Dispatches

A year of confinement and circumscription, 2020 has altered New Yorkers’  relationship to place. KC Trommer, Nadia Q. Ahmad and Jared Harél are  better equipped than most to capture this state of heightened  site-specificity. The three writers are, respectively, the founder and  board members of Queensbound, a collaborative effort to showcase poets from the eponymous borough. Launched in 2018, the project maps individual writings onto subway stops throughout Queens, reframing  the connective tissue of public space as something with a deeper  emotional resonance. Conceived as a blend of audio recordings, in-situ  readings, and other live events, like most things this year, Queensbound  has lived more online than in physical space. Yet to hear Trommer,  Ahmad, and Harél tell it, the spirit of public space — those  negotiations and celebrations of difference; those struggles and joys of  common pursuit — remains much more than a literary device. Along with  works by Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond, Meera Nair, and Malcolm Chang, we hear  about what it means to bring poetry to the people of Queens, whether by  train or web browser. https://urbanomnibus.net/2020/12/poetry-for-the-people-in-public-spaces/

Contrary to certain “ghostly” claims,  at the close of a year that’s upended urban life as we know it, New  York City has, to a large degree, managed to adapt. New Yorkers’  expectations have adjusted to all sorts of new normals: social  distancing; remote working and learning; (semi-)open streets and  permanent sidewalk dining. It’s almost easy to forget the sheer  confusion of navigating and negotiating space which marked the early  days of the pandemic. Almost. For Mark Dicus of the  SoHo Broadway Initiative, that inflection point — March 16, 2020 to be  exact — ushered in a radically-altered streetscape along one of New York  City’s most heavily-trafficked pedestrian corridors. From shutdowns and  boarded-up stores, to protests and looting, SoHo (along with other  destination neighborhoods) has seen more than its fair share of jarring  contrasts in 2020. Amid a cautious reopening, Dicus reflects on the  dramatic changes he’s witnessed, and how the public realm will play a  key role in the recovery of a neighborhood — and city — whose future  remains an open question.

For a year spent locking down, there’s been an awful lot of talk  about moving. New Yorkers are supposedly fleeing the city in droves (or  so the story goes). The flipside of this narrative, of course, is forced  removal: a looming eviction crisis that is set to disproportionately  impact the city’s most vulnerable. Amid the upheaval, a long-standing  arts organization is settling into a new space in Bedford-Stuyvesant —  and engaging directly with what it means to put down roots in a  neighborhood undergoing contentious changes. The Laundromat Project may have started as an itinerant endeavor, but  it’s always been anchored in the city’s communities of color. Through  fellowships, residencies, and place-based art projects (many hosted by  actual laundromats), the Laundromat Project has been supporting artists  whose work deals with site-specific issues impacting the city’s Black  and brown residents: gentrification and displacement; policing and  community safety; climate change and food injustice. For the last five  years, the organization been sharing space in a two-bedroom-apartment-turned-community-hub in the South Bronx; but when it came time to find a more permanent home,  they looked to their own history. Founded 15 years ago in Bed-Stuy, the  Laundromat Project is returning to set up shop in a storefront on  Fulton Street. We hear from the LP’s Hatuey Ramos-Fermin, Cievel Xicotenchatl and Erica Rawles about the challenges of moving in and meeting the neighbors in the  short term, and how they are working to build a shared vision with their  community for the next ten years.

As surely as a public health crisis shakes the  foundation of a society, incarceration demolishes the infrastructure of a  life. Housing is lost and jobs dry up. The relationships and encounters  that formed the basis of an essential network of support are disrupted.  The impossible tradeoffs faced by coronavirus-stricken cities — between  the long-term damage of a stalled economy and the human costs of  “opening up” — also echo. When judges set bail, people awaiting trial  and their loved ones must choose whether to purchase freedom at a steep  price or face confinement for months, even years. In New York, where  bail can reach into the tens and even hundreds of thousands of dollars,  this choice is often only nominal for the poor, Black and brown men who  largely populate pretrial detention. (A law reforming New York’s cash  bail system went into effect in January, but a subsequent amendment in  April restricted the reform’s effects.) During the coronavirus  pandemic, more than analogy has come to link those touched by “the  system” and those outside its grasp. Though incarceration operates  through removal and isolation, the virus is undeterred by barbed wire.  As the case rate in the rest of New York City has declined, the pandemic  churns on inside city jails. Infections cycle between prisoners and  guards, who cycle in turn between the jails and the neighborhoods they  call home. Meanwhile, as revenue streams dry up, local governments  across the US are faced with a stark zero-sum reality that has  policymakers and communities clamoring to defund law enforcement on the  basis of its balance sheet, let alone its manifold abuses. Rising  awareness of these crises-within-a-crisis converges with the raised  profile of prison abolitionists and the collectivist energy of the  protest movement. The result is a proliferation of bail-out efforts:  mutual aid networks that use crowd-sourced funds to put abolitionist  principles into literal practice, freeing as many people from pretrial  detention as they can. In New York City, the money comes from the  pockets of individual donors throughout the US, Canada, Europe, and  Australia and is hand-delivered by local volunteers to Department of  Correction facilities across the city. The act of paying bail for a  stranger is quietly radical, refusing the system’s punitive logic and  forging community from cashier’s checks and electronic transfers. But  for COVID Bail Out NYC, simply getting people out of prison isn’t  enough. With a focus on breaking the medically vulnerable out of jail,  this local group extends an abolitionist ethic of “Care Not Cops” to  provide not only cash bail, but also housing, food, cell-phones, medical  attention, and even job connections to people caught in detention’s  net. In July, I shadowed volunteer Brian Lee as he went to pay bail at  the Brooklyn Detention Complex, and spoke with organizers M.J. Williams  and Gabriella Ferrara about what securing someone else’s freedom really  means.  https://urbanomnibus.net/2020/09/were-about-getting-people-free-period/

There’s something different about New York City streets these days. As  the Department of Transportation expands the scope of its Open Streets program (with mixed results), more than 7,500 restaurants have been spilling out onto sidewalks and parking spots across the city. Many New Yorkers continue to spurn the subway, driving a surge in ridership on the city’s bus system, while those avoiding public transit altogether flock to the city’s bicycle shops (and Citi Bike docking stations) in record numbers. The reconfiguration  of both streetscapes and transportation habits, for the time being at  least, has opened up new possibilities for how people move through the  city. Amanda Schachter and Alexander Levi of SLO Architecture are hoping that moment lasts. The guest editors of our City of Cycling series, they have been working to reimagine the landscape of  micro-mobility for years. While recent, large-scale proposals such as  the Queens Ribbon attempt to galvanize bold visions of a car-free future, SLO argues that the infrastructure for more just and accessible modes of motion already lies beneath our feet. https://urbanomnibus.net/2020/07/theres-a-difference-between-tactical-and-shortsighted/

In New York City, the spread of the novel coronavirus has closely  tracked the geography of segregation. Though its long-term consequences  for public and economic health remain unknown, its immediate threat to  the city’s most vulnerable became clear within days. Thousands found  themselves suddenly out of work, sick, or housebound, and unable to make  rent, buy groceries, or pay medical bills. In the face of skyrocketing  need, as well as the striking inadequacy of the governmental response,  New Yorkers have come together to hold one another up and, above all,  keep one another fed. Dozens of so-called “mutual aid” networks have  proliferated throughout the city’s neighborhoods since mid-March. Part  mobile food pantry, part virtual block party, and part political  education collective, a mutual aid network allows socially-distanced  neighbors to pool human and economic resources, plan actions, and forge  bonds. Declaring “solidarity, not charity,” collaborators have found one  another through Slack and Facebook groups, phone trees, and flyers taped  to front doors. They’ve navigated practical questions as well as  existential ones, charting routes between grocery drop-offs and choosing  software to log requests even as they confront the power dynamics of  giving and receiving help in a deeply unequal city. And in the last two  weeks, as the frame of the crisis has widened to include the violence  suffered by Black and brown neighbors at the hands of the police, care  within the newly organized “beloved community” has evolved as well.  Members of mutual aid networks have been out in force, delivering PPE,  food, and water to the protests’ front lines, manning jail support  stations, and shuttling curfew-breakers home. Scott Heins and Cat Zhang were both  early organizers of Crown Heights Mutual Aid, and now function as  administrators and stewards of the group’s long-term vision — though  both are quick to emphasize its horizontal, leaderless structure. Moné Makkawi is one of a small army of shoppers, drivers, and bicyclists putting  food, medicine, and other essentials in the hands — or on the stoops —  of their neighbors-in-need. To date, the network has completed more than  1700 grocery deliveries to families throughout Crown Heights, as well  as adjacent neighborhoods like Flatlands, Canarsie, and East New York.  Over the course of a few days in early May, I spoke with Scott, Cat, and  Moné about the rapidly-evolving landscape of care, the importance of  staying local, and the challenge of being in it for the long haul.  https://urbanomnibus.net/2020/06/everyone-has-something-to-give-everyone-has-something-that-they-need/

The amount of time spent indoors these days has prompted a great  deal of introspection about New York City’s housing landscape. While some enjoy living space in abundance, or have just enough, many others  are forced to reckon with crowded quarters that don’t easily meet the  demands of quarantine or social distance (and exacerbate cabin fever  among family members or roommates). As debate swirls around the supposed perils of density,  complex questions lurk behind the measure of this single metric. Who  actually lives in New York City, and does the housing stock meet their  needs? Sarah Watson of the Citizens Housing and Planning Council talks about crafting policy that addresses the fundamental intersection of public health and  private home, and the urgency to build and adapt dwellings that are more  than just affordable, but reflect how we live — alone or together.  https://urbanomnibus.net/2020/05/what-people-need-and-what-the-stock-provides/

Flocking to parks seeking comfort and escape,  New Yorkers are finding  controversy instead. Warmer temperatures bring people outdoors and too  close together, leading to stricter limitations on access to open space combined with a greater police presence.  Though it has seen its share of crowds in recent weeks, Prospect Park  has been spared this level of enforcement (for now). True to its  original design as a refuge from the toils of 19th century urban life,  the park’s sheer size and variety of landscapes offers space for  recreation to be sure, but also contemplation. While in-person tours are  on hold for now, landscape historian and tour guide Kate Papacosma  leads us through some of the expansive meadows and more hidden pleasures  of Prospect Park, while highlighting the importance of protecting what  some may call a crucial public health infrastructure, or simply a place  of healing in a wounded city.  https://urbanomnibus.net/2020/05/the-world-inverted/

There are few precedents for understanding the current pandemic; it’s  not exactly the kind of disaster we’ve been expecting. But long immersed  in the city’s interconnected ecologies and infrastructures, the New  School’s Urban Systems Lab is  exploring how many of the key indicators of vulnerability to this crisis  overlap with those of another: climate change. With the approach of  summer’s heat, continued efforts to contain the virus will place  particular pressures on the city’s most vulnerable. We heard from the  Lab’s Timon McPhearson, Christopher Kennedy, and Luis Ortiz about their  efforts to gather the information that matters most now, and make it  useful to policymakers and communities trying to find solutions in a  complex and ever-shifting situation.  https://urbanomnibus.net/2020/04/making-science-actionable/

One pillar holding up the socially distanced city is the Internet. But  under the strain of migrating so much of our work, education, and  leisure online, telecommunications networks could use a failsafe; and in  the best of times, reliable internet is hardly accessible to all. For  the first installment of our new audio Dispatch series, we catch up with  Greta Byrum of Community Tech NY as she sets up a local internet hotspot for her building. Against a  persistent “digital divide,” Byrum talks about the importance of  grassroots digital networks in keeping people connected during disasters  — and how they might point the way forward to a more equitable and  community-driven technological future.  https://urbanomnibus.net/2020/04/communications-con-carino/