Illuminating Harvard School Of Design Exhibit Moves To Library

NEW ROCHELLE, NY — Whether it's a trip back in time to see Glen Island when it was a resort destination to rival a world's fair or glimpsing the future with student art from the next Norman Rockwell or Charles Fazzino, the gallery space at the New Rochelle Public Library has long been one of the best places to connect with the city we love. This has never been more true than during this year's Black History Month.

In the Fall of 2021, a dozen students at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design began work in tandem with a dozen residents of New Rochelle to consider challenges facing the historic Black neighborhoods affected by the dramatic growth and redevelopment of the city’s downtown.
A public exhibition of their collaborative work, "Great Migration + Memorial Highway: Designing public infrastructure and community investment" is being held in the lobby of the New Rochelle Public Library in recognition of Black History Month.

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The design studio course, led by Harvard faculty instructors and practicing professionals, became a one-of-a-kind local collaboration between students and community. The project is described as being engaged in the active planning, cultural storytelling and systems thinking as a way to surface ideas for investment in community development and public infrastructure in the Lincoln Avenue Corridor.

The collaborative results are eight specific projects of urban design, landscape and architecture, development and policy ideas focused on community health, cultural exchange and memory, food access, affordable housing, public mobility and safety, and re-building a local economy.
Specific projects are:

• Know Thyself: Unforgetting Black heritage
• The Lincoln Avenue Cookbook: Recipes for addressing food access and cultural continuity
• Designing Revitalization: Making way for a Black circular economy
• Trust Loop: A framework for affordable transportation
• Surfacing Counter Memories: Harnessing the power of counter memories held by Black New Rochellians
• Opportunity Co-op: Home as a living spectrum
• Dream Bus: A children’s book addressing social issues imbued in riding the school bus
• Bracing Peter Bracey: Community development through housing design

The exhibit will walk through the design studio’s process, starting with an introduction and brief history of the Black community in New Rochelle. A video narration of this history is also available online.

The exhibit organizes and details the studio’s eight projects into three themes: "A Place of Resonance," " A Community with Roots" and "A Place of Change." The exhibit will also include models and promotional materials the students created.

QR codes are imbedded to activate videos and slide shows with rich design detail, local history and memories of the residents and their families growing up and living in New Rochelle’s historic Black neighborhoods of Lincoln Avenue and Pugsley Hollow.

The exhibit will be on display from February 5 to March 3, in the lobby of the New Rochelle Public Library, 1 Library Plaza, New Rochelle, NY. Library hours are 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Wednesdays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and 1 p.m. to 5p.m on Sunday.