Dispatches

About Dispatches

Urbanists of various stripes talk about what they are doing and how they are learning from the entangled crises of 2020. From Urban Omnibus. https://urbanomnibus.net

Publisher

Urban Omnibus

Category

society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

16 Apr 2020

Latest episode

3 Dec 2020

Latest episodes

10 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   3 Dec 2020

   Poetry for the People, in Public Spaces

   A year of confinement and circumscription, 2020 has altered New Yorkers’ relationship to place. KC Trommer, Nadia Q. Ahmad and Jared Harél are better equipped than most to capture this state of heightened site-specificity. The three writers are, respectively, the founder and board members of Queensbound, a collaborative effort to showcase poets from the eponymous borough. Launched in 2018, the project maps individual writings onto subway stops throughout Queens, reframing the connective tissue of public space as something with a deeper emotional resonance. Conceived as a blend of audio recordings, in-situ readings, and other live events, like most things this year, Queensbound has lived more online than in physical space. Yet to hear Trommer, Ahmad, and Harél tell it, the spirit of public space — those negotiations and celebrations of difference; those struggles and joys of common pursuit — remains much more than a literary device. Along with works by Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond, Meera Nair, and Malcolm Chang, we hear about what it means to bring poetry to the people of Queens, whether by train or web browser. https://urbanomnibus.net/2020/12/poetry-for-the-people-in-public-spaces/

2. 

   29 Oct 2020

   This Is What We’re Seeing, This Is What We’re Not Seeing

   Contrary to certain “ghostly” claims, at the close of a year that’s upended urban life as we know it, New York City has, to a large degree, managed to adapt. New Yorkers’ expectations have adjusted to all sorts of new normals: social distancing; remote working and learning; (semi-)open streets and permanent sidewalk dining. It’s almost easy to forget the sheer confusion of navigating and negotiating space which marked the early days of the pandemic. Almost. For Mark Dicus of the SoHo Broadway Initiative, that inflection point — March 16, 2020 to be exact — ushered in a radically-altered streetscape along one of New York City’s most heavily-trafficked pedestrian corridors. From shutdowns and boarded-up stores, to protests and looting, SoHo (along with other destination neighborhoods) has seen more than its fair share of jarring contrasts in 2020. Amid a cautious reopening, Dicus reflects on the dramatic changes he’s witnessed, and how the public realm will play a key role in the recovery of a neighborhood — and city — whose future remains an open question.

3. 

   30 Sept 2020

   Remaining Connected

   For a year spent locking down, there’s been an awful lot of talk about moving. New Yorkers are supposedly fleeing the city in droves (or so the story goes). The flipside of this narrative, of course, is forced removal: a looming eviction crisis that is set to disproportionately impact the city’s most vulnerable. Amid the upheaval, a long-standing arts organization is settling into a new space in Bedford-Stuyvesant — and engaging directly with what it means to put down roots in a neighborhood undergoing contentious changes. The Laundromat Project may have started as an itinerant endeavor, but it’s always been anchored in the city’s communities of color. Through fellowships, residencies, and place-based art projects (many hosted by actual laundromats), the Laundromat Project has been supporting artists whose work deals with site-specific issues impacting the city’s Black and brown residents: gentrification and displacement; policing and community safety; climate change and food injustice. For the last five years, the organization been sharing space in a two-bedroom-apartment-turned-community-hub in the South Bronx; but when it came time to find a more permanent home, they looked to their own history. Founded 15 years ago in Bed-Stuy, the Laundromat Project is returning to set up shop in a storefront on Fulton Street. We hear from the LP’s Hatuey Ramos-Fermin, Cievel Xicotenchatl and Erica Rawles about the challenges of moving in and meeting the neighbors in the short term, and how they are working to build a shared vision with their community for the next ten years.

4. 

   10 Sept 2020

   We're About Getting People Free, Period

   As surely as a public health crisis shakes the foundation of a society, incarceration demolishes the infrastructure of a life. Housing is lost and jobs dry up. The relationships and encounters that formed the basis of an essential network of support are disrupted. The impossible tradeoffs faced by coronavirus-stricken cities — between the long-term damage of a stalled economy and the human costs of “opening up” — also echo. When judges set bail, people awaiting trial and their loved ones must choose whether to purchase freedom at a steep price or face confinement for months, even years. In New York, where bail can reach into the tens and even hundreds of thousands of dollars, this choice is often only nominal for the poor, Black and brown men who largely populate pretrial detention. (A law reforming New York’s cash bail system went into effect in January, but a subsequent amendment in April restricted the reform’s effects.) During the coronavirus pandemic, more than analogy has come to link those touched by “the system” and those outside its grasp. Though incarceration operates through removal and isolation, the virus is undeterred by barbed wire. As the case rate in the rest of New York City has declined, the pandemic churns on inside city jails. Infections cycle between prisoners and guards, who cycle in turn between the jails and the neighborhoods they call home. Meanwhile, as revenue streams dry up, local governments across the US are faced with a stark zero-sum reality that has policymakers and communities clamoring to defund law enforcement on the basis of its balance sheet, let alone its manifold abuses. Rising awareness of these crises-within-a-crisis converges with the raised profile of prison abolitionists and the collectivist energy of the protest movement. The result is a proliferation of bail-out efforts: mutual aid networks that use crowd-sourced funds to put abolitionist principles into literal practice, freeing as many people from pretrial detention as they can. In New York City, the money comes from the pockets of individual donors throughout the US, Canada, Europe, and Australia and is hand-delivered by local volunteers to Department of Correction facilities across the city. The act of paying bail for a stranger is quietly radical, refusing the system’s punitive logic and forging community from cashier’s checks and electronic transfers. But for COVID Bail Out NYC, simply getting people out of prison isn’t enough. With a focus on breaking the medically vulnerable out of jail, this local group extends an abolitionist ethic of “Care Not Cops” to provide not only cash bail, but also housing, food, cell-phones, medical attention, and even job connections to people caught in detention’s net. In July, I shadowed volunteer Brian Lee as he went to pay bail at the Brooklyn Detention Complex, and spoke with organizers M.J. Williams and Gabriella Ferrara about what securing someone else’s freedom really means. https://urbanomnibus.net/2020/09/were-about-getting-people-free-period/

5. 

   9 Jul 2020

   There's a Difference between Tactical and Shortsighted

   There’s something different about New York City streets these days. As the Department of Transportation expands the scope of its Open Streets program (with mixed results), more than 7,500 restaurants have been spilling out onto sidewalks and parking spots across the city. Many New Yorkers continue to spurn the subway, driving a surge in ridership on the city’s bus system, while those avoiding public transit altogether flock to the city’s bicycle shops (and Citi Bike docking stations) in record numbers. The reconfiguration of both streetscapes and transportation habits, for the time being at least, has opened up new possibilities for how people move through the city. Amanda Schachter and Alexander Levi of SLO Architecture are hoping that moment lasts. The guest editors of our City of Cycling series, they have been working to reimagine the landscape of micro-mobility for years. While recent, large-scale proposals such as the Queens Ribbon attempt to galvanize bold visions of a car-free future, SLO argues that the infrastructure for more just and accessible modes of motion already lies beneath our feet. https://urbanomnibus.net/2020/07/theres-a-difference-between-tactical-and-shortsighted/

6. 

   11 Jun 2020

   Everyone Has Something to Give, Everyone Has Something That They Need

   In New York City, the spread of the novel coronavirus has closely tracked the geography of segregation. Though its long-term consequences for public and economic health remain unknown, its immediate threat to the city’s most vulnerable became clear within days. Thousands found themselves suddenly out of work, sick, or housebound, and unable to make rent, buy groceries, or pay medical bills. In the face of skyrocketing need, as well as the striking inadequacy of the governmental response, New Yorkers have come together to hold one another up and, above all, keep one another fed. Dozens of so-called “mutual aid” networks have proliferated throughout the city’s neighborhoods since mid-March. Part mobile food pantry, part virtual block party, and part political education collective, a mutual aid network allows socially-distanced neighbors to pool human and economic resources, plan actions, and forge bonds. Declaring “solidarity, not charity,” collaborators have found one another through Slack and Facebook groups, phone trees, and flyers taped to front doors. They’ve navigated practical questions as well as existential ones, charting routes between grocery drop-offs and choosing software to log requests even as they confront the power dynamics of giving and receiving help in a deeply unequal city. And in the last two weeks, as the frame of the crisis has widened to include the violence suffered by Black and brown neighbors at the hands of the police, care within the newly organized “beloved community” has evolved as well. Members of mutual aid networks have been out in force, delivering PPE, food, and water to the protests’ front lines, manning jail support stations, and shuttling curfew-breakers home. Scott Heins and Cat Zhang were both early organizers of Crown Heights Mutual Aid, and now function as administrators and stewards of the group’s long-term vision — though both are quick to emphasize its horizontal, leaderless structure. Moné Makkawi is one of a small army of shoppers, drivers, and bicyclists putting food, medicine, and other essentials in the hands — or on the stoops — of their neighbors-in-need. To date, the network has completed more than 1700 grocery deliveries to families throughout Crown Heights, as well as adjacent neighborhoods like Flatlands, Canarsie, and East New York. Over the course of a few days in early May, I spoke with Scott, Cat, and Moné about the rapidly-evolving landscape of care, the importance of staying local, and the challenge of being in it for the long haul. https://urbanomnibus.net/2020/06/everyone-has-something-to-give-everyone-has-something-that-they-need/

7. 

   28 May 2020

   What People Need and What the Stock Provides

   The amount of time spent indoors these days has prompted a great deal of introspection about New York City’s housing landscape. While some enjoy living space in abundance, or have just enough, many others are forced to reckon with crowded quarters that don’t easily meet the demands of quarantine or social distance (and exacerbate cabin fever among family members or roommates). As debate swirls around the supposed perils of density, complex questions lurk behind the measure of this single metric. Who actually lives in New York City, and does the housing stock meet their needs? Sarah Watson of the Citizens Housing and Planning Council talks about crafting policy that addresses the fundamental intersection of public health and private home, and the urgency to build and adapt dwellings that are more than just affordable, but reflect how we live — alone or together. https://urbanomnibus.net/2020/05/what-people-need-and-what-the-stock-provides/

8. 

   14 May 2020

   The World Inverted

   Flocking to parks seeking comfort and escape, New Yorkers are finding controversy instead. Warmer temperatures bring people outdoors and too close together, leading to stricter limitations on access to open space combined with a greater police presence. Though it has seen its share of crowds in recent weeks, Prospect Park has been spared this level of enforcement (for now). True to its original design as a refuge from the toils of 19th century urban life, the park’s sheer size and variety of landscapes offers space for recreation to be sure, but also contemplation. While in-person tours are on hold for now, landscape historian and tour guide Kate Papacosma leads us through some of the expansive meadows and more hidden pleasures of Prospect Park, while highlighting the importance of protecting what some may call a crucial public health infrastructure, or simply a place of healing in a wounded city. https://urbanomnibus.net/2020/05/the-world-inverted/

9. 

   30 Apr 2020

   Making Science Actionable

   There are few precedents for understanding the current pandemic; it’s not exactly the kind of disaster we’ve been expecting. But long immersed in the city’s interconnected ecologies and infrastructures, the New School’s Urban Systems Lab is exploring how many of the key indicators of vulnerability to this crisis overlap with those of another: climate change. With the approach of summer’s heat, continued efforts to contain the virus will place particular pressures on the city’s most vulnerable. We heard from the Lab’s Timon McPhearson, Christopher Kennedy, and Luis Ortiz about their efforts to gather the information that matters most now, and make it useful to policymakers and communities trying to find solutions in a complex and ever-shifting situation. https://urbanomnibus.net/2020/04/making-science-actionable/

10. 

    16 Apr 2020

    Communications, con Cariño

    One pillar holding up the socially distanced city is the Internet. But under the strain of migrating so much of our work, education, and leisure online, telecommunications networks could use a failsafe; and in the best of times, reliable internet is hardly accessible to all. For the first installment of our new audio Dispatch series, we catch up with Greta Byrum of Community Tech NY as she sets up a local internet hotspot for her building. Against a persistent “digital divide,” Byrum talks about the importance of grassroots digital networks in keeping people connected during disasters — and how they might point the way forward to a more equitable and community-driven technological future. https://urbanomnibus.net/2020/04/communications-con-carino/

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