Neighborhood activists, professional planners, and experienced advocates gathered this week at the New-York Historical Society to share their secrets on how New Yorkers can transform the public realm. The event was hosted by NYC Streets Renaissance and was moderated by Streetsblog editor Aaron Naparstek. Here are some of their thoughts.
Panelists included:
Christine Berthet (Clinton Hells Kitchen Coalition for Pedestrian Safety)
Joshua David (Friends of the High Line)
Penny Lee (Department of City Planning)
Milton Puryear (Brooklyn Greenway Initiative)
Paul Steely White (Transportation Alternatives)
Robert Witherwax (Grand Army Plaza Coalition)
Chauncy Young (Highbridge Community Life Center)
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Milton Puryear:</i>
[00:00] I’m Milton Puryear of Brooklyn Greenway Initiative.</font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Chauncey Young:</i>
[00:003] Chauncey Young, I’m a community educational organiser with
United Parents of Highbridge and the Highbridge Community Life Centre. </font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Joshua David:</i>
[00:09] I’m Joshua David. I’m one of the co-founders of Friends
of the High Line. </font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Robert Witherwax:</i>
[00:13] My name is Robert Witherwax and I’m with the Grand Army Plaza
Coalition.</font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Christine Berthet:</i>
[00:16] My name is Christine Berthet. My organisation is CHEKPEDS,
the Clinton Hells Kitchen Coalition for Pedestrian Safety.</font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Penny Lee:</i> [00:24]
I’m Penny Lee, I’m the planner for Long Island City with the Queens
office of the New York City Department of City Planning. </font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Paul Steely White:</i>
[00:31] I’m Paul Steely White, Executive Director of Transportation
Alternatives.</font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Lily Bernheimer:</i>
[00:33] We have a great panel of speakers, community organisers, from
all across the city and we’re going to be hearing their secrets for
success, how they’ve organised their community’s neighbourhood.</font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Christine Berthet:</i>
[00:44] The key aspect of the project was originally to go from negative
to positive, very against something and transform it into something
that everybody can rally and be for. </font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Robert Witherwax:</i>
[00:56] Does this represent the community that we are trying to represent?
And I think that’s key cos without it you can’t do anything.</font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Milton Puryear:</i>
[01:02] I believe success come from aggregating interest. The
more people you get who want the same thing, or who can use the same
thing to get what they want. Some of them want it, some of them
can use it, but the more you bring people together whose interest coincides,
the more successful you’ll be. </font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Chauncey Young:</i>
[01:23] The meeting tonight really brought together a lot of different
diverse groups with different ideas on… on how we can make changes
in our own communities, and I think really the strength is the connections. </font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Joshua David:</i>
[01:34] The most important thing is just to go out there and start to
raise a flag and say this is an important idea, this is something that
we have to do, there’s… it’s part of a great vision for the future
of New York City. We’re really fortunate, I think the room that
we were in tonight really shows it, that people in this city really
care about making New York City a better place. </font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Milton Puryear:</i>
[01:55] You know, to be noticed, you really do have to have genuine
relationships in a broad coalition. </font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Penny Lee:</i> [02:02]
City agencies generally are nice people and want to do something and
if we’re presented with a good project, nine times out of ten we’re
willing to take a look at it. And it goes to what some of the
panellists were talking about earlier tonight, which is that it’s
a lot easier to support something that’s positive.</font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><i>Paul Steely White:</i>
[02:21] Tonight we had a packed house. Everyone’s completely
motivated to change their streets and reclaim street space for bicycles
and pedestrians and it’s [unintelligible 02:31], I mean you can feel
things are happening. It’s winter in New York but spring is
just around the corner and we’re going to see more street action this
year than ever before. </font> <br></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">[music]</font> <br></p>
http://transcriptdivas.ca/transcription-canada/