Located outside the Leonard Covello Senior Center on 109th Street between First and Second Avenues, it is a comfortable open-sided, slatted bench with sturdy end bars in a sleek silver metal.Convinced that durable benches make streets more welcoming for everyone, encourage walking, and are a civic amenity, DOT has made CityBench available to the entire city.  

“One of the complaints about public seating was that it was too narrow,” says Ignacio Ciocchini, a bench designer with Chelsea Improvement Company. His designs for DOT have wide seats allowing for more personal space and room for a bag or pet. DOT welcomes experimentation with location and design. For example, a simple backless model bench relates well to other street furniture and costs about $1,800 to fabricate. Benches with armrests are useful both to help people to get out of the seat and to divide a bench so that more people can fit on it. Many benches are made of domestic carbon steel similar to that used on cars. This anti-rust design requires very little maintenance.

Anyone can request a bench by contacting citybench@dot.nyc.gov and filling out a form or by phoning (212) 839-6569. Priority bench locations include bus stops without shelters, senior centers, libraries, hospitals, and high-density shopping areas. Located online are detailed requirements about where benches may go for safety and engineering reasons. This program is funded by a $2.4 million grant from the federal government with the last 10 percent funded by the city. 

Private initiative can also give birth to a bench. Food Passion, Peter Walter’s store on Lexington Avenue, has a welcoming white slated bench on the sidewalk near the front door. Asked who paid for it, he replied, “we did because we enjoy seeing our customers, and for that matter anyone, enjoying the bench as they do everyday.” Asked about vandalism, he replied, “Not a problem.” DOT also states vandalism is rare and that the key to prevention is locating benches where adjacent shop owners and neighbors will assume some responsibility for their use and maintenance.  

Community Board 8’s office says that any store owner can put a bench on the sidewalk in front of their store as long as it is flush to the building, does not interfere with pedestrian traffic, and is removable. Eli’s Manhattan and other stores on Third Avenue have seen the benefit of sidewalk benches, and recently placed them in front of their shops. 

In the big picture, benches—both publicly and privately financed—fulfill some of the Mayor Bloomberg’s PlaNYC 2030 goals to prepare the city for additional walkers on the streets and a more carbon-free environment.

To learn more, visit the Department of Transportation website: www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/pedestrians/citybench.shtml

To read the complete spring 2013 issue of CIVITAS News, visit http://civitasnyc.org/civitas-newsletters/

 

An Analysis of the 2003 East Harlem Rezoning

Michael J. Storm 

Almost a decade ago, in June of 2003, the New York City Council approved a proposal to rezone a significant portion of East Harlem. The event was a triumph for both CIVITAS and Community Board 11, which had been jointly working on the project since 2000. Since 2003, the rezoning has had a substantial effect on neighborhood growth and composition by controlling where and how much redevelopment occurs. The results have been a success for East Harlem. 

The Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College at 119th Street and Third Avenue was constructed in 2011 and is an example of the contextual zoning requirements proposed in 2003 by CIVITAS and CB11. 

Photo by Michael J. Storm. 

The transformation that has occurred in East Harlem is seen in the development that has taken place since 2003, much of which is located on Second and Third Avenues. CIVITAS’s research indicates that in less than a decade more than 45 new buildings have been constructed in the rezoned blocks. New development, such as the new Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College on East 119th Street, exemplifies the contextual zoning requirements that CIVITAS and CB11 proposed: height limits, a contextual street wall, and a mandatory setback above the height of surrounding buildings.

Starting with a neighborhood assessment, CB11 developed a rezoning proposal with the guidance of Richard Bass, a professional planner hired by CIVITAS. The area in consideration covered 40% of East Harlem: between East 98th and East 123rd streets, extending from slightly east of Lexington Avenue to the East River. Of primary concern to both CIVITAS and CB11 was the increase of new development in East Harlem that, if left unchecked, could drastically change the neighborhood’s built environment. 

While the development in East Harlem was beginning to grow, the existing zoning designation, called R7-2, gave developers the most area when they built tall towers surrounded by open space, similar to many public housing developments. Not only did these buildings disrupt the neighborhood’s low-rise character, they discouraged investment in building on smaller properties such as vacant lots. Construction under R7-2 also lacked a height limit, allowing developers to purchase air rights from surrounding buildings to build even higher. 

The Miles at 121st Street and Lexington illustrates the effect of the R7-2 Zoning incentives. The 32-story building sits along Lexington Avenue, stretching from 121st street to 122nd street. Behind the slab building is a barren open space occupying about half of the city block. Across the street, similar buildings on smaller lots are set back from the street. There are only two residential entrances on the street, not counting the Miles, and no storefronts. While the tall buildings allow for open space at the base, the open space is barren and the lack of buildings fronting 121st Street leaves the street itself abandoned—it is uninteresting at best and unsafe at worst. 

The new contextual zoning requirements are identical to the Quality Housing program that was available before the 2003 rezoning with one crucial difference: Quality Housing was an optional addition to traditional zoning regulations whereas under contextual zoning, it is a requirement. An additional attribute of the recent rezoning has been the location of new developments on small vacant lots, a result of choices made in building density, known as floor area ratio (FAR), by CB11 and CIVITAS during the rezoning process. 

The limit on density along the side streets discourages redevelopment of existing buildings, retaining housing stock for the community and preserving the scale and residential character of the side streets. “When you look at the math [the FAR of the 2003 rezoning] there is not enough incentive to knock down an existing building” said Richard Bass of the rezoning. 

Increasing the FAR was a tool in the rezoning for redevelopment but only applied to the major avenues, which were up-zoned significantly. Increasing the density along avenues created a large amount of new development at higher density that would not have occurred under the conditions of R7-2, and “it is probably where the rezoning had its greatest impact,” according to CIVITAS Director Mark Alexander, “the avenues can hold it.” 

As CIVITAS continues to work with CB11 on rezoning other areas of East Harlem, the successes of the 2003 rezoning will continue to inform our engagement with the zoning process. 

To read the complete spring 2013 issue of CIVITAS News, visit http://civitasnyc.org/civitas-newsletters/

Update: CB11 Approves Zoning Recommendations for East Harlem

On Tuesday, Community Board 11 (CB11) approved the rezoning recommendations for East Harlem developed by CIVITAS and CB11’s Zoning Task Force.  The study area for the rezoning includes Madison, Park and Lexington Avenues between 115th and 132nd Streets.   To see the proposed zoning map and recommendations, visit www.civitasnyc.org which will include ongoing updates on the rezoning.

The next step for the rezoning recommendations is the formal review, additional public outreach and adoption by the NYC Department of City Planning.

This is a joint project with CIVITAS and Community Board 11 (CB11), whose zoning task force is led by Lashawn Henry (committee chair) and Diane Collier (vice chair).  The recommendations were developed to encourage the following goals in the community: affordable housing opportunities, economic development and job creation, new buildings that are contextual in scale with their surroundings and the revitalization of Park Avenue.  The area has not been rezoned in its entirety in over 50 years.

The Park Avenue Metro North Viaduct

To gauge the community’s needs, the CIVITAS and CB11 team convened hundreds of East Harlem residents at community meetings and roundtable discussions in 2012 to discuss their visions for the future of this area.  The zoning recommendations have been designed to be fine-grained and site specific (unlike much of the current zoning) and to address needs across a diverse section of East Harlem.   This area includes the neighborhood shopping corridor on 116th Street; lots alongside Park Avenue’s elevated Metro North viaduct: and quiet, low-rise side streets.

Breakout Session at the July 2012 Community Meeting

Throughout the process, the team has met with 

elected officials and government agencies including the Department of City Planning, Department of Transportation, Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and the NYC Economic Development Corporation.  Through fundraising among CIVITAS members and the support of the Greve Foundation and New York Community Trust, CIVITAS and Community Board 11 were able to hire Insight Associates (Ethel Sheffer, principal) and George Janes Associates, professional planners, to develop the zoning recommendations. 

The complete recommendations and zoning maps and ongoing project updates are linked to www.civitasnyc.org/east-harlem.  They include some of the following: R7-D (medium density, contextual) around 116th Street to allow for affordable housing incentives; C4-4L (commercial) to encourage commercial activity and guide urban design along part of Park Avenue; R6-A (medium density, contextual) was selected to protect the historic scale of upper Madison Avenue; an MX district to encourage a mix of light industry and housing along Park Avenue and C6-2 (commercial zoning) near the 125th Street corridor and Metro North rail station.   The study area does not include the 125th Street corridor itself which was rezoned in 2008.

In The News

News reports from December 2012: DNAInfo "East Harlem Community Board Favors Hybrid Zoning Plan."

News reports from October 2012: DNAInfo: "East Harlem Plans for Future With Rezoning Proposals"](http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20121025/east-harlem/east-harlem-plans-for-future-with-rezoning-proposals#ixzz2AQqGizUl) and The Daily News:["New zoning eyed for East Harlem’s desolate 17-block gasoline alley"

Upcoming Meetings

The CB11 Landmarks, Land Use & Planning Committee meets monthly.  Check this calendar for updates: http://www.cb11m.org/event

UPDATE: Rezoning for Madison, Park and Lexington Avenues in East Harlem

Hunter F. Armstrong 

The initiative to plan for East Harlem’s future and bring modernized, appropriate zoning to the neighborhood is underway. Over the course of summer and fall 2012, CIVITAS and Community Board 11 partners reached out to many neighbors to define their future needs for their community. Providing professional support to the team are Insight Associates, Ethel Sheffer, and George M. Janes Associates consultants. In the words of planner George Janes, the outreach is focused on “what East Harlem could be in the future and how zoning can be a tool to realize that vision of the future.” The average person does not speak the language of zoning, so the focus has been to identify what East Harlemites would like to see in the future of their neighborhood. Specific zoning recommendations can be drafted to implement that vision. 

Zoning development scenarios. Courtesy of Insight Associates and George M. Janes Associates. 

The focus area for the rezoning is over 60 blocks, including both sides of Madison, Park and Lexington Avenues between 115th and 132nd Streets. 125th Street was rezoned in 2008 and is not included in the current project. One of the major landmarks in this area is the Park Avenue Metro North viaduct, which casts shadows on the street below and provides a constant din of commuter trains rushing overhead. 

Much of East Harlem west of Lexington and including the study area is zoned R7-2, which encourages “tower in the park” development and a very dated vision of urban development. George Janes called this zoning “antiquated, undesirable and even anti-urban for what it does to the form of the city and it’s being changed all over the place. But this doesn’t mean that the planners in the 1950s were wrong: they simply had a different vision for the city and what was important.” 

CIVITAS and CB11 see the rezoning as a continuation of their major grassroots effort that resulted in a rezoning of many blocks east of Lexington Avenue. Approved in 2003, it was the first major rezoning of that area since the 1960s. 

To gauge community needs in the rezoning, CIVITAS and CB11 have organized roundtable discussions, committee meetings and two large community meetings in July and October at the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College. Incidentally, this new school building is located at Third and 119th, and was constructed in the 2003 rezoned area. 

Members of the community discussed their preferances for new zoning at an October meeting. 

Participants in community meetings have consisted of a wide range of stakeholders including block and tenants’ associations, affordable housing developers, government agencies, elected officials, churches and other non-profits, as well as many other committed, interested neighbors.

At the October 22 meeting, the land use planners presented different visions to gauge the community’s priorities. Accompanying this were zoning scenarios to implement the visions. Each plan reflected a particular bias, which included zoning modernization, economic development, housing, downzoning (limiting development to its current scale) and a hybrid scenario reflecting pieces of the other priorities. With these, meeting participants reflected on their goals and aspirations for the future of East Harlem. 

Additional public meetings and outreach are scheduled for fall and winter 2012 and an update will be in the next CIVITAS newsletter in 2013. 

This project is made possible through the support of the New York Community Trust, the William and Mary Greve Foundation and Manhattan Community Board 11. 

To learn more about East Harlem rezoning, visit: www.civitasnyc.org/east-harlem-rezoning 

Making the Case for the East Harlem Phase 2 Subway Extension

Benjamin Kabak 

Construction continues on Second Avenue subway tunnels, Summer 2012. Photo by The New York Times Magazine. 

Amidst the dirt and debris of Second Avenue, the explosions and disruptions to business and everyday life, the Upper East Side is undergoing a seismic change. With endless subway construction stretching back into the past and onward into a future that seems so far away, it’s hard to appreciate what a new subway line—or even just four stops of a new route—will mean for the city, but from Fifth Avenue to East End, change is going to come. 

The story so far is one of missed opportunities and endless waits. Few New Yorkers around today remember the IRT Second Avenue line, an elevated train route that met its demise in 1940. Amidst promises of a Second Avenue subway, the city tore down the structure only to be stymied in its planning. World wars, economic slowdowns, city-wide declines and Depressions, and a general lack of enthusiasm for transit projects pushed the Second Avenue subway further into the future. When enough federal funding finally materialized to get even a part of the project off the ground, the city received only a part of the full line it deserves. 

Currently, the MTA is working on Phase 1 of the Second Avenue Subway, and Phase 2 north to 125th St. should be next. The current phase is the world’s most expensive subway project, a four-stop extension of the Q train north out of 57th St. and Broadway to an unused portion of 63rd St. and Lexington and then up Second Avenue. for three stations to 96th St. At the cost of a cool $4.5 billion and a timeline, charitably, of about nine years from groundbreaking to revenue date, the Upper East Side will finally have its second subway line after an eight-decade wait. 

In an ideal world, as Phase 1 progresses, the MTA would be laying the groundwork for subsequent phases. It would be, in fact, another missed opportunity to stop here. Phase 2 of this four-phase project – the northern extension from 96th to 125th and Lexington – is next, and with much of the tunneling completed, the work should be easier to see through to a functioning subway line. Originally, the four sections were expected to cost around $4 billion each, but the entire line built at once wouldn’t have cost much less. Under today’s political and economic scene, four installments of $4 billion spread out over years or decades is likely easier to find than one lump sum of $16 billion. 

So as Phase 1 inches its way toward the finish line, now just four years away, what comes next? It’s a question most Second Avenue residents and business owners would rather not ponder. Those north of the current construction zone have seen their neighbors to the south suffer and likely aren’t looking forward to a similar fate. To ease congestion on the streets and overcrowding underground, though, the city needs to keep moving forward with the subway. So what comes next? 

A few months ago, MTA Capital Construction President Michael Horodniceanu spoke to a group of transit activists and reporters prior to a tour of the 7 Line Extension, another MTA megaproject currently changing the face of the Far West Side. During his remarks, Horodniceanu mentioned the future of the Second Avenue Subway. For many years, MTA officials refused to speak much about Phases 2-4 of the project. They were focused on securing full funding guarantees for the remainder of Phase 1 and ensuring that this segment would survive to see the light of day after too many false starts. After three failed attempts at building the line, after all, and with billions of dollars in federal money on the line, the MTA couldn’t afford to let this opportunity pass. 

In late 2012, we can comfortably say that Phase 1 will open. The MTA has received too many federal dollars that are contingent upon finishing this project to turn back now. The future though is hazy as the MTA seems focused on maintaining and upgrading signal and track infrastructure in the next five-year plan and the federal government’s spending outlook may depend heavily upon the looming election and subsequent midterms. Yet, as Horodniceanu explained, the irony is that with some extra money now, the MTA could have built SAS up to 115th St.

Since preexisting tunnels connect from 99th St. to 105th and from 110th to119th, the MTA, said Horodniceanu “could now build stations at 105th St. and 115th St.” The cost would be a cool $750 million - $1 billion per station, but the only obstacle is the money. The environmental impact statements are completed, and the tunnels themselves are in place. In fact, some of the preexisting tunnel north of the future 96th St. station built in the 1970s will be used as tail tracks for the Second Avenue Subway line that will open in 2016.

Courtesy of Second Avenue Sagas

Unfortunately, the MTA isn’t going to build those stations any time soon. In fact, future phases of the subway line may never materialize. Earlier this year, Horodniceanu estimated that the remaining three phases may push the project’s total cost to $23-$24 billion. Seven years ago, the four phases combined were expected to cost a total of $16 billion. By the time the authority puts their shovels or tunnel boring machines into the ground, I’m sure that estimated total will increase to even higher levels. The costs of infrastructure projects in American aren’t decreasing any time soon. 

Essentially, the original decision to split the Second Avenue Subway project into four phases seemingly doomed it from the start. The origins of that decision these days have always been a bit murky. Some have said it came about due to pressure from Sheldon Silver and the realities of funding. The MTA didn’t think it could secure the dollars needed at the start to complete the subway line and tried to break the project into more palatable pieces. 

A New York Times story from 1999 tells a slightly different story: “Transit officials said they had limited the plan for new construction to upper Manhattan because of the engineering difficulties and expense of extending a new line under the more congested parts of midtown.” In this telling, it almost seems as those Phases 3 and 4 were simply for show. Phases 1 and 2 were easier and cheaper, but the charade of Phases 3 and 4 could keep hope alive. The truth is probably somewhere in between. 

Today, New York City must live with the impact of this decision. The Upper East Side will soon have Phase 1, and Phase 2 should see the light of day. It requires some blasting around station caverns and some tunneling near the ends. It provides a bellmouth – extra trackage and tunnels that make future expansion easier – pointed toward the Bronx and another aiming at the West Side and the 125th St. Fairway. It would connect with Metro-North and Lexington Avenue Line. It’s likely to be expensive but certainly necessary. It could also be years as no one at the MTA now is talking about it as a reality despite the foundation already in place. 

The future then is anyone’s guess. Upper East Siders should clamor for Phase 2. Now is the time to act, and using preexisting tunnels, it is seemingly the easiest to build. Phases 3 and 4 through Midtown and Lower Manhattan present their own challenges, but the MTA made this multi-phase bed 13 years ago. Today, as construction slogs forward and costs climb, New York must live with it even as part of the Second Avenue subway line finally moves from city lore to reality. 

Guest columnist Benjamin Kabak is the creator and writer of the blog Second Avenue Sagas: www.secondavenuesagas.com. 

To read the complete fall 2012 issue of CIVITAS News, visit http://civitasnyc.org/civitas-newsletters/

What Do You Want the Future of East Harlem to Look Like?

Join Community Board 11, CIVITAS, and land use consultants Insight Associates and George M. Janes & Associates to discuss

Land Use and Zoning in East Harlem

Learn how zoning can be used to create affordable housing, promote economic development, and control building sizes and heights. 

Area Considered:

Madison to Lexington Avenues and 115^th to 132^nd Streets

(excluding 125^th Street Corridor)

CIVITAS and Community Board 11’s Zoning Task Force have been working together to plan for the future of the neighborhood and take advantage of new zoning policies. CIVITAS and Community Board 11 have collaborated in the past, including the 2003 rezoning of 99th to 122nd Streets, Third to Pleasant Avenues that brought up-to-date zoning to East Harlem and was one of the first major rezonings of the Bloomberg Administration. 


The discussion will be led by Ethel Sheffer and George Janes, principals of their respective firms, and CB11 Zoning Task Force Chair, Lashawn Henry. 

Monday, July 9^th at 5:30 pm

The Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College

Second Floor Auditorium

2180 Third Avenue (at 119^th Street)

RSVP to the Community Board 11 Office by calling 212-831-8929


To learn more about the changes the 2003 rezoning brought to East Harlem,  please watch the 2010 video of an East Harlem walking tour led by land use planner Richard Bass.



East Harlem Walking Tour from Civitas Citizen on Vimeo.

Call for Designs: East River Waterfront Competition

By Sharon E. Pope

Prepared for the CIVITAS Fall 2011 Newsletter

In September 2011, CIVITAS launched Reimagining the Waterfront, an ideas competition to tackle design problems on the East River Esplanade, 60th to 125th Streets. As we documented in our Spring 2011 newsletter, multiple sections of the Esplanade are in severe disrepair and even sinking into the East River. CIVITAS is proud to organize the competition with the growing number of public officials, neighbors and advocates who are calling for a better future for the waterfront park.

Reimagining the Waterfront is a first step toward developing a vision for improving the Esplanade. The CIVITAS team of volunteer architects and planners organizing the competition selected the boundaries East 60th to 125th Streets. This emphasizes the broad span of park between the Ed Koch Queensboro and Robert F. Kennedy Bridges and the role the Esplanade does, and could, play in many diverse communities.

Open to architects, urbanists, students and community stakeholders, the competition is intended to produce exceptional designs and ideas that profoundly enhance the public’s relationship with the park and river, and bridge the urban and the aquatic.

The waterfront is the transitional boundary between New York City’s hard and soft edges, between life on land and life on water. As such, urban waterfronts offer infinite opportunities to craft and maintain that relationship. In his book, Waterfront: A Journey Around Manhattan, writer Phillip Lopate stated “Any redesign on the waterfront must start from the premise of public access.” Competition design goals include public access, attention to active and passive uses, effective use of existing amenities, and neighborhood context.

The competition will be open to submissions through January 15, and winners will be determined in winter 2012 by a jury of renowned, highly-skilled designers, park advocates and representatives of the Upper East Side and East Harlem. Winning and creative submissions will be available on the competition website for the public to review and to envision an improved park in the future. Competition winners will receive monetary prizes and publicity for their top-notch designs.

It is important to distinguish between an ideas competition, such as Reimagining the Waterfront, and a design competition, which results in a commission for the winner and includes construction documents for the project. There is not yet money available for an ambitious redesign of the Esplanade, but CIVITAS’ goal for the ideas competition is to begin developing the necessary community and political support.

Fortunately, funding is already being allocated to make much-needed repairs to the Esplanade. Council Member Jessica Lappin has secured over $1 million to fix some of the worst sinkholes and to conduct an engineering study. Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney and Council Member Lappin co-chair a task force of elected officials and government agencies to address Esplanade concerns.

CIVITAS is grateful for competition support, which includes grants from Council Member Lappin and the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation. We will publicize the competition and the winning designs during 2011 and 2012 through public events, including an October 26 lecture by Lopate.

The grassroots citizen efforts of the Friends of the East River Esplanade, Community Boards 8 and 11, and Transportation Alternatives have helped raise the waterfront discourse through which the CIVITAS competition can explore designs and ideas of not only what is possible for the Esplanade but what can be dreamed for it as well.

On a recent cloudy day, an intrepid jogger was asked what he would like to see for the East River Esplanade. He gazed forlornly up and down the waterfront. He decided instead to discuss what he generally liked about the Hudson River and Riverside Park greenways. He is envious of West Siders, but that may change over the coming years as the East River waterfront is improved. Through the combined efforts of the competition and other stakeholders, the spotlight of scrutiny will help to formulate a long-term plan for the park incorporating definitive, targeted waterfront designs and substantial improvements. These actions will produce a waterfront that engages everyone. Only then will the Esplanade along the Upper East Side and East Harlem become, observes Lopate, “the place that will finally tell us we have arrived.”

Learn more about the competition at www.reimaginethewaterfront-civitas.com

Community Forum & Presentation on April 27

You are invited to a Community Presentation & Forum
The results are in!

In Winter 2011, CIVITAS and the NYU Wagner School administered a Community Engagement Survey to take stock of community views on neighborhood concerns and future needs of the Upper East Side and East Harlem.

We hope you will participate in the Community Presentation & Forum when we present the survey results addressing the following areas: Transportation, Land Use, Streetscape, and Environmental Quality

Wednesday, April 27, 2011
6-8pm
Museum of the City of New York
1220 Fifth Avenue (103rd street entrance)

RSVP required:
info@civitasnyc.org or 212-996-0745

For more information and project updates, visit: www.civitasnyc.org/publicneedssurvey <http://www.civitasnyc.org/publicneedssurvey>

Recent News Coverage on CIVITAS' Newsrack Initiative

CIVITAS speaks out against lax enforcement of vandalized and abandoned newsrack boxes and urges NYC Council to schedule an oversight hearing to address this issue. You can sign the petition at www.ipetitions.com/petition/newsracks and find recent media coverage at:

Our Town East Side
DNAinfo.com
WPIX11 News Video

Plan to attend and show your support at CIVITAS’ upcoming presentation on newsrack enforcement at the Community Board 8 Transportation Committee meeting:

Wednesday, April 6, 2011 at 6:30pm
New York Blood Center, Conference Room 1
310 East 67th Street, (Between First and Second Avenues)
New York, NY 10065