Pratt Center

In This Issue:

• A Message from Director Adam Friedman
• People's Firehouse Reborn
• Ending East New York's Shopping Drought
• Coney Island for All Yields Community Gains
• Retrofit Bedford Stuyvesant Blooms
• Bus Rapid Transit Goes Public
• Bronx Park Wins Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence



Welcome to the Future
A Message From Director Adam Friedman

You may be wondering, "Who's that guy in the glasses?" First I'll give you the easy answer. I'm Adam Friedman, proud to be the new director of the Pratt Center for Community Development. Many of you already know me as the founding executive director of the New York Industrial Retention Network (NYIRN), and before that as head of the Garment Industry Development Corporation. NYIRN was launched in 1997 by a coalition of community, labor and economic development organizations with support and guidance from the Pratt Center to keep manufacturing businesses and high quality manufacturing jobs in New York City.

One of the things I observed while at NYIRN was the challenge communities often faced as the never-ending development process seemed to unfold around them: How could communities come to a consensus on a vision and then what tools do communities have to advance that vision? What can be done to ensure that low- and moderate-income New Yorkers have economic opportunity, decent and affordable housing, and a chance to meaningfully participate in determining their neighborhoods' destinies? Luckily, this organization has a committed staff asking those questions and providing technical assistance, research and advocacy to help empower communities, just as this organization has since its inception in 1963.

Empowerment, control over one’s own destiny, is closely allied with our neighborhoods’ environmental and economic sustainability. Sustainability has always been deeply infused in Pratt’s Centers work, from promoting transportation equity through better bus service to low income communities to our collaboration with NYSERDA to help building owners and managers retrofit for energy efficiency. But it's clear the time has come to make an even deeper commitment to making sustainability a core focus of our work. Day after day, groups come to us asking for help with community-based sustainability plans; for assistance with weatherization; and guidance on the design of green community facilities.

Affordable housing, community and child care centers, accessible and efficient transportation, employment opportunities – these and other essential building blocks of healthy neighborhoods likely cannot endure unless they are built for a leaner and greener future. Public policy and spending priorities will also have to evolve to keep pace with new realities, and we will be out there advocating for necessary investments in the city's future.

Community development is evolving to reflect the imperative to reduce global warming and promote environmental stewardship. This will be a tremendous challenge for us all, but our goal here at the Pratt Center is to make sustainable community development as feasible as possible for groups of every size and budget – and to share the lessons we all learn along the way. As always throughout the Pratt Center's history, this organization is here to help New Yorkers overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles to their neighborhoods' vitality - together.




Helping Communities Build
People's Firehouse Reborn

Engine 212 - "The People's Firehouse" - served North Brooklyn for more than a century before becoming the site of a battle for the future of north Brooklyn as a cash-strapped city sought to shut it down and neighborhood residents fought to keep it open. Working with local groups, the Pratt Center is now helping transform the People's Firehouse into a community and cultural center. Built in 1869, Engine 212 was threatened with forced closure in the 1970s, even as New York City's poorest neighborhoods were suffering waves of arson. Community members rallied around the firehouse, occupying it for eighteen months until the City relented. They dubbed Engine 212 "The People's Firehouse" and continued to fight for tenants' rights and affordable housing in Williamsburg and Greenpoint through a new nonprofit organization, People's Firehouse, Inc.

More recent fights in Williamsburg and Greenpoint, over garbage trucking and then rezoning of the waterfront for high-rise luxury housing, spawned another advocacy group Neighbors Allied for Good Growth (NAG). NAG and People's Firehouse joined forces earlier this year to win a city contract to purchase and restore the old firehouse building. With the support of the Pratt Center, the storied building will reemerge as the Northside Town Hall Community and Cultural Center, a combined office and community space.

Pratt Center architects and real estate specialists are advising the organizations as they develop plans to transform the firehouse. The Pratt Center is serving as the project manager as design and construction get underway. We are also guiding the two nonprofits through the process of merging to create one new organization, with a single board of directors and strong base of funding support. Rebecca Reich, the Pratt Center's director of real estate, notes that People's Firehouse is moving to incorporate as a museum, where preserving the neighborhood's history will be part of its mission. "It brings an anchor of stability, a connection to the past," says Reich, noting that in the years since the firehouse's closure the neighborhood has seen further upheaval through displacement of longtime residents by young new arrivals to the neighborhood and city. In a neighborhood increasingly short on inclusive and accessible community gathering places, Northside Town Hall will provide flexible space for community functions, such as meetings, performances, and job training, and serve as a focal point for civic action.




Community Planning
Ending East New York's Shopping Drought

The Pratt Center recently completed a retail study of East New York for the Local Development Corporation of East New York, which is seeking opportunities to expand retail and services in some of Brooklyn’s most inadequately served shopping districts. As much as 70 percent of residents’ spending on retail goods takes place outside of the neighborhood, draining economic activity from an area that urgently needs it. The study identifies many indicators of increased demand for retail services in East New York, including population growth, rising levels of disposable income, and declines in crime. In all, the neighborhood has $171 million in annual purchasing power, but only about one-fifth of the retail services it needs and can support.

As part of the study, the Pratt Center surveyed storefronts along four shopping strips that cross Pennsylvania Avenue, the traffic-heavy spine connecting the Belt and Jackie Robinson parkways: Pitkin, Sutter, Livonia, and New Lots avenues. The survey determined that important shopping categories, including drugstores, were largely absent from the neighborhood.

One notable finding was that East New York has recently seen the arrival of four supermarkets, in areas identified by the Department of City Planning as “food deserts.” Previously, residents in these areas had to rely on bodegas and convenience stores, leading to excessive spending on food and a lack of fresh and nutritious options. These new grocery stores are not just important assets in their own right; as the report recommends, they can serve as anchors that attract other retailers to locate nearby.

Supermarket chains “picked up on the same thing we picked up on in this report: there’s cheap land here, and an underserved market,” says community planner Michael Epp, who worked on the project. “Grocery stores can attract compatible uses – convenience-minded establishments selling something complementary,” such as baked goods or fresh fish. East New York’s small storefronts – 500 square feet is typical – lend themselves to such establishments.

The report’s other recommendations include setting up temporary markets in vacant lots, improving streetscapes to make the shopping districts more attractive, active recruitment of chain and independent retailers, and the establishment of a community-wide merchants’ association.




Community Planning
Coney Island for All Yields Community Gains

In July, the Bloomberg administration's redevelopment plan for Coney Island's amusement district went before the City Council for a hearing and vote. The zoning proposal allows for the development of hundreds of new units of housing adjoining the legendary amusement area, as well as new entertainment attractions. Coney Island for All, a coalition of community and labor groups that includes the Pratt Center, succesfully demanded that the project guarantee good jobs and affordable housing for a neighborhood that urgently needs both. The zoning plan passed by the council reflects those concerns: It calls for nearly 35 percent of new housing units to be affordable at a range of incomes, up from 20 percent in the Bloomberg administration's original proposal. It also includes local hiring guarantees for some of the expected 25,000 construction and 6,000 permanent jobs to be created in retail, building services, hotels and supermarkets.

As groundwork for the campaign, the Pratt Center analyzed the administration's zoning proposal and developed a proposal for amending it to include more affordable housing, community facilities, and much-needed retail services, including a full-service supermarket. It also presented a concept for expanding the amusement area, which would shrink under the administration's plan, and recommended measures to preserve of Coney Island's amusement zone as an affordable and accessible place for all New Yorkers to enjoy.

Matt Ryan of New York Jobs with Justice, which convened the community/labor coalition, says the Pratt Center's assessment of the city's proposal provided an essential foundation for the counterproposal and the organizing in support of it, but that ultimately the partnership provided much more than research. "The Pratt Center was able to collaborate with diverse worker and community organizations," he says. "They understood how to turn analysis into action."




Helping Communities Build
Retrofit Bedford Stuyvesant Blooms

Through Retrofit Bedford Stuyvesant, the Pratt Center and Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation are moving to make Bedford Stuyvesant a model for making New York City neighborhoods environmentally sustainable. They're getting crucial help from Justice Corps, a project of Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation that eases formerly incarcerated young people back into the workforce. Justice Corps participants are currently upgrading United Herkimer Community Garden at the corner of Herkimer Street and Nostrand Avenue, removing garbage, building planters, laying a floor, creating a children’s area, painting a mural, and more.

Restoration has hired three Justice Corps members so far in permanent positions with their Weatherization Assistance Program and to work on the next phase of Retrofit Bedford Stuyvesant: Block by Block: auditing homes along a two-block stretch of Herkimer Street to identify opportunities for improving energy efficiency, including window repairs, weatherstripping, insulation, and heating system upgrades. Retrofit Bedford Stuyvesant also helps property owners identify sources of financial assistance for energy upgrades, such as the Weatherization Assistance Program and NYSERDA's Home Performance with Energy Star.

Retrofit Bedford Stuyvesant is currently scheduling energy audits with homeowners, to be followed by energy efficiency upgrades.




Sustainability and Environmental Justice
Bus Rapid Transit Goes Public

In May and June, the two government agencies working to bring bus rapid transit to New York City – the New York City Department of Transportation and Metropolitan Transportation Authority – held a series of community workshops to obtain public input on how to make the new transportation mode work for neighborhoods. The plans for citywide rollout of bus rapid transit, and the public opportunities for community input, both follow the recommendations of the Pratt Center and Communities United for Transportation Equity, or COMMUTE, which have been advocating officials to ensure the new system serves the New Yorkers who most urgently need more dependable transportation options – those who must ride an hour or more each way to work, for low wages.

COMMUTE turned out members to the workshops to voice support for BRT and identify issues to be addressed in its implementation, including opportunities to connect major centers of employment and the need for outer-borough routes to enter Manhattan. In support of this advocacy, the Pratt Center produced analyses and maps showing optimal routes serving the transit needs of underserved constituencies. COMMUTE’s proposed citywide route network connects major places of employment, such as hospitals and industrial parks, with neighborhoods whose workforces are heavily represented in the professions that work there. While DOT and MTA have yet to propose a full citywide network, starting instead with one pilot route in each borough, the areas currently under study for future expansion closely align with those proposed by the Pratt Center and COMMUTE.

The Pratt Center and COMMUTE are now working to ensure that BRT receives dedicated funding in the MTA’s next capital plan, which will be released in October. BRT will also require cooperation from the state legislature through approval for bus lane enforcement cameras. Currently, New York City is running a preliminary form of bus rapid transit, known as Select Bus Service, along Fordham Road in the Bronx.

COMMUTE member Anna Vincenty of the Bronx organization Nos Quedamos participated in the workshops and shared her views with WNYC radio, which did a special series on BRT’s arrival in New York City. Of her own commute, she said, “It takes me almost two hours, but if I take my car, 20 minutes But if I had a BRT, ba-da boom!”




Sustainability and Environmental Justice
Bronx Park Wins Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence

In June, Hunts Point Riverside Park was honored with a Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence. Formerly vacant land used as an illegal dump, the park emerged as a result of community planning and advocacy facilitated by the Pratt Center with The Point CDC and Sustainable South Bronx. When the park opened in 2007, it provided the only public access to the Bronx River, which cuts through the borough from Long Island Sound to Westchester. As chair of the Bronx River Alliance, a collaboration between groups working to connect the river back to the community, the Pratt Center's Joan Byron accepted the award alongside community leaders who collaborated in the creation of the park, which is part of the emerging Bronx River Greenway.

The Bronx River Alliance will use the $10,000 Silver Medal award to help complete the greenway, which when completed will be an uninterrupted eight-mile series of parks and bike paths anchored by the Hunts Point park on its southern end and extending to the Westchester border. The greenway, slated for completion in 2012, provides surrounding neighborhoods with green space and river access, resources they have long lacked. Another reclaimed space along the river, Concrete Plant Park, is scheduled to open later this year. The Pratt Center continues to work with the Bronx River Alliance on the completion of the greenway, building on its collaboration with The Point and Sustainable South Bronx on the community plan for Hunts Point Riverside Park, which city agencies eventually incorporated into an official Hunts Point Vision Plan.

The awards committee commended the park's partners for providing usable open space to a densely populated and underserved community, initiating public recreational access to the Bronx River, and implementing effective landscape design in an area sandwiched between a scrap metal facility and the world's largest food distribution center. At the ceremony, Byron commented, "Hunts Point Riverside Park powerfully demonstrates how environmental justice organizations, communities and government can work together to effect far-reaching change, and, in particular, how those forces have joined to reclaim the Bronx River as a community asset."