West Side Waterfront Walking Tour
Taught by Sam Holleran
Sam Holleran is an urbanist, interdisciplinary artist, writer, and design educator. He works at the intersection of art, urban design, and civic engagement. He has researched design labs, flag culture, 19th century political cartoons, and medieval marginalia.
Sam works as a Design Educator at the Center for Architecture and the 92nd Street Y in New York City, and previously worked at the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP). In 2015, he was the Participatory Design Fellow with the Design Trust for Public Space, working with the Queens Museum of Art and the NYC Parks Department to engage communities surrounding the Flushing Meadows Corona Park.
No walk on JUly 20 due to extreme heat!
This tour takes an area of Manhattan that most people think they know quite well and probes deeper, investigating our city’s maritime past and the future of the post-industrial waterfront. Of particular interest is the interplay between post-Sandy resilience measures, sites for leisure and art, and transportation infrastructure.
We’ll look at the development of parks, bike paths, and art installations as we walk up from Castle Clinton to the Meatpacking District and the start of the High Line. Along the way this tour will stop at Battery Park City, a planned community built on the land filled with dirt from the excavation of the World Trade Center site, and we’ll look at the piers, harbors, and ferry terminals that were once the city’s only link to the Continental United States.
Our tour will use on-the-ground example to discuss how urban waterfronts exist as contested zones, representing a variety a conflicting interests including financial gain, architectural development, historic and community preservation, public space, and as a key location for artists and marginalized communities.
Meets in Battery Place; exact meeting info will be sent the day before the walk!
