Introduction

In the Summer of 2022, Voces Ciudadanas began organizing Sunset Park’s immigrant community to keep the space the local public library is temporarily using while the new library is constructed.

Located at 4201 4th Avenue, the temporal space is currently owned and occupied partially by the New York City Police Department (NYPD). Formerly a Court House, the building was constructed in 1931 and has undergone several alterations since then. In 2001, the building got a landmark designation by the Landmarks Preservation Commission of the City of New York. After hosting the Community Board 7’s office and meetings for years, the south side of the space got renovated and activated to also host the temporal public library.

As the new public library is completed, residents and community leaders are coming together to imagine a new program for the space by and for the community.

As expansion into working-class and immigrant neighborhoods become the method to alleviate New York City’s housing crises, luxury apartments and new businesses are adding up to already dense and overcrowded districts, putting pressure on schools, public, and community spaces. The new developments and investments are increasing land and home values. Minority-owned local businesses and long-time low-income tenants are now at risk of displacement while structural inequalities become more evident. Responding to these conditions, impacted residents are finding ways to protect and create spaces where they can thrive in the neighborhood they call home. Across the city, community groups have identified and claimed vacant and underutilized public buildings to provide permanently affordable housing, long-needed community spaces, and community services in their neighborhoods. They have also envisioned solutions including community land trusts and other management models allowing community control and stewardship.

In the Fall of 2022, members of Voces Ciudadanas and other community leaders began conversations with public officials about the fate of the soonto-be empty space. The NYPD agreed to look at community proposals to consider keeping the south side of the building for community use. Voces Ciudadanas continued reaching out to residents and community leaders to learn about their needs and wants through a survey that had reached over 800 participants. Considering a scheduled plan to open the new public library over the summer of 2023, leaders of the organization invited faculty and graduate students from the MS Design and Urban Ecologies program at Parsons School of Design to collaborate in the visioning and design process.

In the Spring of 2023, this community-university partnership began with a transdisciplinary group of students: Melissa Bosley, Beka Fadila, Daniela Fernández López, Mae Francke Rojo, Gracia Goh, Sofia Kavlin, Lukas Kernke, and Alex Purcelli. Under the leadership of Gabriela Rendón, Associate Professor of Urban Planning and Community Development, the academic group drafted a work plan from January to May.

The plan involved a participatory-action research process involving a series of phases. Combining popular and academic knowledges, participatoryaction research values the importance of knowledge oriented towards transforming situations of inequality while recognizing the agency of people as full actors in the research and intervention processes

From January to March, Phase 1 involving “Building & Sharing Knowledge” to learn about the community’s needs, priorities and visioins was developed in collaboration with Voces Ciudadanas’ team and volunteers.

Three main participatory activities took place. The first one was the production of a Sunset Park Sociogram to collectively map the social relations of the community and identify potential collaborators. A community workshop was organized where about 30 community members participated —residents and community leaders.

Sociogram

Participatory Activities

Oral History Public Faculty

The second one was the creation of the Voces Ciudadanas Oral History Project. This ongoing endeavor seeks to unearth the voices and memories of Brooklyn’s Sunset Park residents who have been involved in creating community spaces for the benefit of all. Its goal is to foster community learning from past strategies, methods, and motivations to inform future imaginaries and concrete possibilities leading to the creation of new community spaces to address structural inequalities. Lastly, the research team organized a Public Faculty, a participatory technique involving radical listening through interventions in public spaces. With the help of volunteers from Voces Ciudadanas, the voices of over 80 community members were collected, inscribed in small pieces of fabric, and connected with yarn. Residents’ needs and imaginaries were woven in public as a gesture of unity and empowerment.

The outcomes of the first phase of the participatory action-research process were shared with community members and leaders in late March and used for the following two phases which were carried out from March to May. Phase 2 was developed “Envisioning & Proposing” the new community program and the organization of the space. It was followed by phase 3, “Strategizing & Structuring” the stewarding model and financial framework for the space.

As part of phase 2 and 3, an in-person community assembly, an online community forum, as well as informal conversations were residents, civic groups, and community organizations participated took place. The aim of such meetings and conversations was for people to shape the new program and vision for the space. The outcomes of these phases are presented in this report as well as the next steps to follow.