This Anniversary Celebration of the two notable World’s Fairs staged in New York City during the Springs and Summers of 1939-40 and 1964-65, intends to preserve the essential spirit of these events, the varieties of Cultural Expression, the marvels of Cutting-Edge Technology, the Fun, the Food, the Rides and all the rest. Taking place in 2019 and 2020, its focus will be on a bottom-up, modern, and fully interactive interpretation of this classic exposition, while adding the novel notion of simultaneous mini-events, taking place at many diverse locations around the country and the world at the same time, instead of just in one place.
As a prime focus, artists, craftspeople, designers, mechanics, and engineers are being encouraged to begin immediately to fabricate the next generation’s human-scale transportation system, the weather-protected bikes, and wheelchairs that will fill our urban spaces. We will work to motivate individuals and small groups to begin this work, where they are and right away. In the Spring of 2019, we will invite them to bring their creations to the World’s Fairgrounds in Queens New York, to show them off and exchange ideas with other participants. Meanwhile, they will have been working for a year to expose these ideas to their own communities while also exhibiting them on our website. We will also be reaching out to individuals and institutions here to provide hospitality to visiting builders and transportation companies, to help get their vehicles here for the show.
Another theme prominently featured will be Agriculture and Nutrition, with opportunities developed for city-dwellers to experience growing environments directly, by facilitating inexpensive travel to rural environments while also providing ethnically-rich and nutritious foodstuffs to all. The ultimate goal here is to habituate people to eating more consciously and healthfully, while also more greatly appreciating the range of tastes and preferences enjoyed by those with different backgrounds and influences. The third major subject category is the ways in which neighborhoods can become friendlier and more supportive of their own resources, both human and natural. We want to help answer the question: How can members of communities organize and express themselves more fully, in order to take more responsibility for their surroundings and have a greater influence over them?
The last major area of interest here is in Cultural Expression and the diversity which characterizes our planet as expressed through music, dance, poetry, and other distinctive ways of interpreting our lives. As well as seeking out opportunities for these expressions to take place during the event, in keeping with the traditions which have characterized events such as this historically, we intend to invite demonstrations of the role that technology does and can play, in helping us to enjoy these creative performances.
The ordinary definition of a World’s Fair is a collection of exhibits, put together by large corporations, industries, and Governments, to impress the public with their grasp of the future and value to us in the present. Visitors are expected to congregate where huge, expensive but temporary pavilions have been constructed, to house elaborate exhibits. Spectators are expected to be dazzled and impressed with the importance of these enterprises and their products and take home souvenirs that will someday earn them a fortune on eBay. Despite the typical grand scale and the sense of remoteness that it sometimes invokes, the fact is that most attendees enjoy these spectacles enormously and never forget the impression that they made on them. Of course, now that TV (first demonstrated in NYC at the 1939 Fair) has rendered the most exotic the most commonplace, we need a re-working of this experience and a more interactive approach.
Communications and information are two fields that have developed extraordinarily in recent times, much of it through miniaturization and already have changed the way we live dramatically. Transportation, the next field to be revolutionized, and miniaturized, is a subject that has been overly influenced by the self-centered agendas of those in a position to benefit from maintaining the status quo. A car today is, in an urban environment, as absurd as a twenty-pound cellphone. The President of the United States says our “Economy is built on innovation”. Around the world, many of the tasks we perform are done with archaic tools, oversized cars, and trucks prominently among them. Intensive research into available alternatives is crucial. By creating conditions that permit us to more easily learn from one another, we are better able to use the benefits that are generated by this activity, while continuing to fuel our researches and making it easier to adapt our thinking and behavior to best utilize our new knowledge.
The Chinese Politburo many years ago decided to favor funding road-building and car manufacturing over mass transit and more recently had even begun to ban bikes and electric bikes from some roads, until popular discontent forced them to reverse their stands. The wisdom of giving more attention to the needs of the majority of the population is clear but the means to accomplish this is less so. What is obvious to nearly all is the need to begin to conserve resources. The danger of simply following the example of the United States and the Western industrialized world, which defines progress as growth, is manifest, and traffic jams now plague every continent. Substituting quantity for quality in determining the nature of our economic success is causing enormous problems. In a world where hunger is still a serious problem, converting food into fuel for cars is only the most obvious example of our folly, but not the only one.
We must figure out how to provide ourselves with the level of creature comfort that we are now accustomed to in our transportation system, without the enormous economic and environmental costs that this now entails. The most direct path to this end is human-scale and human-powered vehicles, with electric assistance. They can provide the means for this conversion to take place, from industrial-scale vehicles, especially petroleum-powered, which are inherently both dangerous as well as unsuitable for crowded urban environments. If the internal combustion engine had just been invented there is no way that we would have allowed it on our streets. Poison gas in any quantity is forbidden in indoor spaces, but so common that it is virtually invisible in our shared spaces.
This insult to our health and well-being is only tolerable because it has been with us for so long. Those who benefit from its inherent hazards and inefficiencies spend enormous amounts of money to convince us otherwise. The real problem is the lack of suitable alternatives. There is not even wheelchairs (which could be another name for cars) or bikes, an essentially 19th-century design, with umbrellas. Upgrading the least expensive modes of travel sufficiently to replace the outmoded ones we currently use will have an enormous influence on our surroundings. Multi-ton vehicles traveling at common speeds have an immense negative impact on our sense of peace and tranquility. While we now associate all of this hyperactivity with the energy of the urban experience, the noise alone is often so intrusive that you can not even carry on a normal conversation.
It makes good sense to use the 1255 car-free acres of Flushing Meadows Corona Park, the World’s Fairgrounds, to bring together a host of creative, ingenious and caring people, to take on this important challenge and demonstrate how it can be dealt with, to a vast local and global audience.
It is taking stock of our ability to create objects and activities, that can improve the quality of our lives, and help us to be fully aware of the times we are in and, most importantly, what is coming.
It helps to put needed attention on important issues, while also using art and creative expressions as key factors.
It highlights the many unique places in the world and the cultures that exist there, which can expand tolerance and appreciation of differences.
This proposal endeavors to retain the innovative and welcoming spirit of these historical events, but it is also structured in some ways that are the very opposite of the classical model:
It is taking place everywhere in the world, in every country at the same time.
A variety of regional gatherings will supplant the usual single location.
It is taking place starting now and continuously, with no arbitrary time limit.
It cost nothing to exhibit or to share in the activity taking place.
In order to initiate this program it will require :
A means to reach out, as widely and quickly as possible, to all potential participants.
A program to solicit money and in-kind contributions, to be given directly to builders.
A non-profit established, to help local groups to gain economic and political support.
A website, www.AMovement.org to provide the means for programs to communicate.
An artist, who can illustrate the shape and goals of this effort with effective images.
A group of supporters, willing to be helpful in gaining visibility for this undertaking.
Funds, are sufficient to reward, appropriately, those providing professional services.
Advanced Design Bikes and Wheelchairs to share and on exhibit, and innovative visions of our human-powered future
Featured, along with more evolved human-scale transportation, will be improved nutritional options, creative uses of public space, healthier recreational activities, and fuller appreciation of the natural world
WHERE:
Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens, N.Y. and 1255 acres of car-free public space, N.Y’s World’s Fairgrounds, & in localities around the country & the world.
WHEN:
From 2022 and 2025, to coincide with the 60th anniversaries of the 1964-65 New York’s World’s Fair.
WHO:
Though Queens is already home to the broadest assemblage of peoples, speaking more different languages than anywhere in the world, it is the intention of the organizers to involve local communities everywhere, from 191 other countries, 49 other States, 61 other counties, and 59 NYC Community Boards, 360 venues, all, in effect, represented by their local residents’ entries. Through the Internet and a focus on sustaining localized activities, we will endeavor participation to be maximized everywhere and thereby enable everyone who desires, whether here or in their own community, to be involved.
We are in the process of gathering another group of individuals who would like to declare their support for this program. The list below was assembled when we were still the operators of the Bike and Boat rental concession in Flushing Meadows Corona Park in New York City, during our first attempt to bring this all together previously. Unfortunately, electric-assisted human-powered vehicles were still in legal limbo at that time, and doing this would not have been possible. The current version of this event does not require that the location of previous World’s Fairs any longer be central to this effort. (In fact, New York City is currently discouraging electric bikes, even though they can not be distinguished from ordinary bikes) and trikes, from using the park. It is expected that this situation will change soon but it doesn’t matter, since work will be going on in small groups, using permitted space, to build their vehicles, everywhere in the world. All public streets and other public spaces are always available to exhibit and share in the enjoyment of these new means of getting around.
Kent Barwick, Former Director of Municipal Art Society and NYS Council on the Arts
David Gurin, Former Commissioner of Transportation, Toronto Canada
Carlos Pujol, CEO Cemusa, NYC Street Furniture Contractor
Garrett Brown, Inventor of the Steadycam and Skycam
James Weisman, Legal Director of United Spinal Association
Sherry Huss, Director of The Maker Faire
Jay Townley, Consultant at American Bicycle Industry
Wendy Brawer, Founder of The Green Map Project
Dr. Alan Moore, Art Historian/Exhibit Organizer
John Dowlin, Publisher Bicycle Network News
HOW:
Like Fairs of the past, the emphasis here will be on creativity, expression, tolerance, education, technology, and enjoyment. Unlike the usual format, there will be no large and expensive pavilions meant to be dismantled after the event. Instead of limiting participation to large-scale organizations, it is the intent of the organizers to put the focus here on the accomplishments of individuals and small groups of people by demonstrating our ability to have a positive effect on our common existences, to contribute to healthier and more active lives and to reduce the harm we may, even unintentionally, cause each other.
Financing is always an issue and first of all, as befits an anniversary celebration, we will invite all of the former exhibitors to be a part of this event. We will ask them to provide as many small grants as they can, to various deserving local efforts, to commemorate their previous involvement. We are also inviting any other business or government unit to do the same thing, to provide small amounts of money to individuals and small groups within their communities to help them develop a project which can be part of this event. The Organizing Committee, charged with turning this idea into a reality, will be comprised primarily of volunteers and will largely use their own resources and contributed facilities to guarantee the success of this effort. We can further encourage these developments by expediting access to travel, hospitality and other needed support to visit designers and builders, by soliciting help, especially from those who hail from their home towns, to help enable the broadest involvement possible.
While experienced professionals in various areas will be needed to help guide this undertaking, it is our intention that, through the broad participation of students and non-profit organizations we can keep costs to a minimum. A detailed working plan and timeline will be developed soon and distributed to all those aiding in this effort.
WHY:
As the place where the Flushing Remonstrance occurred, one of America’s earliest attempts to establish universal respect for the differences in belief that exist, and the first home of the United Nations, there is no location more suitable to build upon these efforts to venerate our humanity. As in previous Fairs, appreciation of others from different backgrounds, having a good time, experiencing evolving technologies, and exposure to varied forms of expression are central to the event.
What will be different about this version of a World’s Fair will be a vigorous effort to encourage direct involvement in these issues, to maximize participation by individuals rather than institutions, and an emphasis on heightening appreciation of the potential for people of any age or background to make significant contributions to our common evolution, to engage their own creative energies in the service of others. Applying ourselves to issues like nutrition and the use of natural resources that concern all of us will enable participants from everywhere to relate to these important questions and their resolution.
One subject that concerns us all is the production and provision of healthy and nutritious food. This also involves the growth and gathering of foodstuffs as well as improved guidance in the preparation and consumption of life-preserving and life-enhancing nutrition. Being exposed to comestibles from everywhere in the world gives us the opportunity to improve and change our habits, to appreciate the lessons learned from different cultures over time regarding the best ways of appreciating our natural environment and its products, expanding our tastes, and improving our choices. We will encourage suppliers to focus on healthier, more economical, and therefore preferential foodstuffs. Keeping in mind the effect of these choices on the health of our planet is another important dimension. How we use our land is a factor in how the future looks and must not be ignored.
While a number of subjects will receive significant attention here, we recognize that important technological advances have made real breakthroughs in lightweight transportation possible today and the economic and environmental burdens of the current system are considerable. This high-profile, prestigious showcase can serve to motivate designers, builders, and allied enterprises from everywhere to bring new ideas forward, and into the real world quickly. Developing variations on the common bicycle, to help bridge the gap between minimal and maximal transport, is long overdue. We know that bicycles, wheelchairs, artisanship, and stress on shared resources are common features in the lives of people from every corner of the world.
Using our combined ingenuity, creativity, and experience, we can reshape how we get ourselves, and our goods, around, how we deploy our shared resources, and how we help influence others to understand their best choices. If we do this in the process of enjoying pleasurable experiences, there is hardly a better way to illustrate this potential and its desirability. While the public is accustomed to regarding “educational” activity as possibly boring or tedious, here the opposite is the case.
For instance, these machines, whether previously called wheelchairs or recumbent trikes, can be used by everyone, if made well enough, not just a special population. Making available colorful, easily-usable, creative vehicles, new varieties of electric-assisted and human-powered transportation, regardless of former definition or category, can completely remove the existing onus of using a wheelchair. The best-designed vehicles can enjoyably be used by the young, the old and everybody in-between. These machines might well end up resembling each other more than they look like their current versions. We can vault over ancient and worn-out categories into new and more relevant distinctions. Is it weather–protected? Is it beautiful? Can you carry your friends on it? Is it different than anything you have ever seen? Do you wish you had made it? Can you use it when you want to and leave it conveniently for somebody else to enjoy when you are finished?
Encouraging innovation and accelerating the healing process of the planet is now job number one. There can be an infinite number of worthy projects cataloged, described, shown in action. This resource will begin by culling the best examples from existing databases.
We will encourage new ideas, even if only in the form of a drawing, a model, or something that only the designer/builder rides, which can be practically anything and may be used by other designer/builders only, in a kind of exchange. If the public is going to be allowed to use it within a confined space and protected environment, a more strict set of standards will have to be used. If it can be ridden away, to use in the rest of the park, the most stringent requirements will exist. We will employ a peer-review process, so that selection of participating vehicles is as fair and high quality as possible and so that all parties to this activity can have what amounts to a continuing ongoing forum so they can contribute their ideas and concerns, and participate in the process of addressing them.
Everybody needs green spaces, exercise, and safe, non-destructive, and affordable ways to get around.
Providing some shelter, as little as a large “Umbrella” is essential in making our public spaces fully habitable. This endeavor will also encourage the design and construction of unique, beautiful, and interesting structures, to provide weather protection, especially to public transit users. We will also encourage a process that will enable local artists, craftspeople, and others to formulate these structures for their own neighborhoods and for those communities to have a hand in this process.
We are dedicated to improving everyone’s ability to enjoy their shared spaces, especially parks by preserving and enhancing their natural beauty while expanding access to new, healthful, non-intrusive activities. In the words of urban historian Lewis Mumford, the Godfather of the 1939 New York World’s Fair, “Year by year our cities grow more complex and less fit for living. The Age of Rebuilding is here. We must remold our old cities and build new communities better suited to our needs”.
I was the operator of the Boat and Bike rental concession in Flushing Meadows Park, the site of the 1939 and 1964 World’s Fairs. I proposed then that an anniversary celebration of these events be held, but with a different architecture. Instead of large, expensive, and temporary pavilions, sponsored by the biggest corporations, USA States, and foreign governments, the usual top-down affair, it was proposed that this event be a bottom-up, multi-year celebration, centered on creative designs of human-powered and electric-assisted vehicles. Further, it was proposed that these efforts, by individuals or small groups, be supported, in part, by cooperating foundations, companies, cities, and educational institutions, and take place in New York City, as well as in other locations around the world, on an ongoing basis.
Back then, the proposal for these exhibitions and demonstrations was intended to serve to raise the awareness of the potential of these technologies to provide us with their considerable environmental and economic benefits, while developing more interest and involvement in their possibility to contribute to more healthful and needed advances in our ordinary habits. Now, a decade later, after the crucial evolution of battery and motor technology, we are witnessing rapid progress in this realm and every day brings new products and ideas forward. The utility and pleasure provided by these machines have now been established everywhere.
While these developments are certainly welcome, there is still an important opportunity to open this process fully, to engage artists, designers, engineers and mechanics, and others, to contribute to this evolution. Providing a place, like car-free Flushing Meadows Park, to provide one of the central venues for the public to experience these advances, to ride and share these devices and exhibit the results of their creative efforts, will further accelerate their development and wide use.
It is not necessary for any organization to control this activity or directly manage it. Rather, it can be publicized and popularized and become one of the ways for this important technology to become a part of our lives more rapidly and provide for a far wider range of design options. Weather protection, multi-person devices, easier access, and improved safety are some of the areas in which we need to pay more attention. Bicycling is ordinarily a solitary activity and is usually limited to use in fair weather, thus preventing its fullest benefit. The introduction of helper motors has already considerably expanded the number of users, but the most stable, comfortable, and utilitarian models are still rarely available. The ability to use vehicles in all kinds of weather conditions, hot, cold, rainy, etc. limits their ability to replace the multi-ton vehicles that monopolize our open spaces. Multi-passenger “Sociables” that were once popular, is rarely in evidence. All this can change as our ambition to fulfill the potential of these machines is explored and realized.
Recent events, in the form of fires and floods and pandemics, may have been interpreted, by some, as a kind-of Biblical message. For others, this is an urgent call for action, to explore the most dramatic changes in our consumption patterns, of fossil fuels especially, as soon as possible. There are a few changes that will be more effective in countering this challenge to our survival. Creativity is sometimes just a path to pleasure but it can also be a kind of medicine, the most effective response to a dangerous threat. It is time for us to take this remedy to heart, to use the transformation of our public spaces as a conspicuous demonstration of our ability to confront our common challenges and resolve our most serious crises, joyfully and effectively.
legal to operate pedal-activated, electric-assisted cycles in New York City. Fortunately, fully-evolved versions of these machines, multi-passenger, weatherized, beautiful and accessible, will eventually fill our streets. Meanwhile, vehicle designers, from around the country and the planet, are therefore invited to visit here, over the next few years, to bring their creative versions of these devices, including wheelchairs, here, to show-off and use.
The primary venue for this undertaking is Flushing Meadows Park, in Queens New York, now celebrating the Anniversaries of the historic 1939 and 1964 World’s Fairs that took place there. Its wide paths and many open spaces are perfect places to demonstrate the next generation of healthful, safe, appropriate, maybe even beautiful, urban vehicles. Giving the public the opportunity to experience this multitude of options is of great benefit to both the creators of these new, up-to-date conveyances and their eventual users.
This program will also seek to initiate efforts in other places with similar goals. Traveling to NYC will be impossible for many, so helping to generate local support for projects from both public, private and non-profit sources, needs to be done as well.
This “event” is more like the sun rising, a natural occurrence, an inevitability. We have finally, as a species, realized that we must use the resources that we have more consciously and responsibly, especially as regards transportation. As a result, bike-sharing and electric vehicles, for instance, are becoming standard and welcome features of cities everywhere.
At the same time, there is the realization that we must begin to seriously upgrade the quality and utility of these devices, enable them to provide better weather protection and creature comforts, make them beautiful and inspiring instead of merely utilitarian. There are ingenious people everywhere, artists, mechanics, designers, who can contribute to the expansion of the varieties of vehicles available and their improvement, and should.
Showing these devices off, and letting others use them, as part of a grand showcase, in order to generate more colorful and beneficial activity in this realm, is one goal here. Contributing substantially to resolving one of our most vexing environmental catastrophes is another. Appreciating one another’s creativity while having a good time is another.
To Build A Vehicle & Show It Off On The World’s Fairgrounds Of New York City
There is an urgent need within our cities to develop personal transportation that bridges the gap, between the bare minimum, the bicycle, and scooter, and the oversized, multi-ton automobile. These new, safe, light, comfortable, and easily used devices, must retain a muscle-powered option. This is essential, in order to encourage the widest possible enjoyment of the substantial economic, environmental, and health benefits that we can provide for ourselves.
Because these vehicles operate on a human scale, this creative work can be done by a wide range of designers, mechanics, artists, sculptors, and makers. Materials can include fabric and wood along with the usual metal and plastic. Motors and other parts can be recycled from discarded or re-purposed items. Taking part in this process is open to anyone with the desire to participate. As a “World’s Fair”, taking place in a neighborhood with the most diverse population on earth, along with numerous local projects taking place at the same time, the broadest possible involvement is possible.
1939/1964 New York World’s Fair Anniversary Celebration 2022-2025 will perform only two tasks: we will let as many people know about this program as possible and expedite communications in general: we will also endeavor to motivate individuals and businesses, where ever they are, to lend support to their own local efforts, even to begin one. This will help in bringing attention to these projects and generating resources. Scheduling local get-togethers and exhibits and establishing cooperative efforts do not require anybody’s permission. It is not necessary to voyage to NYC to take part here either, although it would be welcome. There are no contest, or prizes, at least yet. Being part of this is winning. Expressing yourself, by making it easier to get around, while enabling more life energy to flow through our limbs and senses, is the goal.
will be the first World’s Fair to take place all over the world at the same time. Participation is gained by scheduling a regular and convenient time and place, for yourself and your neighbors to exhibit and work, on local, muscle-powered-vehicle building projects. We need to accelerate the design and development of human-scale and human-powered and electric-assisted transportation for work, travel, pleasure, and exercise.
We can celebrate these Fairs’ high-tech surprises, International favor, and good fun, with few rules to limit originality, (only pedal-activated vehicles please) while enabling crowd-sourcing and cooperation to help us solve serious problems. We need cycles and wheelchairs that are safer, healthier, more affordable, more beautiful and unique, and easier to access, share and use. We need many creative people to initiate these efforts.
Individuals and small groups are being encouraged to begin projects to re-define these modes of transport and bring them from their current 19th-century configurations into the 21st Century, with weatherization and motorization, etc. Submissions will be sorted by type, cargo, passenger, multimodal, amphibious, etc., and also by geography, and will be freely viewable on nyworldsfair.org. Artists, engineers, mechanics, and designers are all being invited to take part in the creation of much better, and greener, transport options, for everyone and from everywhere.
Preserving the Most Important Classic Features of these Historic Occasions: International, Inclusive, Technology, Education, Fun, Rides, Shows and Snacks
Differences Between Previous Fairs
There is an admission Charge. There is a fence around the perimeter. There are large, temporary, expensive pavilions. Participants are large corporations and governments. Visitors are mostly passive observers and consumers. The intention of exhibitors is to dazzle and impress. This takes place for some months over one or two years heavy initial expenses make economic viability rare. The residual benefits of momentary events are few. There will be long waits to enter complex busy exhibits. It will take several years of planning to participate. Surrounding communities barely participate or benefit. There is no control over the healthfulness of food etc. The “World” has to come to you from somewhere else. There is no meaningful interaction among exhibitors. The emphasis is on the proprietary and the profitable. The Industrial Scale World is what matters most here. We are taught that seriousness is the opposite of fun Everybody has to come to this place to participate.
This One Planned for 2019.
It is in a public park and admission is free. There are pesky highways but no walls. There are mobile traveling exhibits on wheels. They may sponsor individuals and small groups. There are continuous opportunities to interact with. Presenters aim to motivate others to join them. This activity becomes a part of this park and others. This low-cost approach guarantees solvency. This is the start of new transport infrastructure. Numerous small-scale opportunities will proliferate. Exhibitors can decide at any time to be involved. All surrounding neighborhoods are a part of this. Here is proof that good tasting can be good for you. People from everywhere are already in Queens. Open Forums on Human Powered Vehicle design. The public’s interest in its own public space is key. The Human Scale dimension is the one we live in. Yet Human-Powered Transportation is a lot of both. This happens here and there and online and off.
and there is no small army of mostly young, creative, ingenious, and entrepreneurial people, everywhere, who are ready, now, to contribute their best efforts towards re-designing our urban transportation systems, in order to improve our ability to survive the current climate crisis, and have a really good time while they’re doing it.
Maybe it is impossible to use tiny human-powered vehicles, with solar/electric assistance, to replace archaic multi-ton, gas-powered behemoths.
Maybe we can not construct these new conveyances so they offer full protection against bad weather when needed, safely and comfortably, but are otherwise open to the air.
Maybe it is not possible to enable riders to stand, lean, sit or recline, as they wish, instead of always being forced to sit, like children in school or when being served a meal.
Maybe personal vehicles can transform into person/cargo-carrying ones, so we can travel alone, or with others, as we please.
Maybe we can make certain that everybody, regardless of their abilities or economy, has equal access to local mobility.
Maybe bikes are simply too small and cars are way too big, and we need a Goldilocks moment, when we realize, suddenly, that the “Just Right” is, obviously, what is missing.
Maybe what we still need, is far greater than what we already have. Put another way, in spatial terms, the hole may be much bigger than the donut.
Sharing Umbrellaswill be the first World’s Fair to take place all over the world
at the same time. Participation is gained by scheduling a regular and convenient time and place, for yourself and your neighbors to exhibit and work, on local, muscle-powered-vehicle building projects. We need to accelerate the design and development of human-scale and human-powered and electric-assisted transportation for work, travel, pleasure, and exercise.
We can celebrate these Fairs’ high-tech surprises, International favor, and good fun, with few rules to limit originality, (only pedal-activated vehicles please), while enabling crowd-sourcing and cooperation to help us solve serious problems. We need cycles and wheelchairs that are safer, healthier, more affordable, more beautiful and unique, and easier to access, share and use. We need many creative people to initiate these efforts.
Individuals and small groups are being encouraged to begin projects to redefine these modes of transport and bring them from their current 19th-century configurations into the 21st Century, with weatherization and motorization, etc. Submissions will be sorted by type, cargo, passenger, multimodal, amphibious, etc., and also by geography, and will be freely viewable on SharingUmbrellas.org Artists, engineers, mechanics, and designers are all being invited to take part in the creation of much better, and greener, transport options, for everyone and from everywhere.
The end of the Anniversary Celebrations for the 1939 and 1964 World’s Fairs will be on October 16th and 27th 2019. We will use the 11 days between those dates, to commemorate the legacy of these historic events, through exhibits and demonstrations of the futuristic human-powered vehicles being designed and built over the next two years. We will congregate during those days in Flushing Meadows/Corona Park in New York City, the site of the original Fair, and in all the other places around the world being used for these regular gatherings over this time, to be amazed, learn from one another, take some rides and have some serious fun.
SHARED:
SPACES AND FACILITIES Communication/Information/Transportation/Shelter Parkland/Sidewalks/Streets/Neighborhoods
VEHICLES AND RIDES Transport/Utility/Human-scale/”Wheelchairs” Muscle-powered/Electric-assisted/Urban-friendly
A campaign, over two years, from this Summer until late 2019, to encourage individuals and small groups to work on designing and building the next generations of human-scale urban transport vehicles and neighborhood-originated and operated, Transportation/Information/Communications Stations.
Although we are celebrating the 80th and 55th Anniversaries of the 1939 and 1964 World’s Fairs, instead of occurring only in NYC, this effort will take place at the same time in myriad locations. Wherever there is the interest, the tools and skills needed and a place to work, a group may form and identify itself.
Current wheelchairs and bikes do not provide weather protection, places for passengers or gear, the whole array of creature comforts, and other features that would permit them to be used by everyone at all times and ultimately replace, multi-ton, industrial-scale, urban-unfriendly vehicles.
Unique all-purpose shelters can be made by local artists and craftspeople, to provide protection against bad weather at bus stops and elsewhere, to give neighborhoods natural gathering spots and bulletin boards, ways to encourage help availability, organize healthy exercise, and enable resource-sharing and rides.
Local businesses, environmental, arts and education organizations, and former world’s Fair exhibitors will be asked to offer support to local groups working on these projects, to give them seed money, or in-kind contributions of materials and services, to publicize and help transport their final products to NYC.
We will expedite hospitality for participants, to find Queens residents willing to open up their homes to makers from their original home cities. This place, with the most diverse population on earth, is ideal to celebrate the universality of ingenuity and curiosity and our problem-solving abilities.
Celebrating the Anniversaries of the 1939 and 1964 New York World’s Fairs
This Anniversary Celebration of the two notable World’s Fairs staged in New York City during the Springs and Summers of 1939-40 and 1964-65, intends to preserve the essential spirit of these events, the varieties of Cultural Expression, the marvels of Cutting-Edge Technology, the Fun, the Food, the Rides and all the rest. Taking place in 2019 and 2020, its focus will be on a bottom-up, modern, and fully interactive interpretation of this classic exposition, while adding the novel notion of simultaneous mini-events, taking place at many diverse locations around the country and the world at the same time, instead of just in one place.
As a prime focus, artists, craftspeople, designers, mechanics, and engineers are being encouraged to begin immediately to fabricate the next generation’s human-scale transportation system, the weather-protected bikes, and wheelchairs that will fill our urban spaces. We will work to motivate individuals and small groups to begin this work, where they are and right away. In the Spring of 2019, we will invite them to bring their creations to the World’s Fairgrounds in Queens New York, to show them off and exchange ideas with other participants. Meanwhile, they will have been working for a year to expose these ideas to their own communities while also exhibiting them on our website SharingUmbrellas.org. We will also be reaching out to individuals and institutions here to provide hospitality to visiting builders and transportation companies, to help get their vehicles here for the show.
Another theme prominently featured will be Agriculture and Nutrition, with opportunities developed for city-dwellers to experience growing environments directly, by facilitating inexpensive travel to rural environments while also providing ethnically-rich and nutritious foodstuffs to all. The ultimate goal here is to habituate people to eating more consciously and healthfully, while also more greatly appreciating the range of tastes and preferences enjoyed by those with different backgrounds and influences. The third major subject category is the ways in which neighborhoods can become friendlier and more supportive of their own resources, both human and natural. We want to help answer the question: How can members of communities organize and express themselves more fully, in order to take more responsibility for their surroundings and have a greater influence over them?
The last major area of interest here is in Cultural Expression and the diversity which characterizes our planet as expressed through music, dance, poetry, and other distinctive ways of interpreting our lives. As well as seeking out opportunities for these expressions to take place during the event, in keeping with the traditions which have characterized events such as this historically, we intend to invite demonstrations of the role that technology does and can play, in helping us to enjoy these creative performances.
The ordinary definition of a World’s Fair is a collection of exhibits, put together by large corporations, industries, and Governments, to impress the public with their grasp of the future and value to us in the present. Visitors are expected to congregate were huge, expensive but temporary pavilions have been constructed, to house elaborate exhibits. Spectators are expected to be dazzled and impressed with the importance of these enterprises and their products and take home souvenirs that will someday earn them a fortune on eBay. Despite the typical grand scale and the sense of remoteness that it sometimes invokes, the fact is that most attendees enjoy these spectacles enormously and never forget the impression that they made on them. Of course, now that TV (first demonstrated in NYC at the 1939 Fair) has rendered the most exotic the most commonplace, we need a re-working of this experience and a more interactive approach.
Communications and information are two fields that have developed extraordinarily in recent times, much of it through miniaturization, and already has changed the way we live dramatically. Transportation, the next field to be revolutionized, and miniaturized, is a subject that has been overly influenced by the self-centered agendas of those in a position to benefit from maintaining the status quo. A car today is, in an urban environment, as absurd as a twenty-pound cellphone. The President of the United States says our “Economy is built on innovation”. Around the world, many of the tasks we perform are done with archaic tools, oversized cars and trucks prominently among them. Intensive research into available alternatives is crucial. By creating conditions that permit us to more easily learn from one another, we are better able to use the benefits that are generated by this activity, while continuing to fuel our research and making it easier to adapt our thinking and behavior to best utilize our new knowledge.
The Chinese Politburo many years ago decided to favor funding road-building and car manufacturing over mass transit and more recently had even begun to ban bikes and electric bikes from some roads, until popular discontent forced them to reverse their stands. The wisdom of giving more attention to the needs of the majority of the population is clear but the means to accomplish this is less so. What is obvious to nearly all is the need to begin to conserve resources. The danger of simply following the example of the United States and the Western industrialized world, which defines progress as growth, is manifest, and traffic jams now plague every continent. Substituting quantity for quality in determining the nature of our economic success is causing enormous problems. In a world where hunger is still a serious problem, converting food into fuel for cars is only the most obvious example of our folly, but not the only one.
We must figure out how to provide ourselves with the level of creature comfort that we are now accustomed to in our transportation system, without the enormous economic and environmental costs that this now entails. The most direct path to this end is human-scale and human-powered vehicles, with electric assistance. They can provide the means for this conversion to take place, from industrial-scale vehicles, especially petroleum-powered ones, which are inherently both dangerous as well as unsuitable for crowded urban environments. If the internal combustion engine had just been invented there is no way that we would have allowed it on our streets. Poison gas in any quantity is forbidden in indoor spaces, but so common that it is virtually invisible in our shared spaces.
This insult to our health and well-being is only tolerable because it has been with us for so long. Those who benefit from its inherent hazards and inefficiencies spend enormous amounts of money to convince us otherwise. The real problem is the lack of suitable alternatives. There are not even wheelchairs (which could be another name for cars) or bikes, an essentially 19th-century design, with umbrellas. Upgrading the least expensive modes of travel sufficiently to replace the outmoded ones we currently use will have an enormous influence on our surroundings. Multi-ton vehicles traveling at common speeds have an immense negative impact on our sense of peace and tranquility. While we now associate all of this hyper-activity with the energy of the urban experience, the noise alone is often so intrusive that you can not even carry on a normal conversation.
It makes good sense to use the 1255 car-free acres of Flushing Meadows Corona Park, the World’s Fairgrounds, to bring together a host of creative, ingenious, and caring people, to take on this important challenge and demonstrate how it can be dealt with, to a vast local and global audience.
Anniversary Celebration of the 1939-40 and 1964-65 New York World’s Fairs
All Summertime 2019 & 2020
WHAT:
Advanced Design Bikes, Boats, and “Wheelchairs” to share and on exhibit, and innovative visions of our human-powered future
Featured, along with more evolved human-scale transportation, will be improved nutritional options, creative uses of public space, healthier recreational activities, and a fuller appreciation of the natural world
WHERE:
Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens, N.Y., and 1255 acres of car-free public space, N.Y’s World’s Fairgrounds, & in localities around the country & the world.
WHEN:
June through September 2019 and 2020, to coincide with the 80th and 55th anniversaries of the 1939-40 and 1964-65 New York’s World’s Fairs.
WHO:
Though Queens is already home to the broadest assemblage of peoples, speaking more different languages than anywhere in the world, it is the intention of the organizers to involve local communities everywhere, from 191 other countries, 49 other States, 61 other counties, and 59 NYC Community Boards, 360 venues, all, in effect, represented by their local residents’ entries. Through the Internet and a focus on sustaining localized activities, we will endeavor participation to be maximized everywhere and thereby enable everyone who desires, whether here or in their own community, to be involved.
Kent Barwick, Former Director of the Municipal Art Society and NYS Council on the Arts
David Gurin, Former Commissioner of Transportation, Toronto Canada
Carlos Pujol, CEO Cemusa, NYC Street Furniture Contractor
Garrett Brown, Inventor of the Steadycam and Skycam
James Weisman, Legal Director of United Spinal Association
Sherry Huss, Director of The Maker Faire
Jay Townley, Consultant at American Bicycle Industry
Wendy Brawer, Founder of The Green Map Project
Dr. Alan Moore, Art Historian/Exhibit Organizer
John Dowlin, Publisher Bicycle Network News
HOW:
Like Fairs of the past, the emphasis here will be on creativity, expression, tolerance, education, technology, and enjoyment. Unlike the usual format, there will be no large and expensive pavilions meant to be dismantled after the event. Instead of limiting participation to large-scale organizations, it is the intent of the organizers to put the focus here on the accomplishments of individuals and small groups of people by demonstrating our ability to have a positive effect on our common existences, to contribute to healthier and more active lives and to reduce the harm we may, even unintentionally, cause each other.
Financing is always an issue and first of all, as befits an anniversary celebration, we will invite all of the former exhibitors to be a part of this event. We will ask them to provide as many small grants as they can, to various deserving local efforts, to commemorate their previous involvement. We are also inviting any other business or government unit to do the same thing, to provide small amounts of money to individuals and small groups within their communities to help them develop a project which can be part of this event. The Organizing Committee, charged with turning this idea into a reality, will be comprised primarily of volunteers and will largely use their own resources and contributed facilities to guarantee the success of this effort. We can further encourage these developments by expediting access to travel, hospitality, and other needed support to visiting designers and builders, and by soliciting help, especially from those who hail from their hometowns, to help enable the broadest involvement possible.
While experienced professionals in various areas will be needed to help guide this undertaking, it is our intention that, through the broad participation of students and non-profit organizations we can keep costs to a minimum. A detailed working plan and timeline will be developed soon and distributed to all those aiding in this effort.
WHY:
As the place where the Flushing Remonstrance occurred, one of America’s earliest attempts to establish universal respect for the differences in belief that exist, and the first home of the United Nations, there is no location more suitable to building upon these efforts to venerate our humanity. As in previous Fairs, appreciation of others from different backgrounds, having a good time, experiencing evolving technologies, and exposure to varied forms of expression are central to the event.
What will be different about this version of a World’s Fair will be a vigorous effort to encourage direct involvement in these issues, to maximize participation by individuals rather than institutions, and an emphasis on heightening appreciation of the potential for people of any age or background to make significant contributions to our common evolution, to engage their own creative energies in the service of others. Applying ourselves to issues like nutrition and the use of natural resources that concern all of us will enable participants from everywhere to relate to these important questions and their resolution.
One subject that concerns us all is the production and provision of healthy and nutritious food. This also involves the growth and gathering of foodstuffs as well as improved guidance in the preparation and consumption of life-preserving and life-enhancing nutrition. Being exposed to comestibles from everywhere in the world gives us the opportunity to improve and change our habits, to appreciate the lessons learned from different cultures over time regarding the best ways of appreciating our natural environment and its products, expanding our tastes and improving our choices. We will encourage suppliers to focus on healthier, more economical, and therefore preferential foodstuffs. Keeping in mind the effect of these choices on the health of our planet is another important dimension. How we use our land is a factor in how the future looks and must not be ignored.
While a number of subjects will receive significant attention here, we recognize that important technological advances have made real breakthroughs in lightweight transportation possible today and the economic and environmental burdens of the current system are considerable. This high-profile, prestigious showcase can serve to motivate designers, builders, and allied enterprises from everywhere to bring new ideas forward, and into the real world quickly. Developing variations on the common bicycle, to help bridge the gap between minimal and maximal transport, is long overdue. We know that bicycles, wheelchairs, artisanship, and stress on shared resources are common features in the lives of people from every corner of the world.
Using our combined ingenuity, creativity, and experience, we can re-shape how we get ourselves, and our goods, around, how we deploy our shared resources, and how we help influence others to understand their best choices. If we do this in the process of enjoying pleasurable experiences, there is hardly a better way to illustrate this potential and its desirability. While the public is accustomed to regarding “educational” activity as possibly boring or tedious, here the opposite is the case.
For instance, these machines, whether previously called “wheelchairs” or “recumbent trikes”, can be used by everyone, if made well enough, not just a special population. Making available colorful, easily-usable, creative vehicles, new varieties of electric-assisted and human-powered transportation, regardless of former definition or category, can completely remove the existing onus of using a “wheelchair”. The best-designed vehicles can enjoyably be used by the young, the old, and everybody are in-between. These machines might well end up resembling each other more than they look like their current versions. We can vault over ancient and worn-out categories into new and more relevant distinctions. Is it weather–protected? Is it beautiful? Can you carry your friends on it? Is it different than anything you have ever seen? Do you wish you had made it? Can you use it when you want to and leave it conveniently for somebody else to enjoy when you are finished?
Encouraging innovation and accelerating the healing process of the planet is now job number one. There can be an infinite number of worthy projects cataloged, described, and shown in action. This resource will begin by culling the best examples from existing databases. To help bring attention to the importance of preserving our aquatic resources, we can include a wide variety of boats, from radio-controlled to wind-propelled, scale models or full-sized, which can look and work beautifully on the quiet waters of what was once known as “Fountain Lake”. Additionally, this lake can be utilized to exhibit artworks, some in the form of boats, others launched for fun or art’s sake.
We will encourage new ideas, even if only in the form of a drawing, a model, or something that only the designer/builder rides, which can be practically anything and may be used by other designers/builders only, in a kind of exchange. If the public is going to be allowed to use it within a confined space and protected environment, another, a more strict set of standards will have to be used. If it can be ridden away, to use in the rest of the park, the most stringent requirements will exist. We will employ a peer-review process, so that selection of participating vehicles is as fair and high quality as possible and so that all parties to this activity can have what amounts to a continuing ongoing forum so they can contribute their ideas and concerns, and participate in the process of addressing them.
Everybody needs green spaces, exercise, and safe, non-destructive, and affordable ways to get around.
Providing some shelter, as little as a large “Umbrella” is essential in making our public spaces fully habitable. This endeavor will also encourage the design and construction of unique, beautiful, and interesting structures, to provide weather protection, especially to public transit users. We will also encourage a process that will enable local artists, craftspeople, and others to formulate these structures for their own neighborhoods and for those communities to have a hand in this process.
We are dedicated to improving everyone’s ability to enjoy their shared spaces, especially parks by preserving and enhancing their natural beauty while expanding access to new, healthful, non-intrusive activities. In the words of urban historian Lewis Mumford, the Godfather of the 1939 New York World’s Fair, “Year by year our cities grow more complex and less fit for living. The Age of Rebuilding is here. We must remold our old cities and build new communities better suited to our needs”.
A World’s Fair Celebration for Everyone Preserving the Most Important Classic Features of these Historic Occasions:
International, Inclusive, Technology, Education, Fun, Rides, Shows, and Snacks
Differences Between Previous Fairs
There is an admission Charge. There is a fence around the perimeter. There are large, temporary, expensive pavilions. Participants are large corporations and governments. Visitors are mostly passive observers and consumers. The intention of exhibitors is to dazzle and impress. This takes place for some months over one or two years heavy initial expenses make economic viability rare. The residual benefits of momentary events are few. There will be long waits to enter complex busy exhibits. It will take several years of planning to participate. Surrounding communities barely participate or benefit. There is no control over the healthfulness of food etc. The “World” has to come to you from somewhere else. There is no meaningful interaction among exhibitors. The emphasis is on the proprietary and the profitable. The Industrial Scale World is what matters most here. We are taught that seriousness is the opposite of fun Everybody has to come to this place to participate.
This One Planned for 2014
It is in a public park and admission is free. There are pesky highways but no walls. There are mobile traveling exhibits on wheels. They may sponsor individuals and small groups. There are continuous opportunities to interact. Presenters aim to motivate others to join them. This activity becomes a part of this park and others. This low-cost approach guarantees solvency. This is the start of a new transport infrastructure. Numerous small-scale opportunities will proliferate. Exhibitors can decide at any time to be involved. All surrounding neighborhoods are a part of this. Here is proof that good tasting can be good for you. People from everywhere are already in Queens. Open Forums on Human Powered Vehicle design. The public’s interest in its own public space is key. The Human Scale dimension is the one we live in. Yet Human-Powered Transportation is a lot of both. This happens here and there and online and off.
from the Summer of 2022. until late 2025 and beyond, to encourage individuals and small groups to work on designing and building the next generations of human-scale urban transport vehicles and neighborhood originated and operated, Transportation/Information/Communications Stations.
SPACES AND FACILITIES Communication/Information/Transportation/Shelter Parkland/Sidewalks/Streets/Neighborhoods
VEHICLES AND RIDES Transport/Utility/Human-scale/Wheelchairs Muscle-powered/Electric-assisted/Urban-friendly
Although we are celebrating the 80th and 55th Anniversaries of the 1939 and 1964 World’s Fairs, instead of occurring only in NYC, this effort will take place at the same time in myriad locations. Wherever there is the interest, the tools and skills needed and a place to work, a group may form and identify itself.
Current wheelchairs and bikes do not provide weather protection, places for passengers or gear, the whole array of creature comforts, and other features that would permit them to be used by everyone at all times and ultimately replace, multi-ton, industrial-scale, urban-unfriendly vehicles.
Unique all-purpose shelters can be made by local artists and craftspeople, to provide protection against bad weather at bus stops and elsewhere, to give neighborhoods natural gathering spots and bulletin boards, ways to encourage help availability, organize healthy exercise, enable resource-sharing and rides.
Local businesses, environmental, arts and education organizations, and former world’s Fair exhibitors will be asked to offer support to local groups working on these projects, to give them seed money, or in-kind contributions of materials and services, to publicize and help transport their final products to NYC.
We will expedite hospitality for participants, to find Queens residents willing to open up their homes to makers from their original home cities. This place, with the most diverse population on earth, is ideal to celebrate the universality of ingenuity and curiosity and our problem-solving abilities.
Our submission to the 2013 New York City “Payphone” Design Contest
Unique all-purpose shelters can be made by local artists and craftspeople, to provide protection against bad weather at bus stops and elsewhere, to give neighborhoods natural gathering spots and bulletin boards, ways to encourage help availability, organize healthy exercise, enable resource-sharing, rides, etc.
VEHICLES NEED STATIONS AND PEOPLE NEED SHARED SPACES
A campaign, over two years, from this Summer until late 2015, to encourage individuals and small groups to work on designing and building the next generations of human-scale urban transport vehicles and neighborhood-originated and operated, Transportation/Information/Communications Stations.
Although we are celebrating the 75th and 50th Anniversaries of the 1939 and 1964 World’s Fairs, instead of occurring only in NYC, this effort will take place at the same time in myriad locations. Wherever there is the interest, the tools and skills needed and a place to work, a group may form and identify itself.
Current wheelchairs and bikes do not provide weather protection, places for passengers or gear, the whole array of creature comforts, and other features that would permit them to be used by everyone at all times and ultimately replace, multi-ton, industrial-scale, urban-unfriendly vehicles.
Unique all-purpose shelters can be made by local artists and craftspeople, to provide protection against bad weather at bus stops and elsewhere, to give neighborhoods natural gathering spots and bulletin boards, ways to encourage help availability, organize healthy exercise, enable resource-sharing, rides, etc.
Local businesses, environmental, arts and education organizations, former world’s Fair exhibitors, etc. will be asked to offer support to local groups working on these projects, to give them seed money, or in-kind contributions of materials and services, to publicize and help transport their final products to NYC
We will expedite hospitality for participants, to find Queens residents willing to open up their homes to makers from their original home cities. This place, with the most diverse population on earth, is ideal to celebrate the universality of ingenuity and curiosity and our problem-solving abilities.
The 11,000 locations of current payphones were chosen primarily due to their potential to market their advertising panels. There are 25,000 more locations no longer active largely due to their relative lack of marketability, though they are already wired and potentially suitable. Meanwhile, since the City’s new criteria focus on their value to our communities, to serve in a variety of important roles, it is clear that they should now be dispersed throughout the city, in every neighborhood, rather than concentrated only at highly commercialized sites. Clearly, there could be many more, placed carefully, to provide a comprehensive system throughout the City.
The variations in terrain, pressure from congestion, and visual character of these diverse places suggests also that the amount of space taken up by these objects, and their relationships to the spaces around them must vary greatly, in order to best serve our neighborhoods. While the core equipment, like current phones, must conform to the existing communications and information technology requirements, the ability to develop these new facilities in such a way as to maximize their benefit to their surroundings and in harmony with them, is not only possible but vitally important as well.
One of the best networks of potential locations for phones is the 9,500 existing bus stops not currently served by shelters. Buses go where the people are and currently these stops are provided with nothing more than a pole and sign and map of the route. While many may be in sparsely-settled, relatively-unsuitable areas, the majority are along streets with substantial populations. There are currently no plans to provide shelters there since the existing franchise is limited to 3,200 fixtures. Since cellphone and solar technology have enabled the construction of a fully-functional facility without the huge expense of trenching for power and connectivity, it is no longer necessary to generate the amount of income from billboards that initially were required to justify this work.
Connectivity:
These recent technological advances, along with an infinite number of apps and other internet options, have created the opportunity to offer economical and convenient connectivity everywhere. We are now free to explore the potential to redefine our public spaces in a variety of very meaningful ways. Every plan you are being offered can take advantage of these advances by partnering with the relevant suppliers, who are happy to make their products and services available to anyone who can make use of them. The utilization of this equipment to provide local Wi-Fi, as well as everything currently online is neither expensive nor technically challenging. The ongoing success of City 24/7 here in the form of an easy-to-operate touch-screen is strong evidence that this system is already within easy reach.
Creativity:
While the current payphone design allows for some variations, we are suggesting that, to the degree possible, every one of these installations, aside from their “Equipment Modules” be as unique as possible, rather than highly uniform. This can be accomplished through the design and construction of “Umbrellas” over each location, so calls can be made and work done without having to protect oneself against falling rain or snow. Resting on strong frameworks, which also support the solar cells powering the facility, these creative constructions can be chosen through a myriad of local design contests with strong preference given to those living within the proximity of the object. Colorful, fun, or dignified, made of metal or cloth, these artistic statements can also be a unique reflection of the communities which surround them.
This system can transform our City into the friendliest environment for creative activity in the world by developing the means to use these payphone locations as both sources of art as well as being the art themselves. By enabling the screens to constantly provide examples of local creative output, the emphasis can be directed towards the work product of many of the residents of all of our neighborhoods, visual art, design, musical and written expression, etc.
To accomplish this you must design a program that will attract the positive attention of the immense creative community which makes New York its home and motivate them to relate constructively to this new phenomenon. While some make their livelihood this way, this is also an aspect of everybody’s day-to-day activity. (Improvising ways to contend with the challenges of daily life is one way that we learn to appreciate the value of creative thinking). Who knows that their next-door neighbor is a painter or graphic artist, composer, or performer? These neighborhood bulletin boards can serve to introduce us to one another and to help us appreciate the richness of talent of those living here.
Visual Design:
Billboards are intrusive and largely unpopular. Many feel that they cheapen the visual landscape. It is also possible that they lower the real estate values of adjoining properties as well. Since many people’s living spaces, homes or apartments, constitute their most important reservoirs of value, this matters considerably. If these objects were artworks, unique and well made, instead of brash advertisements, how would that affect these values? Might it enhance them rather than diminish them? Since the functional aspect of these devices has been shrunk down to a small, thin panel, why not use the rest of the space in the most aesthetic and wonderful way?
We think that this can be as important a feature of this program as the technology being made available. If screens are pointing upwards instead of outwards, as a rule, their negative impact of them is eliminated entirely.
Functionality:
Survival is the paramount concern of a substantial portion of our population. Finding satisfying and rewarding work is an urgent need. Using these facilities to provide a work exchange element, which can also be replicated online, through the posting of local needed help is not only possible but is already taking place. Running errands, walking dogs, painting apartments, many tasks are always there to be accomplished and there are already a host of websites devoted to this. Presenting their availability through the posting of qualifications and references improves the likelihood of satisfying these needs in the most immediate and dependable way.
Re-charging stations for computers and cellphones are an obvious use, but it is also possible to vend or rent these items as well. This could not be done everywhere due to security concerns, but modern vending machines dispense everything today including such items. It has become commonplace to do this in hotels and airports etc. and “Automats” have been around for more than a century. Up-to-date urban centers must develop the capacity to satisfy these needs today.
Payphones can also be combined with other kinds of needed street facilities, whether they be bus stops or new types of newsstands. At selected locations, it may be worthwhile to fully enclose these information/communication/transportation structures and make them suitable for temporary habitation by local residents. Access at different times can be provided both to those volunteering to manage them on behalf of their communities needs as well as to those making a living. Income from this activity can be used to justify the expense of construction and maintenance. Just as we once had 1500 sidewalk newsstands, this city and its historic density and diversity make even such ambitious plans practical in many places.
Community Impact:
This is the essence of this proposal since the implementation of this program could radically upgrade the availability of both helpful information as well as actual physical help. The interaction among neighbors today, almost everywhere within the city is minimal. We usually do not even know our neighbors’ names or what they do. This has its benefits in terms of privacy and freedom from unwanted and un-needed intrusions into our individual lives but it is a condition that many would choose to change. Instead of waiting for a catastrophe to remind us how much we have in common and can benefit from each other, it is time to establish mechanisms to expedite these realizations. How many people would join walking, Tai Chi, or other exercise groups, to help to improve their own or others’ health while meeting and getting to know one another?
There are already numerous blogs designed to help neighbors relate to one another much more closely. Many of these have been put together by relatively young people and a program to encourage their formation will expand this network considerably. Should these communicators be given a physical location close to where they live to “broadcast” this information locally and include the capacity to enter information as well as obtain it, this will make the formation of this mini-blogs even more attractive. Since all of these efforts are voluntary, they will cost nothing to construct and operate and may even help to generate income for the program through advertising and other commercial elements. The display of locally-produced artwork and other products could lead to some commerce as well as greater awareness.
The object here is to aim high, to not dismiss any idea or approach that could benefit this society so greatly. It should take years to roll out ideas and test them properly. Giving the public a chance to craft a stake in its own public spaces is the key. “Re-owning the phone”, as Mayor Bloomberg referred to this program, can well be the first step in “Re-owning the neighborhood”.
From the drawing board:
To the Prototype:
Sharing Umbrellas
We are inviting designs to be submitted of new human-powered and electric-assisted human-scale vehicles including so-called “wheelchairs”. We are most interested in concepts that incorporate weather protection and passenger capacity but there are no limits on type or style, speed, or cost. Cargo bikes, recumbents, folders, wheelchairs, public transit i.e. shared, or convertible from commuter to commercial, Kinetic Sculpture, and Velomobiles, all are welcome. Pictures of existing machines will be featured and drawings and models and descriptions are fine too.
The second element of this endeavor has to do with the current conversations taking place relative to the definition of public space, the role of neighborhoods and their residents in that process, and advertising in this equation. At least minimal cover, an Umbrella-like object should be available to the public at practically every bus stop instead of only 25% of them. The proliferation of unique, attractive, and community-welcomed designs for these facilities, especially if produced and fabricated by local residents, could, most importantly, do much to help encourage a new level of healthy interactions among those living and working here, even just those passing through.
Images and text from individuals and groups are already being posted on SharingUmbrellas.org and will be updated regularly. Each person will be included in the slideshow which plays on the home page and provides a link to their own page. Some will also be printed, in a full-color tabloid, issued monthly to begin, in New York City and distributed to bike shops, bookstores, newsstands and cafes, and at gatherings of those most interested in these developments. Other local groups working on these issues who want to print their own local editions will be encouraged to do this.
One venue for showing off these devices will be New York City’s largest car-free space, Flushing Meadows/Corona Park in Queens. To help celebrate the 50th and 75th Anniversaries of the 1939 and 1964 World’s Fairs, in 2014 and 2015, this great public park will serve as a natural backdrop for the public unveiling of our human-scale transportation future. Craft, technology, and the creative imagination; sharing its most intriguing fruits; learning and being inspired; all the wonders of an event that consciously endeavors to be as inclusive geographically, culturally, and socially as possible, can help expedite the rapid evolution of this key feature in our environment, how we get around.
How can the “Community Cube” be used to improve The quality of life of those who are living here?
Health
Exercise
Walking
Around the block, as a starting point and to keep track
To nearby destinations for pleasure or utility
Historical/ Architectural/ Natural etc. tours given by local residents
Can include different speeds from relaxed to brisk up to running
Mild competition increases motivation but no racing
Also benefits safety
In case of an incident can seek or provide help
In numbers, there is little chance of trouble
More eyes on streets in general benefits all
Stretching
In the proximity of the location, without interfering with pedestrians
Somewhat protected in bad weather as long as there is an “Umbrella”
Can include guidance from a knowledgeable neighbor or online instructor
Tai Chi
Informal or guided includes other dance or movement methodologies
Biking
Shared vehicles and modest costs
Different style vehicles
Different age kids
Cargo and commercial
Cruisers
Electric-Assisted
Trikes
Special Need varieties
Multi-person
Measured distance trips to events, attractions, tours of every kind, etc.
For shopping, picking up kids, giving rides to friends, etc.
Commuting (can include machines used by others during the day)
Re-charge and lock-up aids and folders to expedite the availability
Scheduled discussions
Anyone can create a subject category and schedule a one-hour local conversation
Information is also available later online if archived
Can be “broadcast” to non-attendees via Skype if preferred by participants
Can be a private conversation among a small number of people
Cube doubles as a “Soapbox”
Charges for some services, others are free
Monitors and moderators-Blogs for Blocks
No age limit, 10 to 100, and cannot be small-minded or autocratic
Those already operating can be invited to be part of this network
Generating consensus is the goal, getting as close as possible is often enough
Local residents choose individual or multi-person units to “operate” Cube
Ground rules should be permissive but not abusive
Association with adjacent businesses, (at locations where they exist) provides:
Access to services
Power
Sanitation facilities
Help if needed
Storage
Reciprocal Aspect
Advertising
Goodwill
Backup personnel
Possible Investment
Professionals
Insurance
Finance
Accounting
Law
Health
Survival Issues
Job Exchange
Help needed and available
Tutoring, educating, upgrading skills
Physical, moving of something
Coping issues
Painting
Repairs
Horticulture
Cleaning
Childcare
Transport
Health care
Research/writing
Shopping
Delivery
Tasks needing to be done
For Pay
Without monetary compensation
In exchange for…………system’s own currency
Celebrations
Birthdays
Pictures shown
Births
Presents Offered
Graduations
Listings
Anniversaries
Of local events as well as relationships
Achievements
Share the warmth, share the glory
Passing
Sad, but worth noting
Life Histories
Includes contact information
Virtual resumes
Willingness to volunteers
Needs
Work
Personal
Help
Done by you, not about you
Neighborhood History
Previous generations
Notorious
Early
Continuous
Grab it before it is done
Commercial
Plantings
Existing
Possible
Cooperatively maintained
Native
Micro
Edibles
Soil conditions analysis performed
The spot itself can provide a location
The sidewalk around block=10 gardens
Artwork
Locally produced only
Constantly displayed
Rotating exhibits
Locked showcases and Virtual displays
Music and poetry-quietly and on demand
“Umbrella” itself is art
Enclosing the space
Historical
Newsstands
Phone Booths etc.
Mixed Use by both volunteers and private interests
An adequate room must be provided for public uses
Permits expanded vending opportunities
The mechanism for registering sentiment on various issues
