Last week, the New York Times hosted a thoughtful and wide-ranging event, the “Energy for Tomorrow Conference,” which showcased an array of panel discussions led by city planners, scientists, notable public and private experts, farmers, activists, and the mayor of NYC himself – all of whom discussed the current state of NYC as a center for progressive infrastructure and energy, transportation, nutrition, resiliency and green policy, while arguing their professional opinions of how to make NYC more sustainable.
Of the discussions, one of the more impressive – and rather extreme – conversations came from Klaus H. Jacob on waterfront storm resiliency. [To view the whole conversation, visit the Energy for Tomorrow homepage, and scroll through the videos to find the one entitled “Columnist Conversation: Planet Warming]
Klaus H. Jacob; image courtesy of Columbia University
Klaus Jacob is a geophysicist at the Earth Institute, Columbia University. During his one-on-one with NYT op-ed columnist, Joe Nocera, Jacob spoke on the measures of storm preparation that, in his eyes, NYC must adopt. Understanding that the climate around the greater New York area has drastically changed in the last decade or so, Jacob suggests three fundamental plans for effective storm resiliency:
A surge barrier design proposal along the Verrazano Narrows, NYC; image courtesy of AP Photo/Arcadis
Storm protection - possibly the plan with the least impact amongst the three, yet just as important, to protect our coastlines by building and implementing surge barriers. Though some may argue that surge barriers simply pass on the amount of storm energy and surge to the adjacent coastlines that are unprotected by the barriers (which in the case of NYC, the unprotected areas would most likely be the Rockaways and Jamaica Bay area, both of which are, by average, low-income and financially at risk neighborhoods – which opens up a whole other philosophically socioeconomic ‘can of worms’), they would still help to protect the very vulnerable downtown areas of NYC, therefore saving money and resources on otherwise very high storm-repair costs.
Accommodate the water - “invite the water the way it wants to go, given the current landscape.” Klaus Jacob believes we should both figure out ways to channel storm water through the city while causing the least amount of damage, as well as retrofitting the buildings within flood-zones. To effectively retrofit these buildings, Jacob suggests that all basements and first– and second-level floors of buildings in these zones should be sealed off and used for parking only. By doing this, the city will have less damage to worry about during a storm on the scale of Hurricane Sandy; storm damage repair costs have the ability to be cut in half; and the only emergency response most of these buildings will have to partake in is evacuating the cars from these lots. Though at the cost of losing former rental space and real-estate value, it can be extremely beneficial to curb storm damage by sealing off and retrofitting the lower floors of storm-vulnerable buildings in NYC.
Another way to retrofit the urban landscape in order to accommodate for storm waters, especially within the downtown, high-rise areas of NYC, as suggested by Jacob, is to expand the NYC ‘High Line’ infrastructure. Jacob believes that connecting buildings with high lines, or walkways and transportation networks safe from rising waters, will significantly help in emergency response as well as continual functionality within the flooded areas. Connecting buildings with a walkable transportation system adds another level of resiliency.
Managed retreat to higher ground - Jacob’s most stressed – and radical – solution is to convert buildings located in high-risk, flood-zone areas into green spaces, while redeveloping our city with regards to topography; in other words, building on higher ground. Jacob believes the city should be working on re-zoning flood-zone areas as green, open, and/or undeveloped space, while zoning areas of higher elevation within NYC as high-dense residential and commercial areas. Though this plan would ultimately change the face of NYC and would surely find an enormous amount of friction and opposition along the way, Jacob suggests that flood-zone retreat would be the most economically wise decision in future NYC planning. He makes reference to a study by the National Institute of Building Science that developed a way to look at and compare the cost-effectiveness of flood-zone retreat to average coastal damage costs paid by FEMA mitigation funds. They established that “for every $1 spent in protecting your assets and your economy [in this case, by investing in flood-zone retreat], you get $4 back in not incurred losses.”
Destruction caused by Hurricane Sandy in Staten Island; image courtesy of Karsten Moran, NYTimes
Jacob also suggests a policy for flood-zone retreat, targeted towards homeowners in coastal flood-zone areas, by imitating a popular land conservation policy model originally used for obtaining farmland in a reasonable, fair, incentivized way. He suggests that NYC creates a policy that allows the city to confront homeowners in high-risk areas, such as the Rockaways and parts of Staten Island, offering to buy their property. However, the homeowner is still allowed to either continue residency in the recently sold home until they are dead, or are given a generous amount of time to plan out their future residence. Though such a policy may be more time consuming and drawn out than desired, it can still serve as a very effective and publicly accepted strategy in acquiring flood-zone lands. Once in the possession of the city, the lands can then be ‘green-ified,’ made into public parks, developed into green buffers to further protect any adjacent neighborhoods, or even just left as undeveloped, open space.
Governor Andrew Cuomo has already installed a program that offers to purchase high-risk properties at ‘pre-Sandy market values,’ and offering double market values if a whole block agrees to sell. However, many of these homeowners have opted to turn down the offer, not catching the appeal that Cuomo had hoped for. Perhaps the governor should consider adopting Klaus Jacob’s more homeowner-friendly idea.
Jacob’s prescriptions for the more dire future forecasts may seem alarming and far-fetched now; at the same time, a reassuring note in the conversation was how many intellectual resources are now refocusing to plan a successful future for NYC.
NYC flood-zone map; courtesy of Google Images/New York Times
Please join us for a free lecture for the graduate level and above scientific community on the Science of Climate. Due to limited seating, tickets are required and will be available online on a first come, first served basis through Eventbrite.
Earth’s climate trajectory over the next few decades will be influenced both by human-induced climate change and by internally generated variability in the climate system. This lecture highlights the substantial contribution of internal variability to projected climate trends over North America in the next 50 years.
About the Speaker
Clara Deser, Ph.D. is the head of the Climate Analysis Section within the Climate and Global Dynamics Division at NCAR. Her research interests include diagnostic analysis of observed climate variability in the coupled atmosphere-ocean-ice system, as well as future climate change. She is also a co-chair of the CESM Climate Variability and Change Working Group.
Please join us for a free lecture for the graduate level and above scientific community on the Science of Climate. Due to limited seating, tickets are required and will be available online on a first come, first served basis through Eventbrite. Inquiries: lectures@simonsfoundation.org.
The mighty water molecule, with its voracious appetite for infrared radiation, is responsible for much of what we know about climate and climate change, and even more of what we don’t know. Trapped for most of its life in large surface reservoirs, every few thousand years it escapes to the atmosphere for a short sojourn of a little over a week, during which it helps to create, quite literally, the world as we know it.
About the Speaker
Bjorn B. Stevens, Ph.D. leads the department “The Atmosphere in the Earth System” as well as the International Max Planck Research School on Earth System Modelling at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology.
Prof. Stevens has published ground-breaking research papers dealing with the theory, modelling and observation of “low” clouds, which is one of the most important problems in meteorology and climate research.
Schedule
Tea – 4:00p
Lecture – 4:30–5:30p
Q & A – 5:30p Location
Gerald D. Fischbach Auditorium
Simons Foundation
160 Fifth Avenue, 2nd Floor
(Entrance on 21st Street)
New York, NY 10010
Most of the changes in climate that are projected to occur over the 21st century will not result directly from the human emission of greenhouse gases, but from natural feedbacks within the climate system that amplify its sensitivity to these emissions. Some of these feedbacks are well constrained by theory and observations, while others are not. This lecture outlines our understanding of the main feedback processes in the climate system and how they impact both the magnitude of future changes in Earth’s climate and the uncertainty in our predictions of these changes.
Registration is free and required; so don’t forget to register here!
Jamaica Bay Restoration Corps youth volunteers busy at work during the previous years’ marsh restoration.
This May, hundreds of local volunteers will band together in an effort to save, restore, and protect the Jamaica Bay Salt Marsh. As the first community-led marsh restoration project in the National Parks Service, the Jamaica Bay Guardian Program and Restoration Corps–both run by the American Littoral Society–plan to organize and educate local youth volunteers and participants the necessary procedures and action towards marsh restoration.
An example of the severe salt marsh erosion found at Rulers Bar.
Since 1924, it is estimated that nearly 1,400 acres of tidal salt marsh have been lost from the Jamaica Bay. Today, it is estimated that the marsh will continue to deteriorate at a shocking rate of 40 acres each year. As a result, marsh-dependent fish and wildlife populations continue to decline, while water quality decreases and flood risks on the mainland grow ever greater. Home to over 80 species of fin fish, as well as a popular resting and feeding place for over 330 species of migrating and native birds, these wetlands serve as an important habitat rich with nutrients. The loss of such a habitat would truly be detrimental to the ecosystems that are supported by it–humans included.
That is why the American Littoral Society has made saving and preserving the wetland a priority in the Jamaica Bay Marsh Restoration Initiative. Focusing on the badly degraded marsh islands, Rulers Bar and Black Wall, volunteers will partake in harvesting 250 lbs of spartina–a common coastal salt marsh cordgrass–that will be propagated into plugs and planted on over 30 acres of salt marsh. In addition to seed harvesting, participants will help to remove debris lining the marsh shoreline, as well as to remove and control any invasive species.
By restoring the salt marsh, the ALS is hopeful that the local wildlife will flourish once again within this habitat, and at the same time, reestablish a very necessary buffer system in defending the coastline from the increasing risk of hazardous tidal storm surges. If we have learned anything from Superstorm Sandy, our communities need to become more proactive in defending our coastlines and work toward ways to counteract climate change. The Jamaica Bay Marsh Restoration Initiative is, without a doubt, a great way to start.
We offer a new survey to City Atlas readers to help guide policy-making in New York City. As described by the survey designers:
“Study on: Impacts of extreme weather events on different social groups in New York City - Please participate in an opportunity to inform policy making in your city.
The following link takes you to an online questionnaire that lasts between 20 to 30 minutes, depending on answers that you give throughout the questionnaire.
Thank you for contributing to our important study ‘Impacts of extreme weather events on different social groups in New York City’ developed by The Center for Research on Environmental Decisions (CRED), Earth Institute, Columbia University.
The importance of this research has never been more evident given recent events with Hurricane Sandy and its impacts on New York and surrounding areas. However, we are not only investigating impacts of storms, but also other extreme weather events such as heat waves.
Extreme weather events impact different socioeconomic groups in different ways. Our project seeks to understand specifically how different income groups experience weather events such as heat waves and strong rainstorms.
We will happily share the results of the survey once it is completed and fully analyzed, which will roughly take until the end of the year. The study analyzes individual experiences and burden of impacts of strong rainstorms and heat waves, compares experiences across the 5 borough area, and suggests most efficient adaptation options in different parts of NYC.
We thank you very much again for your support in this important initiative!
Dr. Diana Reckien.
Note on the survey from participants at City Atlas: we found on average it took about 15 – 20 minutes to complete, and provided an interesting opportunity for reflection on recent events, their aftermath, and the future in the city.
Trees are going up faster than storms are taking them down in New York City.
Dozens of people lined up in a parking lot between some industrial buildings and the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn on a recent sunny Saturday morning to pick up stick-figure-sized Redbud trees about four feet tall. More than half of the 100 trees ready to go were picked up within the first 45 minutes of a two-hour stretch, said Sophie Plitt, Forestry Coordinator of New York Restoration Project.
About once a week in the spring and fall, the NYRP – in conjunction with the city – goes to different neighborhoods and gives away trees for free. (See our coverage of this year’s free tree announcement for upcoming giveaway dates and locations.)
The last three tree giveaways of 2012 were canceled after Hurricane Sandy. The storm knocked down more than 10,000 trees, saidTara Kiernan, a spokeswoman for the Parks Department. That’s fifteen times as many tree casualties than after 2011’s Hurricane Irene, which took down about 650 trees.
But since 2007, about 662,000 trees have taken root, or an average of more than 100,000 a year. This growth is a result of the “MillionTreesNYC” program, a PlaNYC partnership between the city and NYRP.
“All in all, I would not say [Sandy] is a significant set-back for MillionTreesNYC,” said Mike Mitchell, NYRP community initiatives manager.
“Tree loss was factored in at the beginning,” he noted, “whether it be from storms, mechanical damage, soils salted from people clearing snow from their sidewalk, people pouring concrete or laying bricks around the base of a tree, etc.”
The new replace the casualties. Older trees are more vulnerable to storms because they have more leafs, said Mitchell. “Because young trees have less canopy,” he added, “their branches are more supple, and they have significantly less leaf surface area to be blown like a sail.”
However, according to Kiernan, the little guys have more than just youth going for them. “Thanks to new planting methods we’ve implemented and careful consideration given to species selection and planting locations,” she said, “our newly planted trees have been less susceptible to storm damage.”
In 2011, the New York Times citied studies that said 7 to 11 percent of newly planted trees die within two years. However, almost all the trees felled by storms were later reported by the New York Observer to be old trees that predate the MillionTreesNYC program.
Prior to MillionTreesNYC, the city planted 10,000 trees every year–about the same number knocked by Sandy.
The city’s winning battle to add to the estimated five million trees across the boroughscanbe attributed to the thousands of New Yorkers who line up to pick up the bark and do the planting independently at home. Only New York City residents are allowed to take the trees and the rules limit each household to a tree, Plitt said.
The boroughs with the highest turnouts at tree giveaways are Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island, said Mitchell. “A lot of the time this has to do with the fact there are fewer households with green space in the areas we do tree giveaways in the Bronx and Manhattan,” he noted.
The focus of MillionTreesNYC, which started with a tree planted on Teller Avenue in the Bronx, has been in neighborhoods with a scarcity of trees. The Parks Department focuses on planting trees in public spaces such as sidewalks and parks.
From the NYRP site in Gowanus, Forestry Coordinator Sophie Plitt speaks about Eastern Redbuds and the experience of giving trees:
GrowNYC’s Open Space Greening Assistant Director Lenny Librizzi will be presenting a series of Stormwater Management workshops at the Queens Botanical Garden.
Surfrider Foundation: Mobilizing Grassroots Activists In Coastal Conservation
Presenter: Dr. Chad Nelsen, Environmental Director of Surfrider Foundation
Please join us this Sunday for a special presentation and conversation with Dr. Chad Nelsen, Environmental Director of Surfrider Foundation. Dr. Nelsen will provide an overview of the Surfrider Foundation and its recent successes and invite discussion about the challenges coastal communities face with climate change and rising sea levels, including what changes these communities are willing to make to strengthen coastal resiliency.
The Surfrider Foundation has an all volunteer activist network that includes 84 chapters around the US and 250,000 supporters, activists and members, including five chapters in the New York-New Jersey area that address issues such as beach access, coastal preservation, surf and ocean protection.
This is the first lecture in RWA’S Sunday Action Agenda series to be held at MoMA PS1′s VW Dome 2 through May 12, 2013. Please check back for updates on future guest speakers.
Last week, the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institute released a report on the state of Amtrak and the American railway system. The report, entitled “A New Alignment: Strengthening America’s Commitment to Passenger Rail,” reveals the importance of trains to the transit needs of the everyday American traveler.
Because of its poor public image and massive deficits, Amtrak is often disregarded as a historical artifact, inefficient and ineffective for the modern passenger. With deficits exceeding $600 million–a cost that goes straight to the taxpayer–politicians have questioned the value of America’s train system and have struggled to find ways of funding it. To say the least, trains are not at the top of the national discourse on public transportation.
The Brookings report, “A New Alignment,” is extremely valuable for uncovering Amtrak’s promising successes from the midst of the negatives. Surprisingly, train travel has increased in popularity more than any other mode of domestic transportation, outpacing both aviation and automobiles; in 2011, Amtrak reached an all-time record of 31 million passengers. While most of Amtrak’s trains are exorbitantly expensive to run and manage, there are routes that make money, especially in the area surrounding New York City. The star examples are the Acela and the Northeast Regional routes, which generated over $200 million of Amtrak’s income and account for 17.4% of Amtrak’s ridership.
(Chart: Brookings Report)
The statistics for New York’s regional railways are impressive. In 2011, New York had about 10,855,647 riders on its regional transit system, which is an increase of 22.9% since 1997, outpacing both the rate of population growth (which was 10.6%) and the rise in economic output. Although none are quite as exemplary, most regions demonstrate similar patterns. Routes that were less than 400 miles generated $46.6 million while the routes that were longer than 400 miles lost $613 million. This may be because the routes under 400 miles carry 83% of Amtrak’s passengers or because shorter routes require less maintenance.
The Brookings report demonstrates an important change in the way that Americans use train travel, in our understanding of how transit systems should function, how different systems should work with one another, and how they should be developed in the future. The patterns also demonstrate the ways in which the organization of the contemporary American landscape has changed. It is no longer a series of distinct metropolitan centers surrounded with rings of suburbs. Instead, we have a fabric of cities and suburbs with areas of increased or lesser density that continues more or less uninterrupted across vast portions of the landscape. Development extends across city and state lines, and as such, transportation can no longer be conceived as independent metropolitan systems.
Trains are an incredibly sustainable mode of transportation. On a per-mile, per-passenger basis, trains produce less than half the emissions of a car or a plane. Of course, a passenger will choose his mode of transit based on the convenience and the price, which means the next step in innovating a national functional rail system that will make train travel the preferred mode–at least for trips of a certain length. A system upgraded to high speed rail could potentially convince consumers to not drive or fly on many mid-length routes, massively reducing emissions, congestion, and smog. For city-center to city-center business travel, rail has a natural efficiency advantage over commuter jets, as it doesn’t require the trip in from an outlying airport.
Taken for granted in Europe and Asia, high speed rail systems are conspicuously absent from America’s transit plans. Amtrak’s existing trains that run on northeastern lines do have the capability of running at high speeds (up to 160 mph), but average only 81.8 mph due to congestion and track curvature. The capacity to run these trains at full speed thus requires a major investment in infrastructure.
(Map: US High Speed Rail Association)
California’s high speed rail proposal, a connection that would link northern and southern California and would complement the existing regional system, has the momentum, political will, and, most importantly, funding, to be realized within the next few decades. The environmental benefits are also remarkable–if the electric trains are powered by a renewable source of energy, the system has the potential to be carbon neutral, and, considering the cars it would take off the road, would overall reduce emissions and raise air quality in California. Once completed, California’s high speed rail will be an important case-study for the development of other high speed rail networks across the United States.
The New York region could easily benefit from a high speed system. If installed between New York and Washington DC, the trip could be reduced to 94 minutes.
If you are interested in learning more about the state of Amtrak, check out the complete Brookings Report and the attached interactive graphic that helps to elucidate the problems and success of the American rail system.
Ian Urbina’s investigation of fracking waste getting disposed in rivers made fracking the top story on the cover of the times in February, 2011, a height in the fracking timeline altogether.
That article precluded a series of long-form, muck-raking reports called “Drilling Down-Series.”
Claire Weisz is a founding partner of WXY Architecture + Urban Design, an award-winning, multi-disciplinary practice known for the innovative design of buildings, civic infrastructure, and public open space around New York City.
We first interviewed her weeks before Hurricane Sandy struck New York, but we begin with a follow-up conversation not long after the storm passed.
Your recent work for New York includes many projects that fell in the direct path of Hurricane Sandy: newly built Transmitter Park in Greenpoint, public buildings for the beach at Far Rockaway, public architecture in Battery Park that flooded at the tip of Manhattan, and on top of that, you’re now working on the East River Blueway, again at the water’s edge. Tell us about Sandy’s effect on your work.
The parks performed well, and they helped the waterfront absorb the impact from the storm surge. The parks have survived in great measure the salt water in the Battery and Greenpoint and the sand in Far Rockaway. This is taking into consideration that they came back within three weeks of the storm with the help of many volunteers and staff, who devoted hours to clean up those areas.
It is the electrical and mechanical infrastructure that didn’t survive the storm surge, and now the city and state are having to do a great deal to repair and re-install damaged equipment. Hard hit were the offices of many of our public and not-for-profit clients – the Battery whose office and archives were devastated, Jill Weber and her team in the Rockaways whose offices were severely damaged. Many agencies have staff who also have damaged homes.
Did the storm change the way you think about the city’s waterfront? Or might design for the waterfront, going forward?
Yes. It gave us a direct understanding of 100-year, and 500-year, flood lines. This was a reality check in time, space, and effect. Now I will never push to have utility infrastructure within reach of even a 500 year line. But like other catastrophic events it is important to not forget, but to absorb and make a part of all the design decisions one has going forward. Especially when making the hard decision of what to choose to do first.
As a designer of public space, if you were to boil down your reactions to the event, and came up with one take-away message for people to think about, what would it be? What would you like to see the city, and the country, do going forward? Are there adaptive methods or infrastructure would you like to see put into accelerated use?
Prioritize the environment by investing in the resiliency of cities and their residents, and this includes not just New York, but all important waterfront cities.
As a country we have to realize that the best way to save the planet is to support the fact that our cities all over the country — from Detroit to New Orleans — present the best opportunity for lowering our carbon footprint and are critical players in safeguarding our rural spaces and agricultural lands.
We need to make cities — and people who live and work in cities — a national priority, and invest in innovations in social and civic infrastructure like public housing and transportation and all types of public open spaces on and near the waterfront. This will be the best investment we can make in light of the unpredictability of climate change. It was amazing how grateful people were that the 2011 revival of East River ferry service was there to fill in when the subways weren’t running yet.
Do you think the city should build sea gates?
I hope that we will innovate in many areas and this might include sea gates. It is going to test the city and state’s abilities to harness a coordinated effort to do all types of environmental work that is not on the table today, because of permitting and current regulations. New York City in all the five boroughs needs to raise the level of many of the waterfront lands for storm protection and raise critical infrastructure in our public housing, hospitals, sewage treatment and utility buildings.
We need to put back and increase the dunes, invest in cogeneration and a disbursed power and data network, and even build new sea gates, salt marshes, planted berms and other initiatives. This increases the local expertise with rising sea levels; engineers, architects and ecologists might come up with a range of measures that even the Dutch haven’t tried yet. As important as sea gates might also be state-of-the-art local energy generation and data hubs.
Our first interview with Claire Weisz took place weeks before Hurricane Sandy struck New York. That portion follows:
Can you tell us about some of the current projects you’re working on in the city, like the Rockaway project?
The Rockaway project is the architectural piece of a master plan for a very unusual park. It was basically a little tiny park attached to a very large parking lot that was really part of the dunes and was used for dumping, from Beach 9th Street to Beach 30th Street.
When you say it was used for dumping…
People thought it was derelict land and they’d leave things there. The Rockaways is so challenged environmentally from threats of storms and also because it’s such a mix of high poverty areas, relative transportation isolation, and beautiful environment. It’s become an affordable place for people to move, but it also has real economic challenges and it doesn’t have all of the services and amenities. So one of the target parks that the Bloomberg administration focused on was to create a real amenity out there. So, everyone wanted a pool, but they got instead lots of water play, a skateboard park, more playgrounds, a big lawn for concerts, a football field.
The idea is that you have a functional thing, the maintenance office, a comfort station, but then you have this space and there’s kind of a dune park over here.
Attached to a comfort station is an open air classroom or community meeting space — something that can be a shade structure when nothing is happening, but that also becomes the beach pavilion shared by everyone.
Was the intent to service mainly just that community? Or to allow other people from other communities to use it as well?
The intent was to actually do something similar to what happened in Battery Park City. They created the best playground around and everyone from the whole city showed up there, which is not surprising. That was a similar goal in the Rockaways. To open up the neighborhood. And it’s already happened apparently. People are showing up at the skate park [from all over].
Tell us about another project you’re working on.
Another project — also a waterfront park — is called Transmitter Park. It’s part of the Greenpoint master plan, and it ties together…have you seen the zipper benches?
Down at the Staten Island ferry terminal?
Yes. We were doing the master plan for the park, and trying to figure out the urban design and zoning issues of making people feel like the esplanade was going to be public. We started to explore this idea of a bench that then turned and took you somewhere.
Then we realized that that idea of the benches had a lot to do with some of the things we felt urban design needed to do. One is encompassing an environmental idea of public — what they shared, what things, like trees, need to be protected, and how to occupy space and make really good relationships.
Out of that master plan we’re doing one piece of [Transmitter Park] as a park with Dar Walkovitch of A-com, the landscape architects. And we’ve designed the pier and you’ll see all of the railing, and the benches, and this pretty interesting pier. Only half of it’s being built. It’s actually a branching idea. So it’s an idea of saving money actually to do piers, where you only put the pile foundations, the piers, at what we call pods, and then you have these little bridges that connect the pods.
And that’s just phase one?
Well, already, you’ll go down if you take the ferry, already pieces of it are being built, and as each developer develops property parts of the esplanade will be built. And Bushwick Inlet Park is also part of that master plan.
And what else is on the docket for the master plan? How far into the future does the plan reach?
The whole thing is ongoing and it’s happening as we speak. It’s really interesting to see that public realm being built one piece at a time. And I have to say, on Transmitter Park, I went there the other week and there’s this fantastic new little coffee shop in a place that was a dead end street.
It must be satisfying to see these spaces being occupied.
Completely satisfying to see… people have all these ideas. What’s also fun about Transmitter Park is it’s a site for the Nuit Blanche festival, so that’ll be out there.
The other big project that we have under construction is the sanitation garage and salt shed on Spring Street, and that’s also worth talking about. That’s a big industrial, city project to house three garage units, maintain vehicles, store salt, refuel garbage trucks, house sanitation personnel. And you can see the steel going up.
So what kind of things are you thinking of for the sanitation garage?
Well the sanitation garage is designed and it’s now under construction and really that was developed kind of twofold. How to do a beautiful, but yet, not aggressive building; a building that was very calm and could feel like a good neighbor. But the exciting thing about it is that all the guts of it are kind of shielded by louvers which are kind of composed to make subtle differences on the West side and on the South side.
Is that to disguise the building from the rest of the neighborhood?
In a way. In a way it’s to not say in super graphics, “here’s a big garage here” towards the neighborhood, but towards the West Side Highway it’s very apparent. But the idea is to not make it look like an office building — to actually make it look like the piece of industrial civic architecture that it is. [But] there won’t be any public access to it if you’re not a sanitation worker.
We’re trying to really enhance the industrial quality of it and make people want to go in, and we hope there will be tours actually, of the trucks and everything because there’s a lot of potential for that. And to be able to have kids really access and see how big these machines are, what it takes to kind of clean them. So when they see a garbage truck going down the street picking up recycling they’ll have a whole new appreciation for it.
What’s your background?
I grew up in Canada, and I went to the University of Toronto for architecture. Got my professional degree there. Then, the economy was terrible — so basically, on a lark, I decided to go to Los Angeles. Los Angeles at that point was an interesting place to be as an architect. Frank Gehry had just finished his little house, there was all sorts of dialogue about downtown LA, and people were looking at city halls as community.
I felt very lucky; I worked for architect Charles Moore at the Urban Innovations Group and really got interested in the idea of how design and communities and kind of new things happen.
So that’s always been a real interest, but very much as an architect. I would say at a core I am interested in form, space, light and inhabitability, I’ll call it. I’m interested in architecture being the kind of ‘art of people.’
I went back to school at Yale and that’s where I met Mark Yoes, who is my current partner. After I graduated I worked for Agrest and Gandelsonas, who are very interested in…I’ll call it ‘acupuncture planning.’ The idea that you kind of can read a city and do certain things at certain points that will change the city more. They’re very anti-master plan. I was very compelled by that, so I worked for them.
What do you think New York needs more of? Just more green spaces, or something completely different?
I think what New York always needs more of is passionate, visionary supporters, and essentially clients for design, like Friends of the High Line, like Robby Hammond, Joshua David, and Rory Price at the Battery, and Betsy Barlow Rogers.
There are younger people who get ideas in Jamaica, in Far Rockaway, and see something and they want it to be better than anything in the neighborhood — whether it’s better food, better seating, better shade, better wi-fi — on some level I think that’s what’s really fun about New York. There exists an engagement in expectation, and that’s really what we need more of.
There are so many talented people who have ideas about how to make things and do things. The other piece is supporting local talent in the industry — people who make clothes and people who make railings — and trying to find a way to create affordable spaces so that people can make new things.
So there’s no real fixed idea in your head of what New York should be — it’s just sort of a never-ending potential of what could happen?
To me it’s really about the dynamic — this dynamic of saying, making a living and making money and doing well — that ambition to create a business that’s successful is fantastic. But, coupled with that, we want it to be the BEST interior restaurant, we want it to be the best… those two things working together, not just one or the other. I think it’s that. Then you get the unexpected.
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More recent design work from WXY includes a popular plan for the development of Pier 40 on the Lower West Side of Manhattan, as shown in this video:
Claire Weisz founded WXY Architecture + Urban Design and has focused on creating innovative approaches to public space, structures and cities. She co-founded with Andrea Woodner The Design Trust for Public Space and was its co-executive director. Claire is currently on faculty at New York University’s Wagner School of Public Service and a visiting critic at the University of Toronto, and she has also taught and lectured at Yale University, Parsons’ Graduate Program in the School of Constructed Environments, Columbia University, NJIT and The Pratt Institute. She has served on numerous design award and competition juries and was co-editor of AD magazine’s “Extreme Sites: Greening the Brownfield” issue. Frequently cited in the media and professional circles, Claire is a registered architect in California, New York and New Jersey.
Portait of Claire Weisz by Jessica Bruah; all other images courtesy: WXY
As New York draws closer to the development of a hydrofracking state, groups from all over have banded together to stand up against the dawning reality.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who has been known to support drilling the Marcellus Shale depository, believes the project will not only create thousands of jobs for New York residents, but will also help the United States reduce its dependency on foreign oil. To combat such a theoretically beneficial economic move, the opposition will have to be strong.
And it is.
Just a few weeks ago, 135 groups came together to organize, fund, and release an ad campaign to pressure Gov. Cuomo to stop fracking in New York.
Recognizing Cuomo’s presidential ambitions, the ad was strategically released in an Iowa newspaper–Iowa will be the home of the first presidential caucus for the next election.
The ad demands that not one well be drilled in the state of New York, urging that this is his “chance to be a national leader on climate.” For Cuomo, ignoring the demands may cost him a presidential election in 2016.
In early February, Artists Against Fracking member Yoko Ono released an ad attacking Cuomo’s refusal to ban hydrofracking in New York. Aired on New York televisions for a whole weekend, and available on Youtube, the ad criticizes highlights the severe contamination to the water supply in hydrofracking areas, and criticizes the governor’s refusal to meet with Ono. You may recognize a number of clips in the ad (below) taken from the critically acclaimed documentary, Gasland.
A recent stroke of luck has granted anti-fracking activists an additional chunk of time to better organize and grow in strength and numbers. The Department of Environmental Conservatory (DEC) and the Department of Health (DOH) have both delayed green-lighting the development of New York fracking facilities, as more time is needed for both departments to complete their reviews and assessments of the projected drilling project.
In a letter to DEC Commissioner Joseph Martens, DOH Commissioner Dr. Nirav R. Shaw stated:
“…public health is the paramount question in making the [high-volume hydraulic fracturing] HVHF decision. And as Health Commissioner, protecting the public health is my primary job….. From the inception of this process, the Governor’s instruction has been to let the science determine the outcome. As a physician and scientist, I could not agree more. Whatever the ultimate decision on HVHF going ahead, New Yorkers can be assured that it will be pursuant to a rigorous review that takes the time to examine the relevant health issues.”
With additional time, activists have taken the opportunity to raise awareness and heighten advocacy in the Empire State. On February 6, founder and leader of global grassroots movement 350.org Bill McKibben led a presentation and panel discussion at the Cooper Union in Manhattan discussing the importance of banning hydrofracking, and the fight to divest our resources in fossil fuel procurement and consumption.
McKibben showcased the accomplishments and global exposure of 350.org, which has managed to influence three universities and colleges (Hampshire, Unity, and Sterling) to divest their holdings in fossil fuel company stock, as well as two major municipalities, Seattle and San Francisco, to begin planning on how to fully and successfully divest their cities.
Despite these major accomplishments, McKibben admitted the overpowering strength of the oil companies, stating ” …Washington is just about power… on the one hand, Exxon has piled huge amounts of money so the scale tips in their direction. We have to pile enough bodies and passion and energy on the other side of the scale.” Without matching the political voice and strength of their oil tycoon counterparts, anti-frackers may be faced with a losing battle for the fight to stop hydrofracking.
But McKibben and the rest of the anti-frackers allegedly have no plans of losing.
“Forward On Climate”, an anti-fracking rally organized by 350.org and the Sierra Club, among many other organizations and funders, marched down the National Mall to the White House in Washington D.C. on February 17 to place pressure on President Barack Obama to ban construction of the Keystone Pipeline. The pipeline, if passed, would cut through the entire Midwest, transporting hydrofracked fossil-fuels from the Athabasca oil sands in Alberta, Canada, risking the water quality and environmental integrity of the projected pipeline area.
The impacts of the rally may have had an effect on Governor Cuomo’s decision to continue plans for developing a hydrofracturing system in New York. President Obama’s decision on the KeystoneXL will likely further influence his choices.
In the most recent State of the Union address, the President took a strong stance on energy, stating the need for Americans “to believe in the overwhelming judgment of science and [to] act before it’s too late.” He urged Congress to propose a policy allowing a percentage of oil and gas revenue to fund an Energy Security Trust. The funds from such a trust would then be reserved for new research and technology in cleaner, renewable energy production.
Obama did express the importance of more affordable, less foreign-dependent oil and natural gas (which may be a subtle hint that he supports a Keystone Pipeline and a New York drilling project), yet he simultaneously stressed the need to “shift our cars and trucks off oil for good.”
Nonetheless, the coming weeks will be a pivotal time for the future of New York and the rest of the nation. Eyes are on our elected officials and politicians to see what direction they will take us in the future of American energy production. Voices will certainly be raised in these same weeks with great volume and intensity, and the same politicians and officials will have to hear them. In such monumental times, make sure your voice does not go unheard.
…These are just some of the many (and loud!) chants that could be heard from the thousands of people who attended Sunday’s Forward On Climate (FOC) rally in Washington, D.C. With estimates that varied from 35,000 to 50,000 protesters marching from the National Mall to the White House, and back, advocates and supporters — many of whom traveled from the farthest ends of the nation — showed the President and the rest of Washington the urgency of their feelings about the Keystone Pipeline and other flashpoints on energy and climate.
Marchers equipped with signs and make-shift windmills, dressed in vivid costumes, and armed with megaphones paraded the streets, making their voices loud and clear with chants to stop the Keystone pipeline and to stop hydrofracking in the U.S.
Protestors rally in front of the White House, demanding that Pres. Obama vetoes the Keystone XL pipeline project.
Distance seemed to be no deterrent for many protesters; the movement and their voices were too important. Dick Harmon, retiree, Sierra Club member, and former Brooklynite who now resides in Portland, Oregon, was one of these distant travelers. When asked why he felt it was so important for him to travel so many miles for the FOC rally, Harmon replied, “I have grandchildren.” Like many supporters, Harmon feels that the movement to stop the Keystone pipeline — and other environmentally-based movements like it — is “less about us, and more about our future generations.”
U.S. Senator from Rhode Island speaks at Forward On Climate, as billionaire philanthropist Thomas Steyer looks on.
Leaders and organizers of the rally also made their voices heard; most notable were that of 350.org’s creator and director, Bill McKibben, and Sierra Club executive director, Michael Brune. Appreciating the strong turnout, McKibben congratulated the event as “the biggest climate rally by far in U.S. history” and that “the most fateful battle in human history is finally joined and will be fought together!” Brune, like many of the other speakers at the event, placed heavy pressure on President Obama, stating, “Mr. President, we’ve heard what you have said on climate – and we have loved a lot of what you have said on climate – but Mr. President, what will youdo?“
Former ‘Green Jobs’ adviser to Obama, Van Jones, went on next to say to the President, “All the good that you have done, all the good that you could imagine doing, will be wiped out by floods, by fires, and by superstorms if you fail to act now to deal with this crisis!”
Additional speakers during the rally included actress Rosario Dawson; Canadian indigenous Chief of the Saik’uz First Nation, Jacqueline Thomas; U.S. Senator from Rhode Island, Sheldon Whitehouse; and billionaire philanthropist and environmentalist, Thomas Steyer…all of whom who added compelling, heartfelt speeches.
Actress Rosario Dawson stresses innovation in science and technology over natural gas.
As development for the pipeline draws near, all eyes are on the President and how he chooses to use his executive power. Will Obama respond to Forward On Climate’s message and steer the U.S. away from our dependency on fossil fuels, propelling us into a cleaner, safer, more environmentally sound future? Or will he give in to the lobbyists and the power of the big-oil companies, embracing the “business-as-usual” plan of action?
In a stirring summation, Senator Whitehouse of Rhode Island implored the crowd to continue to organize, and directed everyone to a website petition:
“Your voices can make a difference, and your voices need to make a difference…Add your voice as a citizen member of the Climate Change Task Force…sign up at wakeuptoclimatechange.com and make your voice heard!”
Always a refreshing respite from the concrete jungle, Central Park and it’s acres of welcoming trees are highly valued by most New Yorkers, but few know the incredible sustainable effects of this urban forest. Last week, New York City was named to the American Forest organization’s list of top ten U.S. Cities for Urban Forests.
As New York’s public parks come in many shapes and sizes, it’s helpful to have a working definition of an Urban Forest. The American Forest organization defines ‘urban forest’ as “ecosystems of trees and other vegetation in and around communities that may consist of streets and yard trees, vegetation within parks and along public rights of way and water systems.”
Like all forests and greenspaces, urban forests have a massive capacity for sequestering carbon and removing pollution from the atmosphere, which has both sustainable and economic benefits. New York City’s urban forest stores “1.35 million tons of carbon at a value of $24.9 million and removes 2,000 tons of pollution each year for $10.6 million in value.” The results speak for themselves: it has been estimated that “every $1 invested in urban trees results in $2 to $4 in benefits.”
All indicators suggest that New York’s urban forest will continue to grow. Mayor Bloomberg has mandated that one million trees be planted in New York by 2017, and the city is well on its way to meeting that goal with over 650,000 trees planted. Currently, the city has an estimated forest canopy of 21 percent, but the estimated potential canopy is 43 percent. Imagine the amount of carbon that could be sequestered if New York’s urban forest doubled in size!
Selected from the 50 most populous cities in the United States, the top ten list was generated by examining several criteria including “civic engagement in maintaining the urban forest … Accessibility of urban forest and greenspaces to the public, … and overall health and condition of the city’s urban forest.” The other top cities are Austin, Charlotte, Portland, Denver, Sacramento, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.
Climate change is the great moral issue since apartheid, and we need the same kind of tools to bring it to people’s attention.” – Desmond Tutu
America’s colleges and universities prepare the nation’s young people for their future. Yet those same institutions invest in the fossil fuel companies that are profiting enormously from the carbon that’s going to wreck the climate. Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, hopes that together we can break the stranglehold the fossil fuel industry has over our democracy and our economy. Thousands of students are building a national movement demanding that university endowments divest from the fossil fuel industry.
The event will feature a talk about divestment by climate change author and activist Bill McKibben followed by an open conversation with a panel of NYC student leaders. Join us in a unique opportunity to further explore why and how we should move our institutions forward to divest from fossil fuels. Musical guest Kevin Fitzgerald Burke will perform his inspired piece “Wandrin’ the Gasland”.
The event will be held at the Cooper Union Great Hall at 7 East 7th Street. The event is free and open to the public. Please RSVP to the event by filling out this form: http://bit.ly/10HgZKI. The event will also be streamed online at YesDivest.com.
Jaime Lee Curtis narrates this film about the environmental, political, economic and cultural relationships to dirt.
From villages battling corporations, to the rise in organic farming, to edible school yards, peace of mind through horticulture in prisons and solutions to health crises, this film explores worldwide efforts to reconnect with this ancient thing.
A scientist, an environmentalist and a radio talk show host will mull over the question: is Hurricane Sandy the new normal? They will talk about climate change and how it affects NYC and the world.
Speakers are Dr. Allegra LeGrande of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Ted Glick of Chesapeake Climate Action Network and Ken Gale of WBAI’s “Eco-Logic.”
This event is sponsored by North Manhattan Neighbors for Peace and Justice, Senator Adriano Espaillat, City Council Members Ydanis Rodriquez and Robert Jackson, Community Board 12, WEACT for Environmental Justice and others.
