CIVIC
ACTION:

A FORESEEABLE FUTURE
FOR TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
LONG ISLAND CITY

In the mid-eighties, Isamu Noguchi and Mark di Suvero transformed a blighted patch of L.I.C. waterfront into a museum and a sculpture park. Twenty-five years later, big box stores and luxury condos moved in, replacing artist studios and low-income housing. In response to the fast-changing face of the neighborhood, the Noguchi Museum and Socrates Sculpture Park invited artists to reimagine this unique mixed-use corner of Queens, where commerce, industry, communities and art co-exist.

The four artist-led teams, comprised of architects, urban planners, designers, researchers and writers, studied the area. Walked, biked, and ran its perimeter. Surveyed its geography and learned its history. On view at Noguchi are the artists' plans, models and maps for building better communities - communities that are more efficient, more green, more self-sustaining, more biodiverse, more innovative.

Questions are raised throughout: Why is the area's waterfront inaccessible? How can industry become more green? Why can't the streets be more friendly to pedestrians and bikers? Why can't we repurpose ubiquitous city structures like scaffolding and telephone poles for civic outreach? How can urbanites become organic farmers?

The answers are meant to provoke change. Natalie Jeremijenko presents ways to improve environmental health, by using agBags, an urban farming system for any railing, double hung window, or parapet, greening 'no parking zones', building bridges for butterflies and bikes and salamander superhighways, and implementing zip lines for transporting goods & commuters too. Rirkrit Tiravinija proposes replacing Broadway's asphalt for grass pavers, recasting city streets into zones of D.I.Y. communal happenings and installing a Community Kitchen in Socrates Sculpture Park. George Trakas shows us how to build a promenade along the waterfront on existing remnants of original boardwalk. Mary Miss suggests establishing an arts initiated 'research district' to be activated by projects such as transposing scaffolding into vertical gardens, energy stacks into an air & water quality barometer and trucks into mobile studios. These are just a few of the notions. Now it's our turn to act. In the words of Noguchi: "...what I had learned previously - the quick ways of doing things - was all wrong. It is a search you have to enter - into yourself."

By Amy Smith-Stewart, Guest Curator

Solar Awning and projection system

Solar Awning aka—an example of distributed local power production, is an initial low-cost way for many people to begin an alternative power system for Long Island City (the major power-producing area for NYC) that doesn't degrade human and environmental health.

To do this inexpensively and in a participatory public experiment that enlists many people who many not know about voltage drops and AC/DC conversion, but who do care about children not suffering from asthma, and don't want to subject themselves to cardiovascular disease to turn on their lights—requires a low-risk, low barrier-to-entry module that can provide a direct experience of local power production.

The Solar Awning combines a small observable solar array with a solar projection system that uses the pinhole effect—similar to the images of the sun that dapple the underneath of trees—to create animations. These project onto sidewalks or built surfaces, creating images from sun-pixels that change image every five minutes (as the sun passes around the arc), and provides ambient monitoring of the solar power being generated. These can be customized to domestic or retail spaces, projecting images of choice. The map on the table illustrates the potential deployment of the south facing awnings that could aggregate to a distributed local solar power plant as an alternative to the concentrated giant power plants. If you don't want natural gas and fracking it is Up 2 U to explore the options.

From today's vantage point of Ravenswood, It is hard to imagine that here, along the water's edge, where Queens meets the rapid currents of the East River, there once existed a wealthy enclave that was deemed "the most elegant of the suburbs of New York." The above lithograph, by Nathaniel Currier, depicts Ravenswood of yesterday and helps us visualize the mansions and lavish gardens that once dotted the shore where we now find industrial façades of factories, remnants of the area's commercial manufacturing past.

A shell heap found at Stanford's Point (Vernon Blvd and 33rd Road) marks the 2,200-acre settlement of swampy woodland that the Native American's called "Matona." In 1652 William Hallett purchased this land for the price of 58 fathoms of wampum, 7 coats, 1 blanket and 4 kettles. Over 350 years later, the edge of Hallett's plantation is still visible along Welling Court, a street that once marked the perimeter of the property. Welling Court is also the oldest street in Ravenswood.

By the 19th century the rural feel of the area was changing as a wealthy influx from Manhattan brought visions for the future of the local landscape. Colonel Gibbs and Stephen Halsey were two such visionaries who imagined a new community on the shoreline of the East River. Buying up the farmland that had belonged to the Blackwell and Delafield families through the end of the Revolutionary War, these early developers built the beginnings of the elegant suburban communities of Ravenswood and Astoria. Over the next 50 years, the growing hamlets would attract the upper echelons of New York's merchants, bankers and politicians.

However, it was the brothers, Charles and Peter Roach, along with their business partner Samuel Throekmorton, who are really credited with having given Ravenswood its distinctive feel. Seeking to give the new community a reputation for architectural taste, and hoping to attract potential buyers, the Roach brothers and Throekmorton developed a plan for the waterfront using a series of architectural watercolors that they'd commissioned from the celebrated American architect, Alexander Jackson Davis, in 1836. The trio also mandated in the property deeds, the creation of a promenade along the shoreline that would bring waterfront access to the community.

Ravenswood's riverfront remains a defining characteristic, but it was also this valuable asset that ultimately lead to the expansive growth of industry in the area. By the end of the 19th century, mansions had been repurposed as factories and a residential community had given way to a commercial one. The Long Island Railroad that came to Hunter's Point in 1861 and the Queensboro Bridge built in 1909 brought with them the convenience of transportation, a need for services, and large immigrant communities. For almost a century manufacturing and mercantile industry thrived, but as the cost of doing business increased and factories were forced out of the city, Ravenswood once again began the process of returning to its residential roots. Around the same time, progressive developments, like the Queensbridge Housing Project, built in 1939, and the Astoria and Ravenswood Houses, built in 1951, endeavored to address the ills of Manhattan tenements and introduced a new community of blue-collar workers and middle class families amongst the warehouses.

The community continued to grow into the late 1970's, when many artists were attracted to Ravenswood due to the large industrial spaces with waterfront views, that were available to them for relatively low rent. Most notably, Isamu Noguchi and Mark di Suvero founded their studios in Ravenswood and created the Noguchi Museum and Socrates Sculpture Park respectively, attracting a new type of culture and turning a global eye towards community.

Like the tides that stir the waters off its shore, change is a part of the rhythm of Ravenswood. It is what once brought the wealthy who built their homes here. It is what attracted the manufacturers who grew their businesses along the waterfront. And most recently, change has introduced new residents to the community who amidst the strife of life in the projects, have produced modern day celebrities such as Lamar Odom, Ron Artest, Nas and Julie Dash. Today, Ravenswood continues the cadence of change and it is from this point of view that we look to the water's edge to imagine the future of its landscape.

Cultural History

3

1652 - Gov. Peter Stuyvesant

The parked truck is a ubiquitous feature of the Ravenswood landscape. Major truck routes run along Vernon Boulevard and Broadway, and many businesses value the neighborhood's location for its prime access to both Manhattan and regional transit networks. Trucks are an integral part of the commercial vitality of the neighborhood, but can be both a visual nuisance and major contributor to poor air quality. Often left idling in front of the Noguchi Museum entrance, how could the trucks be transformed into a positive presence?

The function of the trailer truck is reimagined by repurposing a familiar element into a flexible, mobile studio for CaLL collaborations. Whether using the typical container as is, or retrofitting it to meet the artists' and scientists' needs, the mobility of the truck studio allows for new ideas to be distributed throughout the city. Prototypes and methodologies can be showcased in the container, or the trailer can be opened up to become a mobile performance space in other neighborhoods.

City as Living Lab/Ravenswood: truck incubators

The smoke stacks of the Big Allis power plant are one of the most visually compelling and prominent features of the Ravenswood area. How can a modest transformation repurpose and give new meaning to them?

Words, lights and guage marks are added to the side of each stack, communicating the city's efforts to improve its efficiency and minimize its consumption. Throughout the city, a quick glance toward the stacks tells us what progress is being made, and how much more we can achieve.

City as Living Lab/ Ravenswood: big allis stacks

How can underutilized lots become socially and ecologically rich spaces that contribute to the overall health of the neighborhood? A variety of incentives and creative ownership structures could be tested, allowing businesses to aggregate their parking, thus freeing up some lots for other uses, or encouraging alternative programming when the lot is unused.

Costco's parking lot has waterfront access and a great view; could it become a nocturnal public space; what kind of ecological strategies could be installed to actually improve the East River's health? Underdeveloped lots could also be utilized as temporary tree and plant nurseries, locations for solar collectors, or developed as areas to encourage more diverse habitats.

If Only the City Could Speak: **public lot**

Simple to erect, inexpensive, and readily available, scaffolding is a common urban material that lends itself well to multiple, unexpected uses.

The scaffold structure becomes a vertical garden and weed wall, easily installed along side existing buildings. The scaffold structure is stocked with plant specimens curated from local abandoned lots; the garden re-frames these resilient species as worthy of study, assessment, and appreciation. Wild urban plants, typically dismissed as weeds, are increasingly being recognized as contributing important ecological value to cities. They are extremely well adapted to conditions that are often inhospitable to other plants, and many have historically been used for culinary or medicinal purposes. Familiar scaffolding serves as an armature for a simple water collection system: gathering rainwater from the adjacent building's roof, gutters bring water to the plants, and then down to a small rainwater garden at the ground.

If Only the City Could Speak: scaffold gardens

In an effort to bring the community to the water's edge, we seek to engage and encourage a dialogue with the property owners to unite the shoreline along the length of the Ravenswood-taking a cue from the civic-minded actions of local figures like Isamu Noguchi and Mark di Suvero, both of whom were drawn to the area as a place to make their art, but whose art has also become a part of the neighborhood in the form of cultural institutions. The Noguchi Museum and Socrates Sculpture Park have brought a global audience and with it a vision for the future of Ravenswood.

Reflecting on this legacy, we envision this neighborhood's waterfront as an asset not just to the wealthy elite and booming economy that once called it home, but for the people who live here now. Guided by the disheveled remnants of boardwalk and bulkheads visible at low tide, a pleasing public space could be created by shoring up this riprap with large slabs of granite pinned and interlinked for longevity. We propose that the water's edge be reunified into a publicly accessibly expanse. A river shoreline walk would bring attention to the variety of natural and manmade structures that once existed and the beauty of the place.

We include in our proposal thoughts for the inclusion of the immense TransCanada and Con Edison facilities. By adding subtle lighting and working with them to construct a public entry to the shore walk on the north side of 36th Avenue Bridge, they would not only improve their image in the community but also become an important link to the cultural future of neighborhood by connecting to Rainey Park, Costco, Socrates Sculpture Park, Mark di Suvero's studio and the Noguchi Museum in a united waterfront of Ravenswood.

— Amelia Black

The Solar Awning combines a small observable solar array with a solar pro-
jection system that uses the pinhole effect—similar to the images of the sun
that dapple the underneath of trees—to create animations. These project onto
sidewalks or built surfaces, creating images from sun-pixels that change im-
age every five minutes (as the sun passes around the arc), and provides am-
bient monitoring of the solar power being generated. These can be custom-
ized to domestic or retail spaces, projecting images of choice. The map on
the table illustrates the potential deployment of the south facing awnings that
could aggregate to a distributed local solar power plant as an alternative to the
concentrated giant power plants. If u don't want natural gas and fracking it is
Up 2 U to explore the options.

Plants improve indoor air quality and to remove common indoor air pollutants

* High efficiency LEDs will be tuned to the chlorophyll absorption spectrum

* Vegetation can diffuse LED light to create pleasant indoor lighting

## Why is the Greenlight necessary or relevant?

Though chemicals such as formaldehyde, benzene, and carbon monoxide are anathema to human health, plants can thrive on them, while also removing them from the air. Plants that top the clean-air list include peace lily, bamboo palm, English ivy, mums, and gerbera daisies, all of which are both easy to find and easy to care for, so even if you don't have a green thumb, you can still have a green home or office.

In response to the energy crisis, builders began making houses and offices as airtight as possible. While keeping temperature-controlled air in place, this approach reduced circulation. Combined with the modern use of synthetic materials, this contributed to what became known as Sick Building Syndrome.

where toxins found in synthetic materials become concentrated inside sealed buildings, making people feel sick. Symptoms usually include allergies, asthma, eye, nose and throat irritations, fatigue, headache, nervous-system disorders, respiratory congestion and sinus congestion.

Inadequate ventilation can lead to a build up of volatile organic chemicals such as formaldehyde, xylene/toluene, benzene, trichloroethylene, chloroform, ammonia, alcohols, and acetone.

Plants play an important role in controlling humidity and the volatile chemicals released by the leaves appear to be an important factor in controlling airborne microbes and mold spores in the surrounding air.

Formaldehyde most commonly found indoor air toxin. Top plants to reduce formaldehyde levels: Boston fern, Florist's mum, Gerbera Daisy, Dwarf date palm, Janet Craig, Bamboo palm, Kimberley queen fern. All work between the rates of 14-20 milligrams per hour for the Boston Fern. Formaldehyde is directly linked to eye, nose and throat irritation.

Plants actually improve their ability to remove air toxins with increased exposure time. Probably because the toxins are delivered via root systems to microbes in the soil which can then break down the chemicals.

Top plants to remove xylene and toluene: Areca palm, dwarf date palm, moth orchid.

CLINIC
AN ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH CLINIC + LAB

The Greenlight product is prescribed by the xdesign Environmental Health Clinic to introduce closed, coupled