The ABCs of 4th Avenue’s Transformation

From Autobody shops to Barclays to Condos.
With Sylvia Morse and Tom Angotti.

All around us, the neighborhood is changing: big new buildings make Fourth Avenue blocks unrecognizable while million-dollar renovations take place behind familiar brownstone walls. Small businesses and low- and middle-income tenants get displaced. Why? What does it mean for us as neighbors, and what can we do? Urban planners, educators, and local residents Tom Angotti and Sylvia Morse will join us for a discussion about urban planning, housing affordability, and gentrification in New York City. We will focus on the unique history and policies that shape the neighborhoods around BSEC, including recent city plans for Fourth Avenue and Gowanus, to open up a discussion about the forces that drive racialized displacement and housing instability across the city and beyond.

The program will be presided by Rebecca Lurie, with music by The Brooklyn Women’s Chorus.

Sylvia Morse is Senior Program Manager for Research & Policy at Pratt Center for Community Development, overseeing research and implementation of policy projects that advance housing justice initiatives.
Sylvia is a lifelong New Yorker who has focused her work on community planning, the solidarity economy, and housing justice. Before joining Pratt Center, Sylvia served as Assistant Director of the Cooperative Development Program at Center for Family Life in Sunset Park where she partnered with domestic workers to grow worker-owned cooperative businesses citywide. Prior to this, she worked at the NYC Office of Management and Budget as Senior Policy Analyst on Superstorm Sandy housing recovery initiatives and at the Corporation for Supportive Housing to advance supportive housing programs and policy nationally.

Tom Angotti is Professor Emeritus of Urban Policy and Planning at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York. He was the founder and director of the Hunter College Center for Community Planning and Development. His recent books include Zoned Out! Race, Displacement and City Planning in New York City, Urban Latin America: Inequalities and Neoliberal Reforms, The New Century of the Metropolis, New York For Sale: Community Planning Confronts Global Real Estate, which won the Davidoff Book Award, and Accidental Warriors and Battlefield Myths. He is an editor of progressivecity.net and Participating Editor for Latin American Perspectives and Local Environment. He is active in community and environmental issues in New York City.

Join us in person at:
Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture,
269 4th Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11215

Please RSVP at:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-abcs-of-4th-avenues-transformation-hybrid-tickets-1326154837819?aff=oddtdtcreator
Those who RSVP will also be sent the hybrid link.