The BROADWAY: 1000 Steps Baton – 23rd Street to Canal Street: The Downtown Area

Max Joel, the Director of Energy Connections at alternative energy organization, Solar One, will address their bold environmental initiatives, followed by naturalist and educator, Gabriel Willow, who will turn our attention to the natural habitat of the neighborhood beginning with Madison Square Park.

BROADWAY: 1000 Steps is a project by Mary Miss to turn the oldest avenue of NYC into a “green corridor” where insights into our surroundings – from streets and buildings, to transportation and waste, to energy and the climate – can be made apparent and accessible at ground level. This project, to be inaugurated next spring 2013, will be implemented at up to twenty “hubs” dispersed along its length, from the Bronx to the Battery. Each hub will serve as a site for installations that reveal the urban infrastructure, decode the environment and suggest what the future city might be. This project is intended as a catalyst for interventions and projects by other artists, environmental designers, and citizens along Broadway, at additional sites in NYC and cities across the country.

NOTE: This walk is part of a continuous series of walks taking place on Sunday, May 5th.

Time: 4:00pm-6:00pm

Date: Sunday May 6, 2012

Event Start: 23rd St. and Broadway

Event End: Canal St. and Broadway

Host: Max Joel

Registration: No need to RSVP, just show up at the posted meeting place.

Accessibility: Fully Accessible

The BROADWAY: 1000 Steps Baton – 59th Street to 23rd Street: Midtown Through the Square

Vin Cipolla, president of the Municipal Art Society (MAS), will guide us from Columbus Circle to Times Square—historic junctions along Broadway where MAS has played a critical role boosting the corridor’s assets. The Times Square Alliance will also be on hand to speak more specifically about Times Square’s cultural relevance and the plans in place to improve the area. Broadway Green Alliance will address its own initiatives regarding greening of the theater district.

BROADWAY: 1000 Steps is a project by Mary Miss to turn the oldest avenue of NYC into a “green corridor” where insights into our surroundings – from streets and buildings, to transportation and waste, to energy and the climate – can be made apparent and accessible at ground level. This project, to be inaugurated next spring 2013, will be implemented at up to twenty “hubs” dispersed along its length, from the Bronx to the Battery. Each hub will serve as a site for installations that reveal the urban infrastructure, decode the environment and suggest what the future city might be. This project is intended as a catalyst for interventions and projects by other artists, environmental designers, and citizens along Broadway, at additional sites in NYC and cities across the country.

NOTE: This walk is part of a continuous series of walks taking place on Sunday, May 5th. 

Time: 2:00pm-4:00pm

Date: Sunday May 6, 2012

Event Start: 59th St. and Broadway; Columbus Circle entrance to Central Park

Event End: The intersection of Broadway and 23rd, on the South-West corner of Madison Square Park

Host: Vin Cipolla, President of the Municipal Art Society of New York

Registration: No need to RSVP, just show up at the posted meeting place.

Accessibility: Fully Accessible

Sense the energy and ambition that has spurred an incredibly dynamic and fascinating area, tucked away between Tramway Plaza and Sutton Square and dominated by the iconic Queensboro Bridge. The zone grew as a rough and ragged district of power plants, breweries and tenements, until a bevy of society ladies transformed a tenement block into an exclusive enclave that set off a local apartment house boom. Near and distant views reveal the places where Robert Moses bullied locals into accepting the East River Drive, where zoning encouraged residential towers, where Philip Johnson designed a futurist New Town, where citizens locked horns with city planners, and where Louis Kahn’s Memorial to FDR finally nears completion.

Time: 1:00pm-2:30pm

Date: Sunday May 6, 2012

Event Start: Tramway Plaza, 59th St. and 2nd Ave, Manhattan

Event End: Sutton Place Park, 57th St. and Sutton Place, Manahttan

Host: Carole Rifkind, author, filmmaker and MAS Board Member

Registration: No need to sign up, just show up at the posted meeting location.

Accessibility: Fully Accessible

From the 1870s to about 1910, the Tenderloin was Manhattan’s most famous red-light district, a cradle of elegant vice that developed north of 23rd Street west of Fifth Avenue, in the shadow of luxurious hotels such as Gilsey House. High-stakes gambling parlors, brothels, saloons, dance halls – the Tenderloin reveled in its own illegality, until pressure from civic authorities and corporate development led to its demise. Since the 1990s, zoning changes have altered the landscape of the old Tenderloin’s main stem – Sixth Avenue – and have led to the destruction of many buildings. But a few reminders survive. On this tour, we will visit sites associated with still-visible Tenderloin businesses, including the block of 28th St. once known as Tin Pan Alley, birthplace of the pop music industry.

Time: 12:00pm-1:30pm

Date: Sunday May 6, 2012

Event Start: Sidewalk in front of Gilsey House, 1200 Broadway at 29th Street

Event End: TBD

Host: David Freeland (www.gothamlostandfound.com)

Registration: No need to sign up, just show up at the posted meeting location.

Accessibility: Partially Accessible – curbs, uneven terrain, busy sidewalks.

Take the Downtown Walk that new interns from all around the country take at the beginning of their “Urban Fellowship” with the City of New York. Imagine you’re new to this crazy, diverse, place and just learning about the City where you will be working in City Government for the next nine months.

Date: Sunday May 6, 2012

Time: 12:00pm-1:45pm

Event Start/End: Under the Arch of the Manhattan Municipal Building, One Centre Street, Manhattan.

Host: Mitch Paluszek

Registration: No need to RSVP, just show up at the posted meeting place.

Accessibility: Partially Accessible – curbs, uneven terrain, busy sidewalks

Take an epic three-mile walk bookended by two iconic New York public spaces: Times Square and the High Line. Along the way, we’ll highlight public plazas, safer street crossings, transit corridors and protected bike lanes—all situated in the midst of New York City’s unique architecture. We’ll stroll past the house where Jane Jacobs wrote The Death and Life of Great American Cities and end with refreshments at Gansevoort Plaza.

Transportation Alternatives is working to revitalize New York City’s neighborhoods and restore a vibrant culture of street life. This walk features some of the many communities where T.A. advocacy brings safe and healthy streets for all.

Time: 8:15am-11:30am

Date: Saturday May 5, 2012

Event Start: Broadway and West 47th Street – TKTS steps

Event End: Gansevoort Plaza, Little West 12th Street and 9th Avenue

Hosts: Transportation Alternatives, Clinton Hell’s Kitchen Coalition for Pedestrian Safety, Jim Braddock (Mitchell/Giurgola Architects), Friends of the High Line

Registration: RSVP (capacity constraints in place at the High Line): http://transalt.org/events/calendar/5808

Accessibility: Fully Accessible