The Grand Army Plaza Coalition (GAPCo) and the Design Trust for Public Space are launching an "Ideas Competition" called Reinventing Grand Army Plaza. Building on GAPCo's on-goingeffort to re-envision this historic Brooklyn crossroads, the Ideas Competition will solicit new, creative proposals for Grand Army Plaza's re-design. Top submissions will be exhibited in the summer of 2008 at the Brooklyn Public Library or the Brooklyn Museum of Art.
To document GAPCo's progress to date, the existing context of the Plaza and the competition's goals and aspirations, GAPCo is creating a Briefing Booklet for competition entrants and they want your thoughts, ideas, hopes, frustrations and visions for Grand Army Plaza represented in this publication. The briefing booklet will quote from responses to this questionnaire. Please answer the following questions by December 20, 2007.
What about Grand Army Plaza currently functions well?
What existing problems could be addressed by a Plaza re-design?
What potential uses or opportunities for the Plaza might a Plaza re-design incorporate?
Please include your name, organization/affiliation, neighborhood and contact information in your response.
AARON NAPARSTEK is the founder and former editor-in-chief of Streetsblog. Based in Brooklyn, New York, Naparsteks journalism, advocacy and community organizing work has been instrumental in growing the bicycle network, removing motor vehicles from parks, and developing new public plazas, car-free streets and life-saving traffic-calming measures across all five boroughs. Naparstek is the author of "Honku: The Zen Antidote for Road Rage" (Villard, 2003), a book of humorous haiku poetry inspired by the endless motorist sociopathy observed from his apartment window. Prior to launching Streetsblog, Naparstek worked as an interactive media producer, pioneering some of the Web's first music web sites, online communities, live webcasts and social networking services. Naparstek is currently in Cambridge with his wife and two young sons where he is enjoying a Loeb Fellowship at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design. He has a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and a bachelor's degree from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Naparstek is a co-founder of the Park Slope Neighbors community group and the Grand Army Plaza Coalition. You can find more of his work here: http://www.naparstek.com.