The Grand Concourse, the great boulevard of the Bronx, celebrates its 100th birthday in 2009. The Grand Concourse was always more than a street. In 1906, it was an optimistic gesture of faith in New York City’s growth. Its design married architectural ambition with planning innovation, and the Concourse quickly became a magnet for real estate development and social aspiration. Today, it is the center of a vibrantly multiracial community and remains a powerful symbol of the Bronx identity and experience, and several new projects point toward a new era of prosperity.
Architectural historian Francis Morrone describes how the Grand Concourse has evolved; architect Kevin O’Connor unveils Arquitectonica’s design for the first major new building on the Concourse in thirty years, a new home for the Bronx Museum of the Arts; artist Pablo Helguera introduces his latest project, a public mediation on the Concourse’s famed Paradise Theater, and lifelong Concourse resident Sam Goodman (an urban planner in the office of the Bronx Borough President) imagines a grand future for the Grand Concourse. Moderated by Ned Kaufman, consultant and director, Pratt Institute’s Historic Preservation Program.
Moderator
Ned Kaufman, historical preservation expert
Participants
Sam Goodman, urban planner and Concourse resident
Pablo Helguera, visual artist
Francis Morrone, architectural historian
Kevin O’Connor, Arquitectonica
Co-sponsored by the Bronx Museum of the Arts, the Vera List Center for Art and Politics, and The New School Institute for Retired Professionals.