A Tale of Two Bridges

Co-Author with Molly Garfinkel

LA+ Journal: Identity | Interdisciplinary Journal of Landscape Architecture (Spring 2017)

With an urban renewal mandate and funding incentives from the Federal Housing Acts of 1949 and 1954, New York in the 1950s and 1960s was dominated by Robert Moses’ top down modernist planning projects. As city planners under Moses sought to clear old neighborhoods and assemble superblocks of regimented and architecturally bland ‘towers in the park,’ previously unorganized and heterogenous communities began asserting neighborhood identity as a form of resistance. The story of struggle to preserve places rich in history and architectural character is well known, but what is less understood and appreciated today is just how strong the identity of communities who come to live in urban renewal housing developments can be. This article tells such a story through the Two Bridges community on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, which has weathered the storms of urban renewal and now faces the equally existential threats of gentrification and climate change.