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Learning from Bryant Park
Revitalizing Cities, Towns, and Public Spaces
Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2020
About this book
By the 1970s, 42nd Street in New York was widely perceived to be unsafe, a neighborhood thought to be populated largely by drug dealers, porn shops, and muggers. But in 1979, civic leaders developed a long-term vision for revitalizing one especially blighted block, Bryant Park. The reopening of the park in the 1990s helped inject new vitality into midtown Manhattan and served as a model for many other downtown revitalization projects. So what about urban policy can we learn from Bryant Park?
In this new book, Andrew M. Manshel draws from both urbanist theory and his first-hand experiences as a urban public space developer and manager who worked on Bryant Park and later applied its strategies to an equally successful redevelopment project in a very different New York neighborhood: Jamaica, Queens. He candidly describes what does (and doesn’t) work when coordinating urban redevelopment projects, giving special attention to each of the many details that must be carefully observed and balanced, from encouraging economic development to fostering creative communities to delivering appropriate services to the homeless. Learning from Bryant Park is thus essential reading for anyone who cares about giving new energy to downtowns and public spaces.
In this new book, Andrew M. Manshel draws from both urbanist theory and his first-hand experiences as a urban public space developer and manager who worked on Bryant Park and later applied its strategies to an equally successful redevelopment project in a very different New York neighborhood: Jamaica, Queens. He candidly describes what does (and doesn’t) work when coordinating urban redevelopment projects, giving special attention to each of the many details that must be carefully observed and balanced, from encouraging economic development to fostering creative communities to delivering appropriate services to the homeless. Learning from Bryant Park is thus essential reading for anyone who cares about giving new energy to downtowns and public spaces.
Author / Editor information
For ten years Andrew M. Manshel was associate director and counsel at the Bryant Park Restoration Corporation (conceptualizing and successfully implementing many of its most noted programs including its performances, the film series and the construction and leasing of the Bryant Park Grill) and general counsel and director of Public Amenities to the Grand Central and 34th Street Partnerships (where he created the horticulture, street vendor and newsrack programs). Later, he became executive vice president of Greater Jamaica Development, in Jamaica, Queens. Mr. Manshel blogs about downtown and public space revitalization at theplacemaster.com. He is a long-time director and the treasurer of Project for Public Spaces, Inc. He holds Juris Doctor and Master of Business Administration degrees from New York University and a BA in Government from Oberlin College.
Reviews
"Learning from Bryant Park opened my eyes up to a world of placemaking that goes well beyond design but ties into the ideas of New Urbanism. It ultimately offers a vision for the revitalization of urban places—especially small cities and towns that have been overlooked—all across America....Learning from Bryant Park is a powerful book—and important book—on placemaking and urban revitalization."
— Public Square"Manshel’s credo is an extremely valuable one, just as useful for repopulating public spaces in the post-pandemic future as it was for filling them beforehand."
— The American Conservative
— Metropolis Magazine
"[Manshel's] retelling of [lessons were equally revealing on placemaking] will broaden the enjoyment of everyone who loves urban life and is curious about the City’s special places."
— CityLand
— The American Downtown Revitalization Review
"Manshel writes in a highly accessible style about New York City history and the history of contemporary landscape design. He offers the unique perspective of senior management on Bryant Park’s transformation of the park from drug den to tourist haven."
— Michele H. Bogart, Stony Brook University"[Manshel's] retelling of these efforts will broaden the enjoyment of everyone who loves urban life and is curious about the City’s special places."
— CityLaw"The strategies of Bryant Park as outlined in this book should be the first place to look when seeking to transform troubled public spaces. Even one visit to the incredible Bryant Park will convince anyone of that."
— The New Criterion“Communities large and small--urban, suburban and rural--can, and should, learn from the remarkable transformation of New York City’s Bryant Park and the area surrounding it. Andy Manshel shows how effective place-making is a key to effective talent attraction, economic development, and urban revitalization strategies.”
— Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class"Learning From Bryant Park is by far one of the best books ever written about how to successfully manage, program, fund, and operate public spaces. It's a must read for anyone who wants to learn the science and art of doing so."
— Cynthia Nikitin"Book Look: A Moveable Seat" by Jeff Hagan '86
— Oberlin Alumni Magazine"Learning from Bryant Park makes me want to revisit that gem in the heart of Manhattan and look more closely at some of the details that helped make the space so successful."
— Rein Reports"The story of its turnaround is now told by Andrew M. Manshel in Learning from Bryant Park: Revitalizing Cities, Towns, and Public Spaces. As cities in quarantine now face down a new form of disruption, Bryant Park’s lessons of revival are more vital than ever before."
— The New Criterion - The Critic's Notebook"Sophisticated and compulsively readable."
— Planners Library"The Frankie Boyer Show" interview with Andrew M. Manshel
— The Frankie Boyer Show"Andrew Manshel has a straightforward yet infinitely complex goal: to turn the urban spaces we all have to share into urban spaces we all want to share. To achieve that, he gets a view of the city that is simultaneously panoramic and detailed, theoretical and nitty-gritty. This thorough and eminently practical book is shot through with deep love for metropolitan life, wisdom accumulated through experience, and the humility that comes from understanding that cities are made of people, in all their glorious, maddening unpredictability."
— Justin Davidson, Pulitzer prize-winning architecture and music critic, New York Magazine"Worth reading as a guide to post-pandemic urban-space management."
— City JournalTopics
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Frontmatter
i -
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Contents
vii -
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Chapter 1. JACOBS, WHYTE, BRYANT PARK, JAMAICA, QUEENS, AND THE RETURN TO THE CENTER
1 -
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Chapter 2. THE BASIC STRATEGIES OF PLACEMAKING
16 -
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Chapter 3. WHY BRYANT PARK IS IMPORTANT
35 -
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Chapter 4. THE ROLE OF BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT DISTRICTS IN URBAN REVITALIZATION
50 -
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Chapter 5. OPERATING PUBLIC SPACES
71 -
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Chapter 6. PROGRAMMING PUBLIC SPACES
93 -
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Chapter 7. LEARNING FROM YOUR MISTAKES
114 -
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Chapter 8. IMPROVING DOWNTOWN STREETS AND SIDEWALKS
130 -
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Chapter 9. SUBURBAN MAIN STREETS
159 -
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Chapter 10. HOMELESSNESS AND EQUITY IN PUBLIC SPACES
174 -
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Chapter 11. ARTISTS, DOWNTOWNS, AND CREATIVE PLACEMAKING
190 -
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Chapter 12. REAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
201 -
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Chapter 13. DOWNTOWN JAMAICA
218 -
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Chapter 14. REVITALIZING SMALLER TOWNS AND SPACES
234 -
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
251 -
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APPENDIX
255 -
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NOTES
269 -
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
277 -
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INDEX
285 -
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
295
Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
June 22, 2020
eBook ISBN:
9781978802544
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook ISBN:
9781978802544
Keywords for this book
Revitalizing Cities; Revitaliing Towns; Public spaces; Jacobs; Whyte; Bryant Park; Jamaica; Queens; Urban Revitalization; Homelessness; Equity; Creative Placemaking; Economic Development; Artists; Operating; Programming; Mistakes; Improving; sidewalks; downtown streets; New York City; State; General Interest; Urban Studies; Regional; Public Policy; Adaptive Reuse; Renovation; Adaptation; drug dealers; porn shops; muggers.; populated; Andrews M. Marshalls; civic leaders; midtown Manhattan; urban policy; urbanist theory; Creativity; Creative Communities; Architecture; Landscapes
Audience(s) for this book
For a non-specialist adult audience
