Cornell Landscaping Study Part 1

ROOSEVELT ISLAND, NYC

LA702 CAPSTONE CLINIC, CORNELL UNIVERSITY . Eden Gallanter . Chuijing Kong . Su Jung Ham .

The Cornell University Department of Landscape Architecture

a revisioning of island open spaces with attention to safety, education, and public health

The Roosevelt Island Renaissance Project



P r o c e s s : W o r k f l o w D i a g r a m

Three Phases, Three Roles

Phase One: Research-our role as students of the community-we seek people out, we discover new stories,-we absorb the identity of the island by watching at and listening to the people and the place

Phase Two: Concept-our role as academics providing a service-we interpret what we have seen and heard-we identify problems and opportunities

Phase Three: Design-our role as creative professionals-we imagine intervening designs to address community needs and desires-we create images to illustrate the possibilities

Week 1: Preliminary Research

Week 2: Case Studies and Preliminary Concept

Week 3: Research Questions

Weeks 4-5: Detailed Research

Week 6: Analysis & Revision of Concept

Weeks 7-9: Feedback & Revision of Design

Week 10: Finalize Design, Concept & Details

Weeks 11-13: Graphics

Week 14: Formatting & Finalization

Week 15: Academic Presentation & Feedback

Week 16: Community Presentation & Feedback

Our research turned out to be an ongoing process: we learned how to integrate and • make use of sudden bits of comments and new information at all points during our project.Letting go of our own goals• as students helped us see what the Roosevelt Island community really needed from us.



P r o c e s s : A p p r o a c h t o R e s e a r c h

Concept and Direction for the Project

Understanding Space and Island Geography

Learning from Precedent: application of ideals and designs from case studies

Listening to Community: stories, ideas, and necessities

Design Constraints: what is legally, financially, and socially possible

Power Hierarchy: who is in charge of what, and who has a say in the decisions our team makes?

Design Scope: objectives of our class, our department, and our own personal goals

Team Visits to Roosevelt Island: sense of place, culture, design, and community

Learning about the Roosevelt Island Garden Club and feedback from April Ward on community garden design

Consultation with South Town development representatives, Andrew Jackson via David Kramer of the Hudson Companies, on finding space for community gardens and plazas

Roosevelt Island Residents' Association meeting: presentation, survey and responses from residents

Historical Preservation & Education: Meeting with Judy Berdy of the Island's Historical Society

Meeting with Hassan Wazani, director of the Beacon Youth Program

Tour of PS/IS 217 Public School and facilities with Nikki Leopold of the PTA

Meeting with Community Leaders: design review and evaluation by Jonathan Kalkin and Margie Smith of RIOC board of directors, Rick O'Conor of Roosevelt Islander blog, Matthew Katz and Marc Diamond of RIRA, Gina Pollara, of the FDR Four Freedoms Park, and Nancy Brown of RIDA

FDR Hope Memorial: Meeting with Jim Bates and Nancy Brown of the RIDA board of directors

Professional reviews of our team's design process: meetings with Nicholas Quennell, designer of Lighthouse Park and other landscapes on Roosevelt Island

Visit to Coler-Goldwater Hospital's department of therapeutic recreation, with Ronald Becker, director of the program

RIOC Staff meeting: feedback from Rosina Abramson, VP of Planning and Intergovernmental Affairs, Steven Shane, Chief Executive Officer, and Sean Singh, RIOC's grant writer

Community Activism & Ecology: Meeting with Bonnie Sherk of the Living Library on ecological design, community involvement, and education

Academic Evaluations of Design Process: Reviews with professors Deni Ruggeri, Marc Miller, Jamie Vanucchi-Hartung, and Paula Horrigan and with Capstone class peers

Tour of Southpoint Park and both FDR memorial sites with Jonathan Kalkin and Margie Smith of the RIOC board of directors, Jim Bates of RIDA, and Matthew Katz of RIRA

Community Dialogues about the Island's Spaces: Roosevelt Island blogs, community surveys, WIRE articles, community organization publications, online discussion boards

Ed Logue's Roosevelt Island and Early Governance: Meeting with Larry Goldman of RIDC

Historical Research: geological and ecological history, native american land use, Hog's Island in New Amsterdam, Blackwell's Island, the Welfare Island ghost town

Gathering Maps: land use, topography, wind, future development, history, transportation, ecology

Case Studies: Garden Cities, Ecocities, and San Francisco's Parkmerced

The chart to the left shows how a wide array of research methods:

readings• documents• images• visits & tours• interviews• surveys• community reviews• professional reviews• academic reviews•

have informed our project and our designs for Roosevelt Island.



R e s e a r c h : S i t e & L e g a l C o n t e x t

- Roosevelt Island is owned by New York City, but the Urban Development Corporation (UDC) took a 99 year lease on the island in 1969.

Legal issues:

the island is • owned by Manhattan, but its police, sanitation, and fire services come from Queens, which claims sole vehicular access to the island.Unlike UDC, the island's current governing body, • RIOC does not have the authority to issue bonds.The • State of New York, through RIOC, provides additional public health and safety services to supplement services supplied by the City of New York. These include public safety services, and grounds and street maintenance.

Implications: Legal authority is diffuse: the responsibilities for the island belonging to the City come from both Manhattan and Queens, and responsibilities belonging to the state come from Albany, the state capital.

neighborhoods surrounding Roosevelt Island

location of the island in southern New York State



R e s e a r c h : G e o g r a p h y & O v e r v i e w

Roosevelt Island Basics:roughly • 2 miles in length and a maximum of 800 feet in widthin 2007, the • population was 12,000located on the • East Rivercommercial and residential buildings are • concentrated in the center of the islandthe Coler-Goldwater • hospital campuses on the island are located towards each of the island's tipstwo bridges cross the island: the • Roosevelt Island Bridge provides access to Queens. The Queensboro Bridge is inaccessible to the island.the island is served by a • subway stop on the F line, and by a tram to Manhattan, located next to the Queensboro Bridgethe island has been a • residential area only since the early 1970s, when the Urban Development Corporation created a planned community there.In the 1970s, the island was governed by the • Roosevelt Island Development Corporation, a subsidary of UDC. Today, it is governed by the Roosvelt Island Operating Corporation, instituted 1984.



R e s e a r c h : L a n d U s e

On Roosevelt Island, there are two campuses belonging to the Coler-Goldwater Hospital, seven residential building complexes, a public library, and two schools, the public elementary PS/IS 217 and The Child School/ Legacy High School, private primary and secondary education for children with developmental disabilities.

There is a large parking garage, Motorgate, and six historical landmarks on the island: the Smallpox Hospital (Renwick Ruins), the Strecker Memorial Laboratory, Blackwell House, the Chapel of the Good Shepherd, the Octagon Tower, and the Lighthouse. There is a Catholic church and several protestant churches, and one Jewish synagogue.

The island is also home to a small group of retail stores, which enjoy a cornered market on the island. There is one supermarket, Gristedes, which has a restrictive lease which stipulates that no other supermarkets be permitted on the island, a fact that many residents are dissatisfied with. There is, however, a popular farmer's market every Saturday, located beneath the Roosevelt Island Bridge access.



R e s e a r c h : L a n d U s eOpen Spaces on Roosevelt Island are uniquely abundant in the New York City area.

All parks are maintained by RIOC, and are therefore not "parks" as defined by statute. These include Lighthouse Park, Blackwell Park, and South Point Park.

There are five sports fields, an outdoor pool, a community gardens, and children's playgrounds, and residential buildings maintain many of their own landscapes, which include Octagon's ecological park, tennis courts, gardens for sitting and strolling, and wide hardscaped plazas. The Chapel of the Good Shepherd is also situated within a plaza in the heart of Main Street.

Southpoint Park has several open space projects planned.

One is the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park, designed in 1972 by the architect Louis Kahn, which will be a large, tree-lined hardscaped park at the very tip of Southpoint Park.

The rest of Southpoint Park will be developed by the Trust for Public Land, whose design includes paths, native plantings, and stabilization of the Renwick Ruins for public access. Their concept is "Green Rooms/ Wild Gardens."



R e s e a r c h : F D R H o p e M e m o r i a l

The FDR Hope Memorial is the product of an organization within the Roosevelt Island Disabled Association (RIDA), which will be located in Southpoint Park, near the Renwick ruins.

This memorial will have a twofold purpose: to venerate Franklin Delano Roosevelt, for whom the island is named, and his life as an influential, able, and powerful disabled president, and to celebrate the ongoing presence and history of the disabled on Roosevelt Island.

Goals of the project include:

-to provide a place of comfort and inspiration

-to educate the public about disabilities and the life of Mr. Roosevelt

-to inspire the disabled to enable themselves to achieve, and inspire society to understand, respect, and lift up the disabled

(left) perspective completed by our team, based on the vision of the memorial's design of Jim Bates, president of RIDA



R e s e a r c h : E a r l y H i s t o r y ( t o 1 9 6 9 )

1637 - The Dutch governor of New Amsterdam buys • Minnahannock from the Canarsie tribe1637 - 1666 The island is • Varcken (Hog) Island, where the colonists raise swine.1666 - 1686 The island becomes • Manning's Island, after the sheriff of what is now New York.1686 - Robert Blackwell, the son-in-law of Manning, • becomes the island's owner. It is put up for sale repeatedly but remains unsold, and is siezed briefly by the British during the invasion in 1776.1828 - The City of New York purchases • Blackwell's Island for the purpose of creating needed charitable and corrective institutions.1909 - The Queensboro Bridge opens• 1921 - Blackwell's Island is renamed • Welfare Island, which remains a location for city corrective institutions. A new penitentiary is built.1939 - The Goldwater Memorial Hospital is built, • followed 13 years later by the Bird S. Coler Hospital.1955 - The Welfare Island Bridge (now the • Roosevelt Island Bridge) opens.1969 - New York State's UDC takes a 99 year lease • on the island for needed housing1973 - The island is renamed • Roosevelt Island

Institutions on Blackwell's Island:- Blackwell Penitentiary- New York Lunatic Asylum, burned down and rebuilt in 1858, later became the Metropolitan Hospital- Smallpox Hospital- Almshouse and Workhouses, and a church built for their inmates, the Chapel of the Good Shepherd- Strecker Laboratory, a pathology lab for Charity Hospital

A History of Marginalized Urban Land Use:

The island now known as Roosevelt Island has a strong tradition of providing an

overburdened and overcrowded city with extra space for whatever the city didn't have

space for.

When the island was used for animals and institutionalized people, there were few to speak on behalf of these residents, many of

whom were treated with viscious cruelty.

Now the island has a resident community that is active and vocal about their needs

and objectives. Out of a disempowered and marginalized crowd that extends back to the

beginnings of New York City emerges the diverse, powerful, and able community of

Roosevelt Island.

Nellie Bly (the pen name of journalist Elizabeth Cochran) went undercover into the insane asylum on Blackwell's Island. She witnessed the cruel treatment of the patients, and revolutionized the system through her subsequent publicizing of her experience in "Ten Days in a Mad-House."

The Blackwell's Island Penitentiary

The Asylum

Blackwell's Island at the time of the opening of Central Park. Maps show the relative scales of the park and the island.



R e s e a r c h : H i s t o r i c a l L a n d m a r k s

Renwick Ruin (above) was built 1854-1856 to absorb an overflow of causalties of the smallpox epidemic in the city. This was the only institution that did not exclusively deal with charity cases on Blackwell's Island.Strecker Memorial Laboratory (far top left) is a small building in the Romanesque Revival style, designed in 1892 for pathological and bacteriological work, in association with the island's hospitals at the time. It now is used by the MTA as a power conversion substation.Blackwell House (near top left) is one of the only original farmhouses left in New York City. It was built in 1794 for Robert Blackwell and his family. It is now a community center.The Chapel of the Good Shepherd (middle left) was built in 1888 for inmates of the almshouses and workhouses on Blackwell's Island. It is now used as a community center.Octoagon Tower (left) was part of the New York Lunatic Asylum, which opened in 1839, and featured a grant octagonal tower with a large spiral staircase, all of which has now been beautifully restored by The Octagon.The Lighthouse (far middle left) was built in 1872 by island convicts, is composed of gray granite, and stands 50 feet tall. Like the smallpox hospital, the Lighthouse was designed by the architect James Renwick.



R e s e a r c h : M o d e r n H i s t o r y

In 1968, Mayor John Lindsay put together a committee to develop Welfare Island. Ed Logue, who was president of the UDC, chose architects Philip Johnson and John Burgee to produce a General Development Plan, completed in 1969, a modernist design calling for 5000 units.

Ed Logue's vision was to create a mixed-income community of low-income and market rate units, with special attention on providing housing for the elderly, disabled, and for employees of the hospital campuses on the island. Subsidized housing faced Queens, while market rate housing faced Manhattan.

This community was originally designed to be pedestrian, served by an electric railway. Vehicle access was to be strictly limited to facilitate safe bicycle and pedestrian access for families.

The community was planned to be self-contained, providing an elementary school, grocery store, cafes, post office, and other standard municipal services.

early blueprints for Northtown, the first phase of development on Roosevelt Island, showing comments from the architects and other designers

Newspapers from the 1970s, correspondance within RIDC on a variety of issues from public safety to development projects, articles showing international reaction to Roosevelt Island, RIDC communications with the City of New York, original, official publications of UDC's Lease, early photos, maps, construction diagrams with notes from the architects, and security files from 1977 and 1978, the bulk of which was generously supplied by Larry Goldman, a former VP of RIDC, all helped our team understand the context of Roosevelt Island's creation and early development.

Cornell Landscaping Study Part 1

Documents

Transcript of Cornell Landscaping Study Part 1