Pursuing Justice Through Preservation (of Community)

Pursuing Justice Through Preservation (of Community)

STUDIO 1: DOCUMENTATION AND INTERPRETATION SPRING 2018

In his article, Les Lieux de Mémoire (1989), Pierre Nora argues that there is no spontaneous memory, that we need to create archives, have celebrations, take photos, write texts, live by creating actions to preserve our past, and to stir up our memory. Memory is really quite intriguing, what would become of us without it? What would the future be like without the past? How has the past influenced the present? Where do past, present and future separate (if they separate)? If we take a moment to think about memory we enter into a vortex of questions with thousands of answers, but in the end, the questions will never be satisfactorily answered.

Last fall, a group of nine students, with the common goal to understand, value, and protect memories, enrolled in the Historic Preservation program at Pratt Institute.

These animated students then began the troubled process of becoming a preservationist. They started researching various architectures, devouring images of buildings and landscapes, collecting names of architects and styles, diving into books, traveling from classic to contemporary all in just one semester to prepare for what was to come: Studio 1 - Documentation and Interpretation. Luckily two new students joined forces with the original group in the Spring, bringing the total to eleven!

Students visiting the Bronx

Gerado Guerrero

Rumor has it that Studio 1 is one of the most challenging courses in the Historic Preservation program at Pratt. Endless texts and information, research, research and more research,

libraries, site visits, meetings and discussions, not counting the most feared and desired final day of the semester: Super Saturday.

Honoring my two semesters in the Historic Preservation program and following the guidelines of Pierre Nora, I share with you my memories here. I do not intend with this text to present a finished product or even a complete explanation, such as signaling that something has come to an end. This text is only an attempt to express the desires, goals, learnings, and growth of the intellectual path traveled by eleven students during the Spring 2018 semester in Studio 1 at Pratt Institute.

Making every moment count, our professors gave us readings and assignments before the first day of class. Chris Neville and Beth Bingham introduced themselves as our teachers and then presented us with the client, the Northwest Bronx Community

and Clergy Coalition (NWBCCC). I confess that for me the choice was a surprise and I imagine it also was one for the other students, considering that none of us had visited or spent time getting to know the Bronx before. We organized field visits, divided into groups, created the best possible product for NWBCCC.

The relationship with the NWBCCC was a bit distant, we only met twice. The first meeting was at the beginning of the semester where goals and expectations of the coalition were discussed with the Planning students. This meeting proved to be very important because we discovered that NWBCC had no expectations of the Preservation students! We were a bit confused and wondered if this would be a suitable client to work with, and how to present a product to someone who expected nothing from us. We discussed it at great length in class and understood that it is quite common in our field for many people to shy away

Grassroots Anti-Crack Activism in the Northwest Bronx

Noel K. Wolfe, The Gotham Center for New York City History

from historic preservation because of its association with gentrification and displacement. Our goal then would be to show NWBCCC how historic preservation is beneficial to them, by keeping communities together and resilient. With this in mind, we begin the arduous work of research.

The second contact with NWBCCC happened only at the end of the Spring semester. The Planning students set an informal meeting between the coalition and the Historic Preservation students to present the work conducted thus far. The goal of this meeting was to get feedback from the NWBCCC and situate us on their work. This meeting was important and provided us confidence that the work we produced during the semester was in line with the client’s expectations.

The journey to the final result was no easy task! There were 11 assignments during the semester, including 4 presentations. We studied from topography and hydrography to migratory waves and houses of worship. We visited public institutions such as the Bronx Department of Buildings, the New York Public Library, and the Municipal Archives. We received help from people in the community like Ron Shiffman, and professors like John Shapiro and Vicki Weiner provided feedback, all of which was indispensable for success in the final presentation.

Super Saturday Presentation. Fall, 2017

Carlos Rodiguez Estévez

Eleven students, two teachers, and several professors working together on a single presentation, sounds like a recipe for disaster However, this group banded together to achieve their goal of helping a community become more resilient, to hold on to their history in order to build a better future. Our collective collaboration would ensure our success!

We arrived on the day of the final presentation, many of us anxious and tired, but all rooting for a triumphant ending! The presentation was a huge success! All of our discussions and research during the semester paid off and the audience praised our narrative. They were amazed at the importance we gave to include Historic Preservation to the desired values of NWBCCC!

The coalition aims to ensure “health, economic and racial justice” for the population of the Northwest Bronx. We realized that Historic Preservation is an important tool to ensure this justice is done. With this in mind we created a narrative that shows how health, economic and racial justice is achieved using preservation tools. Our presentation was named “Pursuing Justice Through Preservation” and contained three different sections: shaping, building and keeping the neighborhood. We connected the Coalition’s interest in keeping the community with our own to preserve memories, we understand that protecting tenants produces a protection of the built environment and vice versa: maintaining the built environment keeps communities together. This dynamic is a cycle where memory related to places and buildings keep communities together and communities protect the places where their memories are deposited.

We recommended the landmarking of the Fordham Library on Bainbridge avenue; the reopening of Bandshell in Poe Park and the use of this park as an anchor for community activities; the creation of a commercial rental protection program to prevent large chain stores from replacing important local businesses; and the protection of the Bronx’s rich urban fabric with its distinct layers of history.

Chris and Beth were instrumental in building the job. Always making intelligent and shrewd comments that helped us think in a creative way to solve the problems we faced, never giving the correct formulas! The eleven committed students remained united and each of them was of fundamental importance for the construction of the final product!

Believe the rumors: Studio 1 is no easy undertaking, so far it has been the most challenging part of the Historic Preservation program! But it was also the subject that put us in touch with professional practice, with methods of academic research, and showed us this is an important and rewarding profession! We unite to preserve memories, among them, those lived in room HHS-310!