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Hunts Point

Greening the South Bronx

Project last updated April 16, 2009

Grassroots organizations in the South Bronx have made environmental justice a central part of their agenda for community revitalization. The Pratt Center has been there with them from the beginning, providing mapping, architecture and urban planning resources that have allowed neighborhood organizations to build a greener, healthier environment in neighborhoods that have carried more than their fair share of the city's polluting facilities. Sewage treatment plants, waste transfer stations, truck highways, wholesale markets, power plants, gas and oil depots—the South Bronx hosts essential infrastructure that allows the New York City region to function but that also leaves the surrounding neighborhoods with New York City's highest asthma rates and a diminished quality of life.

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Sheridan Expressway

Project last updated April 16, 2009

The Pratt Center is working, as part of the Southern Bronx River Watershed Alliance, on a collaborative vision for demolishing the underutilized Sheridan Expressway and replacing it with affordable housing, green open space, and other amenities. New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff has called the Sheridan plan one of the best models in the nation for reclaiming America's cities.

Removing the Sheridan would allow over 1,200 units of new housing, plus 500,000 square feet of commercial, community, and light industrial space to be developed on its footprint. The plan routes truck traffic along a new overpass and reconnects local streets to the waterfront, including the new Concrete Plant Park on a former industrial site.

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Hunts Point Rezoning

Testimony last updated June 17, 2008

Testimony to the City Council Committee on Zoning and Franchises Special Hunts Point District, Bronx (C080248ZMX)

Joan Byron
Director, Sustainability and Environmental Justice Initiative
Pratt Center for Community Development
June 17, 2008

My name is Joan Byron; I am the Director of the Sustainability and Environmental Justice Initiative of the Pratt Center for Community and Environmental Development. The Pratt Center works for a more just, equitable, and sustainable city for all New Yorkers, by empowering communities to plan for and realize their futures. We are especially proud to have supported the work of Hunts Point and other South Bronx organizations since the early 1990s in the many battles they have fought for environmental justice; Hunts Point bears more than its share of the burdens of the infrastructure and land uses that make New York City's density and vitality possible, to the daily cost of the people who live, work, and breathe in the shadow of highways, electric power plants, sewage treatment and sludge pelletization facilities, and dozens of waste transfer stations and waste handling facilities.

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Pratt Center eNews - Spring 2008

News last updated May 3, 2008

In this Issue:

  • A Message from Pratt Center Director Brad Lander
  • Better Jobs for New Yorkers
  • COMMUTE Puts Bus Rapid Transit on the Map
  • Pushing a New Vision for Willets Point
  • Meet the Pratt Center Staff: Michael Bogdanffy-Kriegh and Rebecca Reich
  • Pratt Center Receives EPA Environmental Quality Award
  • Helping New Orleans Rebuild
  • Introducing Energy Matters
  • Contribute

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Pratt Center News - Summer 2009

News last updated July 20, 2009

In This Issue:

  • A Message from Director Adam Friedman
  • People's Firehouse reborn
  • Ending East New York's retail drought
  • Coney Island for All yields community gains
  • Retrofit Bedford Stuyvesant Blooms
  • Bus Rapid Transit Goes Public
  • Bronx wins Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence
 

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Hunts Point Commuters

Map last updated May 25, 2010

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Hunts Point Workers

Map last updated October 4, 2010

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Tour the Sheridan Expressway Community Plan

News last updated July 13, 2010

As The New York Times reports, the community-generated proposal to replace the underutilized Sheridan Expressway with parks, affordable housing, commercial space and amenities is gaining momentum. 

Here's a video tour of the community-generated plan, as developed by the Southern Bronx River Watershed Alliance with the support of the Pratt Center. Learn more about the project here. And see Times architecture critic Nicolai Ourossoff's appreciation of the Sheridan plan as one of the leading ideas for "Reinventing America's Cities." 

Click "Read more" to see the video.

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