Reactivating the Stanton Street SDR Park Building for Community Resilience

Keena Suh (Pratt Institute)

The work presented in this research reflects a collaborative design process in an upper-level design course at Pratt Institute which provided students an opportunity to develop community-based design proposals that address social resiliency in an urban context.

Students in the course envisioned the future of an existing underutilized parks building located in Sara D. Roosevelt Park in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. In developing proposals for the revitalization of an urban community anchor, students proposed designs to help connect people, place, and narratives to promote active, civic engagement through the transformation of public space. Based on research, collaboration with local community organizations, and existing program proposals, students envisioned the future of the Stanton Building, considering the interiors, building-wide strategies for sustainable design, and the unique context of the urban park.

The Stanton Building is one of about 40 NYC Parks Department buildings in Manhattan which operated as community centers until the 1970s, many which have remained closed to the public since that time. Once a thriving community center, the Stanton Building has served as storage space for the NYC Parks Department, with the building’s lack of activation contributing to a sense of abandonment and unsafe conditions in its shadows. Neighborhood activists and organizations–such as the Stanton Building Task Force–have advocated for decades for the building to be restored and returned for community use, beginning with the restrooms which have been inaccessible to the public since 1994. The revitalization of the Stanton Building not only returns an underutilized building to the public, re-connecting the building’s public interior with the surrounding park and neighborhood, but activates social resiliency. The process is a model of community-driven initiatives, citizen participation, and community-based stewardship. This model of civic engagement seeks to help future designers value design as an empowering, responsive, collaborative process.