From 2023-2024, Hester Street partnered with Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (LCPA) to design and lead a participatory planning and public engagement process to reimagine the Amsterdam Avenue side of their iconic campus.
The first stage of the planning process centered on gathering information about how community members currently use Lincoln Center spaces, the challenges they face accessing and navigating the campus, and their ideas for improvement.
Over the course of Lincoln Center’s 2023 Summer for the City series, HST’s team engaged approximately 3,400 neighbors, advocates, community and educational leaders, elected officials, and others to share their ideas, interests, questions, and feedback through interactive pop-ups, in-person and online surveys, a community mural and memory wall, interviews, and focus groups. During the fall of 2023, HST continued to engage neighboring NYC Housing Authority (NYCHA) residents, and students from nearby Martin Luther King Jr. Educational Complex and Fiorello H. Laguardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts to incorporate their feedback into the visioning process.
In March 2024, Lincoln Center announced the design team that will develop plans for the campus’ redesign based on feedback from all the community members who shared their input during the participatory planning process. Read the report that reflects the collaborative work of Lincoln Center, Hester Street, NADAAA, and NYC Parks and summarizes the visions participants shared through the planning process.
The following activities represent key components of HST’s engagement during the 2023 Summer for the City series:
ENGAGEMENT MATERIAL
Memory garden activity inviting participants to share a favorite memory of the Lincoln Center campus
Community mural inviting participants to add their self portrait to a Lincoln Center community mural
Activity boards inviting participants to share how they currently use the Lincoln Center campus, and which activities they would most like to see bolstered.
