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Neighborhoods Design Project has been meeting since 2000.
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The Bridging Neighborhoods Design Project seeks to transform the “built environment” at the intersection of East Main and North Goodman Streets in the City of Rochester, the meeting point for three neighborhoods represented by City Sectors 7, 8 and 10.
The Bridging Neighborhoods Design Project utilizes a critical process that engages the residents of these three distinctly different neighborhoods come together as citizen planners who lead and truly own the transformation. This process addresses cultural, social and economic barriers as formidable as the physical barriers that now obstruct the movement of people and commerce across the intersection. Rochester’s social and cultural history, reinforced by forty years of racial and ethnic conflict, social
disinvestments and concentration of poverty, created the deep context for the social chasm that now separates the three neighborhoods, reinforced by Rochester’s own history of forty years of racial and ethnic conflict, social
disinvestments and the concentration of poverty.
Citizens from the Neighborhood of the Arts in Sector 7, the Beechwood neighborhood in Sector 8 and the Marketview Heights neighborhood in Sector 10 have responded to this problem by making a serious initiative to bridge the social and cultural chasm between the areas in order to combat increasing economic disparity.
A group of private citizens initiated The Bridging Neighborhoods Design Project (BNDP) in 2000. This group of citizens from the neighborhoods surrounding the intersection began to explore ways to bridge the intersection, symbolically and literally. In the spring of 2005 the core members of BNDP met with City of Rochester Engineer John Thomas to determine necessary steps for acquiring the capital required to achieve its objectives, focused on a major redesign and construction project that would transform the intersection into a public space that welcomes and encourages people to move easily between the three neighborhoods that radiate out from the intersection. The group also met with Lois Geiss, President of the Rochester City Council, administrators of the three Neighborhood Empowerment Teams for the three sectors, local business owners, a few neighborhood residents and neighborhood association representatives. Finally the group met with Joni Monroe, Executive Director of the Rochester Regional Community Design Center (RRCDC) and members of the Board of RRCDC. These discussions led to a work plan for accomplishing BNDP project goals.
The plan called for conducting a second, more focused design charrette to clarify exactly what changes should take place at the intersection to accommodate the interests and desires of multiple stakeholders. The Rochester Area Community Foundation generously provided the funding for the Bridging Neighborhoods Design Project. The BNDP Executive Committee contracted with the RRCDC to carry out the Bridging Neighborhoods Design
Charrette which convened on November 12, 2005.
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