News
Sep
01
Park Slope Civic Council: Why We Live Here
written by Judith Siegel Lief
About 15 years ago, my husband and I realized our family of four had outgrown our two-bedroom apartment in Park Slope. The question became, where do we go? Jersey? Out! I’d spent my first 18 years there. Connecticut? Too far. Then there was Westchester: rambling frame houses, sprawling yards and views of the Hudson River. It seemed ideal. So we looked, and it was, in fact, picturesque. After one long day of house hunting, hunger drove us “downtown” for a late bite. Everything was closed, and for long-time New Yorkers, that was a problem. That moment catapulted us back to Brooklyn. We wanted to walk to school, trains, doctors, the park, toy stores, bookshops, movie theaters, and yes, restaurants that stayed open past 9pm. Moreover, Park Slope’s rows of 100-year-old brownstones were as picturesque as anything we’d seen.
At almost exactly the same time, our decidedly non-academic reasons for staying were being formalized by a Miami-based architecture firm whose partners were establishing the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU). Its charter was based on Jane Jacobs’s principles of healthy cities with mixed-use development, short blocks and dense concentrations of people working and living downtown. The CNU advocates “the restructuring of public policy and development practices to support the following principles: neighborhoods should be diverse in use and population; communities should be designed for the pedestrian and transit as well as the car; cities and towns should be shaped by physically defined and universally accessible public spaces and community institutions; urban places should be framed by architecture and landscape design that celebrate local history, climate, ecology and building practice.”
In its charter, CNU describes “walkable, human-scaled neighborhoods,” “compact mixed-use urban form,” “grids of streets, transportation choices, the siting of buildings along the sidewalks of compact blocks,” and neighborhoods that “make shared space the organizing element of a community.” (http://www.cnu.org) Using these principles, a handful of well-publicized and awardwinning new communities have been created. Here’s how two of these communities have marketed themselves: Celebration, Florida “successfully combined education, health, community, technology and architecture into a community with a strong sense of self. World-renowned architects designed Celebration to be a new and exciting place to live, work and play.” I’On, South Carolina “is the kind of place that draws you outdoors. The connecting streets, sidewalks and paths offer endless variety for walking, jogging and pedaling through the neighborhood. By design, public space abounds—from quiet trails and parks to the vibrant shops at I’On Square.” Sound familiar? World-class architects and urban planners have come up with newly minted versions of our very own neighborhood! We walk to school and subway. We have remarkable diversity of people, goods and services. By restoring and preserving rather than replacing and rebuilding our historic architecture, we are the epitome of “green.” Our 585-acre park is a concert hall, a sports complex and a refuge for picnickers, readers and kite-flyers. We know our merchants, and we care about the viability of their businesses. We sit on our stoops and talk to our neighbors; we give them gardening tips and watch their children grow up.
Of course, we still want to make our community safer, cleaner, quieter. And we have to address and solve such problems as shoddy new construction and overdevelopment; car volume and parking shortages; threats to pedestrians and cyclists; and, in general, the constant pressure on our infrastructure. But I am optimistic. We all have gravitated to this place for a reason. Think about yours. And as school begins and we get back into the rhythm of our daily lives, take stock, participate, volunteer. Really live here.
–Judith Lief, Civic Council Trustee and Recording Secretary
Read the Park Slope Civic News.
