November 5, 2012
Our hearts go out to all who have suffered from Sandy. It is tragic to see the damage of sea level rise inflicted on the very place, Kingsborough Community College, where we met to discuss the issue only a few months ago. For information on what was said, you can link to a powerpoint presented by Klaus Jacob at the Brooklyn Waterfront Research Center on February 24th.
Brooklyn Under Water:
Confronting a Landscape of Risk
September 12, 2012, 5 to 7 pm
Kingsborough Community College Art Gallery
Organized by the Brooklyn Waterfront Research Center at New York City College of Technology and Kingsborough Community College. Please join us for an interdisciplinary conversation about the future of Brooklyn’s waterfronts in the age of climate change. The event speakers, representing a wide range of expertise, including architecture, history, city planning, biology, and geophysics, will explore what should be considered as we confront rising sea levels. Panelists include faculty from KCC and New York City College of Technology as well as special guests Klaus Jacob, geophysicist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, and Michael Marella, Director of Waterfront and Open Space Planning at the New York City Department of City Planning. The Audience will be invited to participate in the discussion and debate.
Attendance for the roundtable is free but space is limited. Attendees should RSVP to brooklynwaterfront1883@gmail.com by Monday, September 10.
Introduction:
Regina Peruggi, President, Kingsborough Community College
Greetings:
Richard Hanley, Brooklyn Waterfront Research Center, New York City College of Technology
Panelists:
Illya Azaroff, Department of Architectural Technology, New York City College of Technology
Reginald Blake, Department of Physics, New York City College of Technology
Christina Colon, Department of Biological Sciences, Kingsborough Community College
Klaus Jacob, Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
Michael Marrella, New York City Department of City Planning
Betsy McCully, Department of English, Kingsborough Community College; author City at the Water’s Edge: A Natural History of New York.
Moderator:
Michael Spear, Department of History, Philosophy, and Political Science, Kingsborough Community College
Brooklyn’s Waterfronts: Past, Present, Future
September 4 to September 19, 2012
Kingsborough Community College Art Gallery
Artists’ Reception: September 12, 4 to 5 pm
Exhibit hours: M-F, 10-3, (closed Labor Day)
Artists: Susan Bowen, Willis Elkins, Nathan Kensinger, Robin Michals, Jean Miele
Brooklynites can forget sometimes that we live on an island. But we do. Brooklyn has approximately 132 miles of waterfronts—ocean, bay, harbor, estuary, canal. These places have always shaped Brooklyn. The industrialization of the waterfront in the nineteenth century built Brooklyn into a major metropolis, a center of trade and manufacturing. As Brooklyn grew, so did the residential communities on its waterfronts. Its ocean shore became world-famous for its spaces of play. But all the borough’s waterfronts, in this age of global warming, face a profoundly uncertain future. What will the rising seas do to our borough in years to come? How will we respond? Each of the artists represented here considers Brooklyn’s diverse and changing waterfronts from a different perspective. We hope that, taken together with the maps we have selected, the artworks put issues of geography and environment in provocative conversation with the question of what we see when we contemplate our local shores, and the question of how to plan for the future.
Thanks to the Brooklyn Historical Society, The Nature Conservancy, and FEMA for permission to reproduce maps for this exhibition.
Curated by Libby Garland and Brian Hack, Kingsborough Community College
