Coming Saturday, May 7: a Jane's Walk around the Atlantic Yards site and environs

The Municipal Art Society, along with Jane's Walk USA, is sponsoring a series of free walking tours in New York City on the first weekend in May, including a walk I'll lead of the Atlantic Yards site and environs. (I co-led such a tour in 2007.)

What's a Jane's Walk?

Jane’s Walk USA is a series of free neighborhood walking tours that helps put people in touch with their environment and with each other, by bridging social and geographic gaps and creating a space for cities to discover themselves. Since its inception in 2007, Jane’s Walk has happened in cities across North America, and is growing internationally.

Jane’s Walk USA honors the legacy and ideas of urban activist and writer Jane Jacobs who championed the interests of local residents and pedestrians over a car-centered approach to planning.

The description

Atlantic Yards, Brooklyn’s Most Controversial Development

Understand the context of Brooklyn’s most controversial development project, with Norman Oder, the journalist behind the Atlantic Yards Report and veteran New York City tour guide. The walk begins at the edge of Downtown Brooklyn, where one of the borough’s tallest buildings has been converted to luxury condos, dips into revitalized Fort Greene, and looks at decades of urban redevelopment before traversing the Atlantic Yards footprint itself in Prospect Heights.

The Barclays Center arena is going up, but the rest of the project remains in question. Thus, the tour provides an opportunity to discuss the challenge of fitting an arena into an area that bridges low-rise Brooklyn and edge of Downtown Brooklyn, and the plans for space adjacent to the arena. Beyond that, the tour will traverse the 22-acre site beyond the arena block, looking at, among other things, a planned superblock, historic preservation and conversion in the area, and plans for indefinite interim surface parking.

The history of Atlantic Yards also will be discussed, including the initial designs by Frank Gehry, the legal challenges, and promises of jobs/affordable housing.

Date: Saturday May 7, 2011
Time: 1:30pm-3:30pm

Begin: outside One Hanson Place (aka Williamsburgh Savings Bank), near the intersection of Hanson Place and Flatbush Avenue. (Take 2/3/4/5/D/N/Q/R to Atlantic Avenue/Pacific Street stop.)

End: Dean Street and Vanderbilt Avenue, within walking distance of 2/3 stop at Grand Army Plaza or A/C stop at Clinton/Washington.

Host: Norman Oder
Host Organization: Atlantic Yards Report/New York Like a Native

Contact info:
No need to sign up for this event . . . just show up at the meeting place listed above.

For questions please email:
AtlanticYardsReport@hotmail.com

Note: because there's no cap on the audience, the crowd could be large. We'll be making several stops to look around, so as attendees will be reminded, please be respectful of others using the sidewalks and streets.