Events

Robert Caro, Pulitzer-Prize winning author of The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York (Knopf, 1974) and the three-volume The Years of Lyndon Johnson, will offer reflections on the career of Robert Moses three decades after the publication of his seminal biography.

You're planning on attending the 2007 Annual Polis Conference: Innovation in Local Transport for Attractive Cities and Regions and you've already booked your hotel room.

For those considering attending the 2007 Annual Polis Conference: Innovation in Local Transport for Attractive Cities and Regions in Toulouse, France in March: Toulouse has a very low hotel capacity. Several rooms have been pre-booked by Polis until today. Conference organizers therefore kindly advise all participants to book their hotel rooms before that date. While booking, do not forget to mention that you are a participant to the Polis Annual Conference!

Focusing on the planned Atlantic Yards development in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, this spirited documentary film reviews how the project gained approval, its potential impact on Brooklyn, and the politics surrounding one of the largest development proposals in the city’s history. The documentary — featuring candid interviews, strong opinions and lively characters — is an insightful and sometimes startling view of how land-use decisions are made. A discussion will follow.

On January 18, 2007, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum will host a panel discussion as part of Taxi 07, the Design Trust program aiming to reinvent the NYC taxi and taxi system. This coming spring, Taxi 07 will mount an exhibit at the NY International Auto Show, demonstrating an improved taxi and taxi system. New York's top design minds have been invited to contribute to the exhibit. This panel discussion, "Transforming an Icon," will explore how the designers approach their task of improving a globally recognized icon.

National Parks are a distinctively American idea, but it takes people to make them happen. Amy Meyer, co-chair of People for a Golden Gate Recreation Area, and author of the recent book New Guardians for the Golden Gate: How America got a Great National Park, will discuss how Bay Area activists succeeded in preserving all of the spectacular land that frames the Golden Gate Bridge. A panel of New York Harbor District advocates will then consider the lessons learned from this success story and how they can be applied locally. Sponsored by the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance and Urban Center Books.

The Gansevoort Market Historic District attracts new visitors and businesses every day. This makes the neighborhood vibrant and exciting. But it also adds pressures to the streets and sidewalks. You can help make the neighborhood safer for pedestrians, more efficient for vehicular traffic, and more attractive to the public at large. Please join the Greater Gansevoort Urban Improvement Project for a community workshop. The project is asking for public input, as part of a larger planning study that seeks to find balanced solutions to our transportation challenges and aims to maximize the public value of the area's unusual historic streets and sidewalks. The workshop will be led by the Regional Plan Association, with a presentation by the Sam Schwartz Company. All ideas are welcome.

Governors Island Alliance and the AIA New York Chapter, APA New York Metro Chapter and the New York Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects, in association with the Governors Island Preservation and Education Corporation (GIPEC) and Governors Island National Monument are pleased to invite you to a forum on the development of the parks and public spaces on Governors Island. The forum will feature discussions on design opportunities and challenges, the interaction of public and private spaces, and creative programming, at a time when GIPEC is launching its design competition for the Island’s parks and public spaces.

Project for Public Spaces will lead teams of residents on a field trip to key intersections in Hells Kitchen, where the participants will propose solutions to redesign the blocks.