Most New Yorkers associate the New York City Housing Authority with the hulking brick towers of its “projects,” but NYCHA also controls many acres of greenery throughout the five boroughs.
Now Hunter Professor of Urban Policy and Planning Nicholas Dagen Bloom and New York Institute of Design Architecture Professor Matthias Altwicker have illuminated the importance of these urban oases in an exhibition.
“Living in the Shade: NYCHA Open Space Past, Present, and Future” highlights the significance of open space in the lives of the millions of public-housing residents who have resided in NYCHA buildings since the first development opened in 1934.
The nation’s largest public-housing authority and home to 400,000 New Yorkers, NYCHA has distinguished itself from other city’s public housing through its promotion of landscape design and management, active recreation, and community programs.
“Most New Yorkers don’t realize just how important an asset NYCHA open spaces are for residents, or how additional investment could make them valuable green spaces for the entire city,” Bloom said.
According to Bloom, starting in the 1930s, NYCHA created verdant areas that, at their best, still offer natural beauty and space for play, community life, and relaxation.
The exhibition traces the evolution of the 1930s designs, which were influenced by European worker housing, to the postwar superblock strategies, the famous, futuristic “towers in the park” dotting city boroughs.
Bloom and Altwicker look at how early efforts to integrate nature into the developments evolved to meet residents’ changing needs, especially as sports facilities became popular in the 1950s and beyond.
“Living in the Shade” assesses the successes and failures of NYCHA landscaping strategies and shows how successive generations of residents, administrators, and designers have re-envisioned NYCHA open spaces as sites for parks, playgrounds, public art, climate resilience, farming, and more.
The exhibition features large-scale models of NYCHA developments, photographs, renderings, site plans, and testimony. It runs from January 9 to May 23, opening at the FXCollaborative Gallery in Brooklyn, and moving later to LaGuardia Community College in Queens.
The exhibition is sponsored by Hunter College’s Urban Policy & Planning Program, New York Institute of Technology’s School of Architecture and Design, the Public Housing Community Fund, Laguardia Community College’s Laguardia and Wagner Archives, and the FXCollaborative Gallery.
FXCollaborative Gallery
1 Willoughby Square, 7th Floor
Brooklyn
January 9 to February 27
(Viewing by appointment during business hours. Please call (212) 627-1700.)
LaGuardia Community College
31-10 Thomson Avenue
Long Island City
March 27 to May 23
