Jan Gehl

“A Perverse Allocation of Public Space on the Upper West Side”

As we lead up to next Tuesday's big Upper West Side Streets Renaissance workshop with Jan Gehl (have you submitted your RSVP yet?) here is another StreetFilm delving in to the kinds of issues we hope to be talking about.

By Aaron Naparstek

4:00 PM EDT on November 2, 2007

As we lead up to next Tuesday’s big Upper West Side Streets Renaissance workshop with Jan Gehl (have you submitted your RSVP yet?) here is another StreetFilm delving in to the kinds of issues we hope to be talking about.

In this segment, Upper West Siders Mark Gorton and Lisa Sladkus briefly examine just how much of our city’s valuable and limited public space has been dedicated to the storage and movement of motor vehicles and how diminished pedestrian spaces impact our sense of community.

Summing it up in terms that even the simplest hedge fund manager would understand, Gorton says, “We have a
perverse allocation of public space on the Upper West Side and it needs to be
changed.”

It doesn’t have to be this way, folks. Come out on Tuesday and work with your neighbors to envision and shape a new direction for New York City’s streets and public spaces:

Tuesday, November 6th, 2007
The Jewish Community Center
334 Amsterdam Avenue at West 76th Street
5:30–7:00 Opening Reception
7:00–8:30 Presentation and Workshop

Aaron Naparstek

Aaron Naparstek is the founder and former editor-in-chief of Streetsblog. Based in Brooklyn, New York, Naparstek's 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. He was also one of the original cast members of the "War on Cars" podcast. You can find more of his work on his website.