Has Essex Crossing changed the way you move, work and live in the Lower East Side? We want to hear from you! Drop in at GrandLo Café for coffee, cookies and conversation and share your stories of how you experience the changing neighborhood with Van Alen and artist collective Ghana Think Tank (GTT).
GTT’s project is to flip the usual definition of expert, by collecting “problems” from a group of professionals, and asking the public impacted by their decisions to share solutions. For My Essex Crossing, GTT will challenge participants to solve the problems that Essex Crossing’s developers and designers have identified and come up against every day. Van Alen team members will then share your solutions with the Essex Crossing developer team!
GrandLo Café is a nonprofit social enterprise of Grand St. Settlement that creates career pathways for neighborhood youth. Through their job training program, the cafe provides opportunities for trainees to learn hard and soft skills that help them tackle the employment barriers that they face.
LES NYC: Crossing 2020
50 years in the making, the area bounded by Clinton, Delancey, Essex, and Grand Streets—formally known as the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area (SPURA)—has sprouted into the much anticipated Essex Crossing mixed-use development.
This December, Van Alen Institute brings together the planners, designers, and community organizations that have been reshaping the Lower East Side, and ask what lessons we should take with us as New York crosses into a new decade.