City Atlas

150 Years in Hiding: The Story of a New Frog Species in New York City
2015-01-07 18:30 - 20:00 (America/New_York) | Brooklyn Brainery, 190 Underhill Ave, Brooklyn, NY, 11238, United States
New York City is probably the last place you’d expect to find a new species of frog, but that’s exactly what Jeremy Feinberg and a group of colleagues discovered in 2012.
This unexpected discovery is the first of its kind for a New York State amphibian since 1854 and has received worldwide attention from scientific and general-interest communities alike. In this talk, Jeremy will share his tale of two species – about the new frog and the look-alike species it was previously thought to be.
This class will cover the circumstances behind this ‘fortunate accident’ and examine key characteristics of the new species. We will also touch on conservation concerns and explore how a large, conspicuous vertebrate remained misidentified over several centuries despite occurring in and around one of the largest human population centers on earth.

Taught by Jeremy Feinberg
Jeremy Feinberg is a doctoral candidate at Rutgers University and a guest researcher at the Brookhaven National Laboratory. He has been spent his career focusing on amphibian and reptile ecology and conservation, mostly in the New York metro area. Jeremy is specifically interested in unraveling the reasons behind species declines and local extinctions and has been sharing the story of the new species discovery to academic and non-academic groups around the country for the past two years.
Please register here: http://brooklynbrainery.com/courses/150-years-in-hiding-the-story-of-a-new-frog-species-in-nyc

Short Story Fiction/Non-Fiction Writing
2015-01-09 13:30 - 15:00 | Poe Park Visitor Center, 2640 Grand Concourse, Bronx
Work on your fiction/non-fiction short story-writing with an established writer. Get to know your character and create your scene. Use timed writing exercises to flesh out your story idea and develop an interesting character.
This class is for adults.

Lower East Side Ecology Center: Mulchfest 2015
2015-01-10 10:00 - 14:00 | Tompkins Square Park, East 9th Street between Avenues A & B, New York, NY, 10009, United States
Photo credit: Loisaida Nest
Mulchfest 2015
Saturday, January 10, 2015 @10:00am – 2:00pm
Tompkins Square Park, East 9th Street between Avenues A & B, New York, NY 10009
info@lesecologycenter.org
Come recycle the holiday cheer with the NYC Compost Project Hosted by the Lower East Side Ecology Center at this season’s Mulchfest, located at Tompkins Square Park. We will be prepping trees for the chipper by removing ornaments and then spreading the freshly chipped mulch on street trees surrounding the park. You can even take home a bag of mulch to prep street trees on your block for winter! This is a rain or shine event, so dress warmly and be prepared for any weather.
Registration is required, please e-mail: info@lesecologycenter.org to sign up.

Watershed Relief Map Presentation
2015-01-10 13:00 - 15:00 | Queens Museum, Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens, NY, 11368, United States
Watershed Relief Map Presentation
Saturday January 10 at 1pm
Queens Museum of Art
New York City hosted the 1939 World’s Fair in Flushing, Queens. To show off the city’s water system that tapped mountain springs as far as 100 miles away, the Cartographic Survey Force, a branch of the Works Progress Administration, constructed a 3-dimensional model of the system out of wood and plaster for @ $100,000 (about $1.5 million in today’s dollars).
Measuring 32 feet by 20 feet it never made it to the Fair and instead was put into storage; some said it because it was too big, but others have said it was to protect the City’s Water system from spies as the country was beginning to contemplate war. It was shown once in 1948 – at the city’s Golden Anniversary Exposition – and then forgotten. In 1991, DEP’s chief architect Michael Cetera discovered it sitting in the Jerome Avenue Pumping Station (built 1906) when he was charged with renovating the landmark building. The map was in rough shape after 40 years of neglect. In 2006, it was restored by McKay Lodge Conservation Laboratory in Ohio and has been on display at the Queen’s Museum since 2008.

You can now see the map for yourself and hear about its story from NYC water educator Matt Malina.

This is a family friendly event organized by NYC H2O and the Queens Museum.
The Queens Museum also has a scale model of the entire city that is not to be missed. This event is free with a suggested $5 entrance fee to the museum.

Bargemusic at Brooklyn Bridge Park
2015-01-10 16:00 - 17:00 | Fulton Ferry Landing – Brooklyn Bridge Park, Brooklyn, NY, United States
Walk across the gangplank of a renovated coffee barge for a one-hour family friendly concert. Door open 15 minutes before performance. There will be no reserve seating. Program announced at the performance.

Gowanus Canal Conservancy: Mulchfest 2015
2015-01-11 11:00 - 15:00 | The Salt Lot, 2 Second Avenue , Brooklyn, NY, 11215, United States
Photo credit: Gowanus Canal Conservancy
Location: The Salt Lot, 2 Second Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11215 (at 5th St)
Time: 11am-3pm
Help the Conservancy reach its goal of treecycling 500 Christmas trees in Gowanus! Volunteers are needed to transport trees for chipping, in addition to helping with compost activities. Baked goods and mulled cider will be available. More information found here.

Boat Club Book Club
2015-01-11 18:00 - 20:00 | North Brooklyn Boat Club, 49 Ash Street, Brooklyn, NY, United States
Join other community members around the fire to discuss the book of the month. Food and drink is encouraged. Book club meetings take place on the second Sunday of every month. January’s book is Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human.

Oculus Book Talk: Urban Alchemy
2015-01-12 18:00 - 20:00 | The Center for Architecture, 536 LaGuardia Place , New York, New York, 10012, United States
Dr. Mindy Thompson Fullilove will present Urban Alchemy, Restoring Joy in America’s Sorted-Out Cities, published by New Village Press. The presentation will be followed by a conversation with William Morrish on the intersections of public health and urbanism.
What if divided neighborhoods were causing public health problems? What if a new approach to planning and design could tackle both the built environment and collective well-being at the same time? What if cities could help each other?
Dr. Mindy Thompson Fullilove, author of Root Shock, uses her unique perspective as a public health psychiatrist to explore and identify ways of healing social and spatial fractures simultaneously. Using the work of French urbanist Michel Cantal-Dupart and the American urban design firm Rothschild Doyno Collaborative as guides as well as urban restoration projects from France and the US as exemplary cases, Fullilove identifies nine tools that can mend our broken cities and reconnect our communities to make them whole.
Dr. Mindy Thompson Fullilove is a board-certified psychiatrist and Professor of Clinical Studies of Sociomedical Sciences at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. She started her research career in 1986 with a focus on the AIDS epidemic, and became aware of the close link between AIDS and place of residence. Under the rubric of the psychology of place, Dr. Fullilove began to examine the mental health effects of such environmental processes as violence, rebuilding, segregation, urban renewal, and mismanaged toxins. She has published numerous articles and six books including “Urban Alchemy: Restoring Joy in America’s Sorted-Out Cities,” “Root Shock: How Tearing Up City Neighborhoods Hurts America and What We Can Do About It,” and “House of Joshua: Meditations on Family and Place.”
William Morrish is Professor of Urban Ecologies at Parsons The New School for Design, where he recently served as Dean of the School of Constructed Environments. He is a nationally recognized urban designer whose practice encompasses inter-disciplinary research on urban housing and infrastructure, collaborative publications on human settlement and community design, and educational programs exploring integrated design, which are applied to a wide range of innovative community-based city projects.
Price: Free for AIA members and students with valid student ID; $10 for non-members
Organized by: AIANY Oculus Committee
Oculus Book Seller: McNally Jackson Books | 52 Prince Street, New York, NY 10012 | 212.274.1160

Sustainability and the Startup
2015-01-14 17:30 - 19:30 | Interface NYC Showroom, 330 Fifth Avenue (the corner of 5th Ave and 33rd Street) 12th Floor, New York, NY, United States
Join us Wednesday, January 14, from 5:30 to 7:30 PM, at the Interface NYC Showroom for a discussion on Sustainability and the Startup.
The event will feature four perspectives from leaders in this space, on what it’s like being at a startup in the sustainability community, where they see opportunities and challenges, and how they see this community helping to advance sustainability goals.
Speakers include:
Patrick Duffy, VP of Sustainability & External Affairs at Manufacture New York
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/pub/patrick-duffy-aicp/0/a7/977
Susanne Katus, VP Business Development Americas at eRevalue
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/pub/susanne-katus/20/257/9b9
Anthony Serina, Founder at Revivn
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/pub/anthony-serina/21/561/ba6
Chris Chavez, Chief Community Cultivator at Prime Produce
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrischavez
We look forward to the discussion, and seeing fellow NYSAG members. Our format for the evening begins with informal networking and introductions, followed by short presentations from the industry experts. Using a modified IGNITE-style format, our speakers will present in 7 minutes or less and then we will open up the discussion to the group. We will end the discussion with time left for networking, drinks and light snacks.
Interface’s Showroom is located at 330 Fifth Avenue (the corner of 5th Ave and 33rd Street) 12th Floor. Visitors must comply with Interface’s attendance policies.
$12 Admission includes the Eventbrite processing fee, drink and snack.
We hope to see you there, and please extend the invitation to interested friends!
Please register here: http://www.eventbrite.com/e/sustainability-and-the-startup-tickets-15049034066?aff=es2&rank=1

A Panel Discussion and Book Signing: The Landscape of Fracking in New York; What's Changed and What Hasn't.
2015-01-18 16:00 - 18:00 | BookCourt, 163 Court St, Brooklyn, NY, United States
Sane Energy Project and Food Not Fracking present:

A Panel Discussion and Book Signing:
The Landscape of Fracking in New York; What’s Changed and What Hasn’t.
The announcement that DEC will prohibit fracking in NYS may lead some to believe that now we’re “safe.” However, pipelines, compressor stations, storage caverns and LNG facilities have been and remain the current threat. “The Real Cost of Fracking” authors, Michelle Bamberger and Robert Oswald, will demonstrate why such infrastructure may actually be WORSE than drilling in its health impacts on humans, animals, and our food shed.
“You Are Here,” a new online mapping tool, will demonstrate how New York is already being fracked in every way BUT the drilling. Local activists join a panel discussion about current infrastructure projects and what is being done to stop them.
Light refreshments will be served. FREE. 4-6pm, Sunday, January 18th at the beloved independent Brooklyn bookstore, Bookcourt.
Cosponsors: Chefs for Marcellus, The Baum Forum, and others (list in development).

Trash: New York City's Battle with Garbage
2015-01-20 20:30 - 22:00 | Brooklyn Brainery, 190 Underhill Ave, Brooklyn, NY, 11238, United States
photo credit: Paul Lowry
This class will trace New York City’s protracted struggle to contain its solid waste burden, from the 19th century to the present.
We will cover key topics like public health, the Department of Sanitation, the Fresh Kills Landfill, environmental justice, and recycling. We will also discuss the future of municipal solid waste management, and innovative ideas like zero waste and community composting.
Taught by Inna Guzenfeld
Inna Guzenfeld is a planner and urban historian trained at Pratt Institute. She emigrated from the Ukraine in the nineties and grew up on the Coney Island peninsula. Her work centers on the New York waterfront, where she documents and advocates the city’s maritime past. She can often be found traversing Brooklyn’s industrial landscapes in search of stories and artifacts. She also teaches historic preservation and urban studies at CUNY.

New York City Transition Neighborhoods Info-share Party
2015-01-21 18:30 - 21:30 | 15th Street Quaker Meetinghouse, 15 Rutherford Place (between 2nd and 3rd Aves), New York, NY, 10003, United States
Photo credit: Chiara Zaccheo
Celebrate Your Borough & Neighborhood Culture
International Cuisine Tasting (Bring a dish from your neighborhood)
(BYOE – Bring Your Own Everything meal [utensils, plate, napkin and cup])
What: NYC Transition Neighborhoods Info-share Party
Be part of the NYC neighborhood-specific resilience building conversation:
Fun, food from around the world and purposeful conversation.
Learn about Neighborhood Resilience Asset Mapping & Gap Analysis.
Where: 15th Street Quaker Meetinghouse
15 Rutherford Place (between 2nd and 3rd Aves), NY NY, 10003
Who: Dan Miner, Janet Soderberg and NYC Transition Hub Members
Pamela Boyce Simms, Certified Transition Trainer, Transition US,
and Convener, Mid-Atlantic Transition Hub (MATH)
RSVP: Let us know you’re coming and the dish you’ll bring: transition.nyc.hub@gmail.com
New Yorkers from 20 neighborhoods have already expressed interest in starting a local project, so you’re likely to meet a neighbor at this event. Bring a dish to share that celebrates NYC’s international cuisine, and your own reusable utensils, plate, napkin and cup. Also bring images of your neighborhood to post.
Learn more at www.transitionnyc.org.
Contact NYC Transition Hub at transition.nyc.hub@gmail.com.
Transition is a community organizing response to climate change, resource depletion and financial instability. There are 1,100+ Transition groups in 44 countries and over 150 initiatives in the US. It starts with a series of small group meetings in which neighbors go through chapters of a Field Guide. They strengthen their sense of place, build relationships, promote local food, and map their neighborhood’s current state of resiliency.
NYC Transition Neighborhoods Initiatives brings friends and neighbors together to discover and map “resilience assets” that are hidden in plain sight, right in our neighborhoods! A thought provoking Transition Neighborhood Field Guide leads participants on a practical and enlightening neighborhood resilience-building adventure that deepens and celebrates neighborhood culture. Let’s get the party started!

Weekly community composting in Red Hook, Brooklyn
2015-01-26 09:00 - 12:00 | Red Hook Community Farms, 580 Columbia Street, Brooklyn, 11231
Join Added Value, the Red Hook Community Farm in Brooklyn to compost weekly on Fridays from 9:00am to noon and Saturdays from 10:30am to 1:00pm.
“Added Value is a non-profit organization promoting the sustainable development of Red Hook by nurturing a new generation of young leaders. We work towards this goal by creating opportunities for the youth of South Brooklyn to expand their knowledge base, develop new skills and positively engage with their community through the operation of a socially responsible urban farming enterprise.”

Superfund: A Citizen's Guide
2015-01-26 20:30 - 22:00 | The Brainery in Prospect Heights, 190 Underhill Avenue, Brooklyn, NY, 11238, United States
photo credit: beigeinside
With the Environmental Protection Agency’s designation of Gowanus Canal and Newtown Creek, Superfund has become a colloquial term and a buzzword in New York City.
But what is a Superfund exactly? How are sites placed on the National Priorities List? Who is a responsible party? What does clean-up entail and how does it involve communities? We will cover all these questions and more in this introduction, spotlighting Superfund in your neighborhood. We will focus on citizen participation in the Superfund process and conclude with a discussion of current and future sites in the five boroughs.
Taught by Inna Guzenfeld
Inna Guzenfeld is a planner and urban historian trained at Pratt Institute. She emigrated from the Ukraine in the nineties and grew up on the Coney Island peninsula. Her work centers on the New York waterfront, where she documents and advocates the city’s maritime past. She can often be found traversing Brooklyn’s industrial landscapes in search of stories and artifacts. She also teaches historic preservation and urban studies at CUNY.
Please register here: http://brooklynbrainery.com/courses/superfund-a-citizen-s-guide

Oceans of Trash: Tackling Marine Plastic Pollution
2015-01-31 14:30 - 17:00 | Hunter College’s Silberman School of Social Work Auditorium, 2180 Third Ave at 119th Street , New York, NY, 10035 , United States
Photo credit: Alejandro Durán
A program in conjunction with the exhibition Washed Up: Transforming a Trashed Landscape, photos by Alejandro Durán.
Saturday, January 31, 2015
2:30 – 5PM with reception to follow
Hunter College’s Silberman School of Social Work
Auditorium
2180 Third Ave at 119th Street
New York, NY 10035

Speakers include:
5 Gyres
The 5 Gyres Institute conducts research and communicates about the global impact of plastic pollution in the world’s oceans. 5 Gyres employs strategies to eliminate the accumulation of plastic pollution in the five subtropical gyres. 5 Gyres founders Marcus Eriksen and Anna Cummins will present on their most recent research.
Alejandro Durán
Artist Alejandro Durán’s fascination with collecting and rearranging trash on the shores of Mexico’s Sian Ka’an region led to his ongoing project, Washed Up. As an educator, filmmaker, and artist, Alejandro’s work promotes awareness of ocean pollution and advocates for change.
Carson Farmer
Carson Farmer is Associate Director of the Center for Advanced Research of Spatial Information (CARSI) where he works on a number of urban issues, ranging from transportation to human impacts on the oceans. Recently, Carson has begun to examine sustainability issues surrounding urban impacts on the worlds oceans from a quantitative and policy perspective with Dr. Tim Stojanovic from St Andrews University in Scotland.
Plus more exciting participants and practitioners.
Supported by the American Chai Trust and Hunter College Arts Across the Curriculum program sponsored by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
For more information, please contact ehartg@hunter.cuny.edu

Explore Dead Horse Bay, New York's Best Kept Secret
2015-02-01 10:00 - 12:30 | Floyd Bennett Field Ranger Station, Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn, NY, 11234, United States
Hike the trails and shoreline of Dead Horse Bay with Mickey Maxwell Cohen, American Littoral Society naturalist, author of Discovering the Trails of Dead Horse Bay. Explore the nature and fascinating history of this little known area. Sturdy footwear is essential. And of course dress appropriately for the day’s weather.
This program is an American Littoral Society / G.N.R.A. Partnership Program and is free and open to the public.
Location : Floyd Bennett Field Ranger Station
Contact : To RSVP: Call (718) 474-0896, or email donriepe@gmail.com.
DIRECTIONS TO Dead Horse Bay: Subway: IRT #2 to Flatbush Ave. Q35 bus south to Floyd Bennett Field, last stop before the Gil Hodges Memorial (Marine Pky.) Bridge. Car: Belt Pky. to Exit 11S. Take Flatbush Ave. south to park. Bus: B41 to Nostrand Ave. then Q35 to the park entrance on your left. Meet group at parking lot near ranger station and walk across Flatbush Ave. to Dead Horse Bay trail.

596 Acres presents Reviewing Renewal on the Queens Museum Panorama
2015-02-01 12:00 - 2015-02-08 18:00 | Queens Museum, Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens, NY, 11368, United States
596 Acres presents
Reviewing Renewal
on the Queens Museum Panorama
January 11 to February 8, 2015

596 Acres will present all 155+ urban renewal plans that the City has ever adopted in an intervention directly on the Panorama of the City of New York, realizing the online Urban Reviewer map on a 1:1200 scale of the 9,335 square foot Panorama.
New York City began to adopt “urban renewal plans” in 1949 to get federal funding to acquire land, relocate the people living there, demolish the structures and make way for new public and private development. The legacy of these neighborhood master plans remains active across the city, from sites like Lincoln Center to the many vacant lots cleared in East New York and Bushwick for projects that were never completed. Even after federal funding for the program was cut in 1974, New York City continued to adopt renewal plans for neighborhoods – 82 plan areas, where the city has eminent domain power to take private property for the public purpose of eliminating blight and economic “under-performance,” came into being between 1975 and the present.
“The whole theory of urban renewal was based on the idea of urban obsolescence,” says curator Paula Z. Segal. “It was not about blight, but about making way for the new, on the idea that urban structures are made to last 30 or 40 years.”
Urban renewal transforms the city, and changes the lives of many New Yorkers, for better or worse. Over 60 plan for areas of the city remain active today. Some communities are taking advantage of active plan areas to make community aspirations into official plans.
What can we learn from the continuing story of urban renewal in NYC?

Curator: Paula Z. Segal, Esq., 596 Acres, Inc.
Exhibition Design: Mary Bereschka, Greg Mihalko, Stephen von Muehlen
Design: Partner & Partners
Event Production: Amy Fitzgerald, Oksana Mironova

Exhibition made possible thanks to the support of Mapzen and the Queens Museum.

There will be public programming focused on different facets of Urban Renewal Area planning every Sunday during the exhibition. All events are free. Some RSVPs required. Info here: http://596acres.org/news/2014/12/23/596-acres-presents-the-urban-reviewer-on-the-queens-museum-panorama/

The Queens Museum is open weekly Wednesday through Sunday, 12-6pm.
Sunday, January 11, 12 – 6pm
12:30 – 2pm: Willet’s Point Walk with Queens Borough Historian Jack Eichenbaum RSVP Required
2 – 3:30pm: Film Presentation: The Pruitt-Igoe Myth
3:30 – 4pm: “Who Makes A Neighborhood?”
4 – 6pm: Opening Reception RSVP Required

Sunday, January 18, 12 – 6pm
12:15 -1:45: Takings (with Continuing Legal Education credits, attorney RSVP required)
2 – 4pm: Reviewing Mitchell Lama: The Past, Present and Future of Affordable Housing in NYC
4 – 6pm: Film Presentation: It Took 50 Years: Frances Goldin and the Struggle for Cooper Square

Sunday, January 25, 12 – 6pm
12 – 1pm: The Manhattan Projects Tour
1 – 2:30pm: Before Lincoln Center
2:30 – 4pm: Williamsburg’s South Side
4 – 6pm: Queens

Sunday, February 1, 12 – 6pm
12 -1pm: Film Presentation: The Rink
1 – 3pm: What happens to a neighborhood “renewed?
3 – 4pm: Artist Walk & Talk: Damon Rich
4 – 6pm: From Redlining to Gentrification & Urban Renewal is People Removal (film)

Sunday, February 8, 3 – 6pm
3 – 4pm:Curator Walk & Talk in the Panorama: Paula Z. Segal
4 – 6pm: Discussion, Reception and Film Presentation: The Tragedy of Urban Renewal: The destruction and survival of a New York City neighborhood

Media Inquiries: Paula Z. Segal, Esq.
Executive Director and Legal Director, 596 Acres
718-316-6092 x 2 – paula@596acres.org

About 596 Acres
596 Acres is New York City’s community land access program. We help neighbors organize around and gain access to the city’s warehoused and empty public land. Our work enriches the quality of life for all New Yorkers by facilitating community-based civic action and helping to transform unused vacant land into new open spaces. We are currently adapting our model in Philadelphia (groundedinphilly.org), in Los Angeles (laopenacres.org), in New Orleans (livinglotsnola.og) and are in discussion to extend this land access movement to 15 other cities worldwide that have expressed an affirmative interest in 596 Acres’ approach. We are a small and young organization that has been working on a shoestring budget since 2011 and are now looking for financial partners to help us revolutionize land access processes worldwide. Spread the word!
596acres.org

Washed Up Transforming a Trashed Landscape Alejandro Duran
2015-02-01 12:00 - 2015-02-28 17:00 | Hunter College East Harlem Art Gallery, 2180 Third Avenue , New York, NY, 10035 , United States
Photo credit: Alejandro Duran
Washed Up is an ongoing project by Mexican-born, New York-based artist Alejandro Durán that addresses the issue of plastic pollution making its way across the ocean and onto the shores of Sian Ka’an, Mexico’s largest federally-protected reserve. With more than twenty pre-Colombian archaeological sites, this UNESCO World Heritage site is also home to a vast array of flora and fauna and the world’s second largest coastal barrier reef. Unfortunately, Sian Ka’an is also a repository for the world’s trash, which is carried there by ocean currents from many parts of the globe.
When: October 29, 2014 to February 28, 2015
Hours: Tuesday — Saturday, 12:00–5:00 P.M.
Where: Hunter College East Harlem Art Gallery, 2180 Third Avenue at 119th Street New York NY 10035
For more information, please visit: http://​www​.hunter​.cuny​.edu/​e​a​s​t​h​a​r​l​e​m​-​a​r​t​g​a​l​l​ery

Book Launch: Sustainability Policy - Hastening the Transition to a Cleaner Economy
2015-02-03 18:00 - 19:00 | Columbia University, Morningside Campus, International Affairs Building, Kellogg Center, Room 1501, 1150 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY, United States
Moderator: Curtis Probst, Managing Director, Rocky Mountain Institute; Speakers: Steven Cohen, Executive Director, The Earth Institute and Professor of Practice, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University; William Eimicke, Director, Picker Center for Executive Education and Professor of Practice, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University; Alison Miller, Deputy Executive Director, The Earth Institute, Columbia University
The Earth Institute and the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University present a book launch, Sustainability Policy: Hastening the Transition to a Cleaner Economy. Authors Steven Cohen, William Eimicke, and Alison Miller will be discussing their new book, published by Jossey-Bass in January 2015.
Sustainability Policy: Hastening the Transition to a Cleaner Economy is a fundamental guide to sustainability policy development, implementation, strategy, and practice. Featuring detailed cases highlighting innovative sustainability initiatives, this book explores the elements that constitute effective policy, and the factors that can help or hinder implementation and adoption. The book describes the critical role the government plays in the transformation of our economy, and underscores the importance of public-private partnerships. The authors feature policies in effect at the federal, state, and local levels across all areas of environmental sustainability. Emphasizing politically-feasible policy tools, the book demonstrates current and potential applications and focuses on public sector actions that spur innovation and organizational change in the private sector and behavioral change at the individual level.
Panel event 6:00-7:00 PM. Reception to follow.
Books will be available for purchase and signing.
Open to the public. RSVP required. Photo ID required.
Please register here: http://earth.columbia.edu/events/view/75819

The Field of Sustainable Finance: Foundations and Future Growth
2015-02-04 18:00 - 19:15 | The Columbia Club, James Madison Room, 2nd Floor, 15 W. 43rd St., New York, NY, 10036, United States
The Earth Institute and The School of Continuing Education present a panel event, The Field of Sustainable Finance: Foundations and Future Growth.
At the nexus of sustainability and management is the growing field of Sustainable Finance  an interdisciplinary field with elements of corporate sustainability and financial principles including green accounting and carbon accounting, environmental markets, project finance, asset management and sustainable investment, and the impacts of environmental issues on capital markets. This panel discussion will focus on major emerging trends and tools in sustainable finance. A mix of academics and practitioners will discuss how sustainable finance has developed and evolved as a field. They’ll debate what we mean by sustainable finance itself and explore the key players and drivers, as well as what it will look like in the future.
This event is free and open to the public. Dress code is business casual. RSVP required.
Panel event 6:00-7:15 PM. Reception to follow.
Please register here: http://www.earth.columbia.edu/events/view/75820
Panelists: Steven Cohen, Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer, The Earth Institute, Columbia University; Introduction; Satyajit Bose, Lecturer in the Discipline of Economics, Columbia University; Moderator: Travis Bradford, Director, Energy and Environment Concentration, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University; Speakers: Frank Barbarino, Vice President, Goldman Sachs; Michael Davis, Director, Institutional Client Relationships, Calvert Investments; Sonal Mahida, US Network Manager, the Principles for UN Responsible Investment Initiative; Kevin Parker, CEO, Sustainable Insight Capital Management; Amy Springsteel, Director of Corporate Responsibility, Voya Financial.

The High Line as Urban Accelerator: A Conversation
2015-02-04 18:30 - 20:30 | Offsite Public Program Museum of City of New York, 1220 Fifth Avenue (at 103rd Street), New York, NY, 10029, United States
Photo credit: Friends of the High Line
The High Line has stimulated tremendous growth in its Chelsea neighborhood and sparked new thinking about multi-use, shared public spaces. When the park’s third and final phase opened in September, introducing direct pedestrian access at street level, it became even more connected to the city. Now New York’s most visited site, the High Line is a significant generator of economic activity and a model of public-private collaboration celebrated by designers, planners and civic leaders.
Join High Line co-founder Joshua David for a conversation with architectural critic Paul Goldberger and Vishaan Chakrabarti of SHoP Architects about the impact of this repurposed elevated rail line on the city and its economy. Reception to follow. Free for Museum members; $12 students/seniors; $16 general public.
Organized by: Museum of the City of New York
Speakers:
Joshua David, High Line co-founder
Vishaan Chakrabarti, Director of Columbia University’s Center for Urban Real Estate (CURE) and Partner, SHoP Architects.
Paul Goldberger, Hon. AIA, Architecture critic
Cost for each guest: $16.00
For more information, please visit: http://cfa.aiany.org/index.php?section=calendar&evtid=7882

Choices Conference: How Everyday Decisions Can Make a Lasting Impact Day 1
2015-02-06 18:00 - 19:30 | The New School Theresa Lang Community and Student Center, Arnhold Hall, 55 West 13th Street, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Interested in sustainable business strategies in New York City?
Join the Sustainable Cities Club of The New School and business leaders of Wyndham hotels, Jones Lang Lasalle, Telepan restaurant and Helpsy fashion to discuss where New York City stands as a sustainable city, what opportunities exist to fill a market demand and how we form municipal policies to increase the City’s sustainability and resiliency.
Keynote Address: Michelle DePass – How does sustainability intersect with social justice?
Fashion Industry: Rachel Kibbe, founder of Helpsy
Construction: Erika White, Senior Associate, Strategy and Business Development, Tri-State Region Jones Lang Lasalle,
Restaurant Industry: Bill Telepan, owner of Telepan restaurant, and Executive Chef of Wellness in the Schools
Hotel: to be announced
Moderators of our Roundtable Discussion:
Rick McGahey, Professor of Professional Practice and Director of Environmental Policy and Sustainability Management
Timon McPhearson, Associate Professor of Urban Ecology
Closing Remarks by Mary Watson, Dean of NSPE and Tokumbo Shobowale, COO of The New School
The conference continues on Saturday, February 7.
This event is cosponsored by Tishman Environmental Design Center, Environmental Policy and Sustainable Management Program, Milano and the University Student Senate.
Cost: Free, but registration is required
Please register here: http://www.eventbrite.com/e/choices-how-everyday-decisions-can-make-a-lasting-impact-tickets-14967996681?aff=es2&rank=4

Alligators in the Sewer Day with screening of Cast in India
2015-02-06 19:00 - 21:00 | Hunter College, 68th Street and Lexington Avenue, New York, NY, 10065, United States
Alligators in the Sewer Day
w/ screening of Cast in India
Friday February 6 at 7pm, at Hunter College

The event will be held in room HW 714.
Enter on 68th Street and Lexington Avenue on the Southwest corner.
Doors open at 6:30.
Celebrate Alligators in the Sewers Day, an unofficial annual holiday that Manhattan Borough Historian Michael Miscione initiated four years ago to mark the birth of one of New York City’s greatest true urban legends. It was on that date back in 1935 that a live alligator was found in an East Harlem storm sewer. A detailed article about the discovery was printed in the New York Times the next day.
Join NYC H2O for an afternoon of fun-filled festivities including a screening of the documentary Cast in India about the making of manhole covers. Michael Miscione will recount the 1935 sighting and briefly discuss other great NYC urban legends — some true, some not.
Event is free. Please RSVP here: http://www.eventbrite.com/e/alligators-in-the-sewers-day-tickets-15250370268

Choices: How Everyday Decisions Can Make a Lasting Impact Day 2
2015-02-07 11:00 - 19:00 | The New School Theresa Lang Community and Student Center, Arnhold Hall, 55 West 13th Street, New York, NY, 10011, United States
Choices: How Everyday Decisions Can Make a Lasting Impact DAY 2
Interested in sustainable business strategies in New York City?
Join the Sustainable Cities Club of The New School and business leaders of Wyndham hotels, Jones Lang Lasalle, Telepan restaurant and Heplsy fashion to discuss where New York City stands as a sustainable city, what opportunities exist to fill a market demand and how we form municipal policies to increase the City’s sustainability and resiliency.
Keynote Address: Michelle DePass, Dean of Milano
Fashion Industry: Rachel Kibbe, founder of Helpsy
Construction: Erika White, Senior Associate, Strategy and Business Development, Tri-State Region Jones Lang Lasalle,
Restaurant Industry: Bill Telepan, owner of Telepan restaurant, and Executive Chef of Wellness in the Schools
Hotel: To be announced
Moderators of our Roundtable Discussion:
Rick McGahey, Professor of Professional Practice and Director of Environmental Policy and Sustainability Management
Timon McPhearson, Associate Professor of Urban Ecology
Closing Remarks by Mary Watson, Dean of NSPE and Tokumbo Shobowale, COO of The New School
This event is cosponsored by Tishman Environmental Design Center, Environmental Policy and Sustainable Management Program, Milano and the USS.
Cost: Free, but registration is required
Please register here: http://www.eventbrite.com/e/choices-how-everyday-decisions-can-make-a-lasting-impact-tickets-14967996681?aff=es2&rank=4

Inspirations for the Design of Brooklyn Bridge Park
2015-02-07 15:00 - 17:00 | Brooklyn Bridge Park, Select a Country:
Join Matt Urbanski, one of the lead designers of Brooklyn Bridge Park, to discover the inspirations and ambitions behind the park design.
What were they thinking about when they designed Brooklyn Bridge Park? Inspirations range from Prospect Park, Historic Coney Island and Sandy Hook NJ, The Long Island Beaches, Pelham Bay Park, and Riverside Park, the degrading piers of Bush Terminal and German playgrounds and Austrian beer gardens. Come hear one of the lead designers of the park connect the place with the inspirations.
Event is free with RSVP. Please RSVP here: http://www.brooklynbridgepark.org/events/inspiration-of-bbp

Nature's Workshop: Weather Exploration and Monitoring
2015-02-08 13:00 - 14:00 | Marine Park, Gerritsen Ave and Channel Ave in Marine Park Brooklyn, New York City
Urban Park Rangers Nature Centers are your gateway to New York City parks. Each serves as an in–park community center for public education, recreational activities, and environmental studies. The centers serve as starting points for walking tours and workshop sites for educational programs for the whole family.
This winter, join us for the Nature’s Workshop series. Winter is the best time to learn about weather, weather anomalies, and our changing climate through some fun weather experiments and outdoor exploration.
Photo credit NYC Parks

The Brooklyn Waterfront: Past and Present
2015-02-09 18:30 - 20:00 | Brooklyn Brainery, 190 Underhill Ave, Brooklyn, NY, 11238, United States
Location: The Brainery in Prospect Heights
In this class at the Brooklyn Brainery, the development, decline, and rebirth of the Brooklyn waterfront, from 19th century port to 21st century playground.
With the dual lens of preservation and renewal, we’ll examine how communities, real estate interests and the City have reshaped the waterfront from Greenpoint to Sunset Park since the 1970s.
(This is a classroom session, not a walking tour!)

Please register here: http://brooklynbrainery.com/courses/the-brooklyn-waterfront-past-and-present

Taught by Inna Guzenfeld
Inna Guzenfeld is a planner and urban historian trained at Pratt Institute. She emigrated from the Ukraine in the nineties and grew up on the Coney Island peninsula. Her work centers on the New York waterfront, where she documents and advocates the city’s maritime past. She can often be found traversing Brooklyn’s industrial landscapes in search of stories and artifacts. She also teaches historic preservation and urban studies at CUNY.

The Future of Cities: An Integrated Approach to Urban Challenges
2015-02-10 15:00 - 18:00 | United Nations Headquarters Conference Room 2, 46th Street and 1st Avenue , New York, NY, 10017, United States
The United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), the Consortium for Sustainable Urbanization and the American Institute for Architecture New York Chapter are co-organizing a high-level discussion, which will cover key developments in the area of sustainable urbanization, entitled “The Future of Cities: An Integrated Approach to Urban Challenges”.
This event is taking place on the occasion of the High-level Thematic Debate on Means of Implementation for a Transformative Post-2015 Development Agenda, and aims to address the mobilization of adequate means of implementation critical to achieving a truly sustainable urbanization, including financial resources, data-driven innovation, technology development and transfer, as well as capacity building.
This event will bring together high-level experts and representatives from national and local governments, non-governmental organizations, academia, foundations and industry. Speakers include Dr. Clos, Executive Director of UN-Habitat and H.E. Karen Tan, Permanent Representative of Singapore to the UN, Co-Chair, Group of Friends for Sustainable Cities and Mr. James McCullar, Architect and former President of the New York Chapter of the AIA.
A dialogue session will be moderated by Mr. Urs Gauchat, Dean of the College of Architecture and Design, New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) and feature the following Panelists:

Mrs. Nilda Mesa, Director, NYC, Mayor’s Office of Sustainability
Mrs. Ritva Viljanen, Deputy Mayor of Helsinki
Mr. Tom Wright, President, Regional Plan Association
Mr. Navid Hanif, Director, Department of Economic and Social Affairs , Office for ECOSOC Support and Coordination
Mrs. Ana Marie Argilagos, Senior Advisor, Ford Foundation
Mr. Douglas I. Foy, CEO, Serrafix Corporation, Boston, Massachusetts
Mr. David Klingberg, CEO, David Lock Associates, Melbourne

Event is free, but please register here to reserve your place: http://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-future-of-cities-an-integrated-approach-to-urban-challenges-tickets-15469865785?aff=es2&rank=26

Fast Fashion: Disposable Society and the Soul
2015-02-10 16:10 - 17:00 | Columbia University Morningside Campus Union Theological Seminary, Room 101, 80 Claremont Ave, New York, NY, 10027, United States
The Earth Institute presents Fast Fashion: Disposable Society and the Soul, with author and journalist, Elizabeth L. Cline.
The hastening speed and obsolescence of modern consumer goods–expressed in its most extreme form within fast fashion–has fundamentally reshaped society, culture, economics, and ultimately our sense of selves. Overheated global supply chains now work tirelessly in the service of producing ever-evolving “novel” new products–in the case of fashion, retail chains restock shelves several times a week with new colors and cuts perfectly attuned to consumer demand at that very specific moment. Is our urge and willingness to engage in the fast-fashion system based in a need to belong or to differentiate ourselves? What really is our ability to express our identities within the consumer capitalist system and to what degree are consumer goods about satisfying desire–and what do we mean when we say consumer products satiate us? Beneath these buying habits and the everyday reality of disposable societies in the developed West, there are many, many externalities lurking behind the scenes–poverty pay for retail and garment workers, environmental degradation, resource strain and drain, and waste of historic proportions. There is an inevitable feeling to our disposable culture. Within this context of malaise, what is the responsibility or power of the individual to reflect on and alter this system? What social, entrepreneurial, governmental or economic shifts could truly challenge fast fashion and disposable culture?
Author and journalist Elizabeth Cline is one of the world’s leading thinkers in the fields of fast fashion, globalization and disposable consumption. Her first book, Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion (Penguin Portfolio), received wide critical acclaim from publications including The New York Times Book Review, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Publishers Weekly and generated a whirlwind of radio, print, and TV attention: Most notably, Elizabeth has been a featured guest on Fresh Air with Terry Gross, NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, BBCs The World, and NPRs On Point. Elizabeth travels regularly to lecture on ethics and sustainability in the fashion industry and continues to write for The Nation, TheAtlantic.com, NewYork.com, AMCtv.com, and Sundance.tv, among other outlets. She is currently at work on her second book, which explores the next global industrial revolution, and will be touring Europe this Spring with her metal band Mortals.
RSVP required. Please RSVP here: http://www.earth.columbia.edu/events/view/76314

A History of New York City Transportation - From Horsecars to Helicopters
2015-02-16 20:30 - 22:00 | NY
image courtesy stefano.campolo
By some estimates, for every New Yorker you see walking around on the streets, there’s one New Yorker underground, riding the train. That’s right – 1/2 of New York’s population is on some form of public transportation at any given moment.
This miraculous statistic means that the city we know truly couldn’t exist without its subways, buses, and taxis, but how did all this heavy, stinky, old fashioned infrastructure get built?
This class covers NYC transportation from the early days, when the best you could hope for was a mud-spattered omnibus ride, through the first steam-powered elevated railroads, all the way up to the Pan Am building helicopter shuttle. It also touches on the many ambitious, zany, quixotic efforts to get us from Point A to Point B. Have you ever been sucked through a tunnel?

Taught by Patrick Lamson-Hall
Patrick Lamson-Hall is an urban planner at the NYU Stern Urbanization Project. His interests include urbanization in the developing world, alternative transportation, and public space. Before becoming an urban planner he worked as a journalist, a dishwasher, and an anarchist. He’s currently researching historical densities in Manhattan as well as implementing an urban expansion initiative in four cities in Ethiopia.
Please register here: http://brooklynbrainery.com/courses/a-history-of-new-york-city-transportation-from-horsecars-to-helicopters
