Streetsblog New York City

Cyclist of the Month: Petra Kirstein
A Streetfilm by Sean Clifford
Running Time: 3 minutes 50 seconds

When asked for advice for New Yorkers who don't ride, Petra Kirstein says "New York is beautiful, and New York has beautiful weather. Just try it, its wonderful!" The former Transportation Alternatives staffer and life-long bike commuter rides each day from Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn to Columbus Circle in Manhattan. Her commute includes a stop at her son Magnus' daycare and a jaunt over the Brooklyn Bridge. Send Streefilms an email and nominate someone you know for Cyclist of the Month.

Bike to Shea
A StreetFilm by Sean Clifford
Running Time: 3 minutes 2 seconds

The StreetFilms team cycled with over 100 baseball fanatics during Bike Week on an amazin' jaunt to Shea Stadium. The 4th annual ride was organized by the NYC Department of Transportation and the great spirits at Transportation Alternatives provided the valet bike parking. Let's go Mets! Let's go bikes!

Reclaiming Grand Army Plaza
A StreetFilm by Sean Clifford
Running time: 5 minutes 40 seconds

The Grand Army Plaza Coalition formed in the Spring of 2006 to begin to re-envision GAP as the great public space it was designed to be. A community-driven, grassroots project, GAPco is a prime example of how New York City's public planning process could work and how city agencies could leverage the collective intelligence of neighborhoods. After all: no one knows a neighborhood better than the people who live there.

StreetFilms Sean Clifford covers the GAPco's recent community planning workshop, where fifty people met for a walk through the plaza and a brainstorm on how to make the Plaza safer, more accessible, greener, and more people-oriented.

Meet and mingle with other readers, activists, and supporters of a livable approach to transportation, development, and public spaces. Get to know the others who share your values about the kind of city we want to live in. Put faces behind the screen names online. And have a drink!

A Livable Streets Discussion and Happy Hour
Wednesday, March 28th, 6:30 pm @ The Tank
279 Church Street, downstairs

At 7 o'clock, leaders from a few organizations will introduce themselves and say a few brief words about their current activities:

• Aaron Naparstek, Streetsblog
• Sean Clifford, Streetfilms
• Jasper Goldman, Municipal Art Society
• Nick Grossman, The Open Planning Project

StreetFilms' Sean Clifford discovers that one of New York City government employees' favorite illegal parking spots in Downtown Brooklyn happens to be the last vestige of a historic road that played a significant role in the Revolutionary War. Alas, did George Washington's brave regiment of Marylanders sacrifice their lives at Gowanus so that government employees could park all over the sidewalk on Red Hook Lane?

As always, you can find a higher-resolution version of the video here on Streetfilms.