MEx – The Metropolitan Exchange

Saturday, June 26, 5 p.m. tour / 6:30 p.m. reception

To celebrate the release of Street Value: Shopping, Planning, and Politics at Fulton Mall, a new book exploring Downtown Brooklyn’s many redevelopment sagas, please join authors Meredith TenHoor, Rosten Woo and Damon Rich for a walking tour of Fulton Street, followed by a reception at the Metropolitan Exchange.

Walking tour
5 p.m. Meet at the corner of Fulton St. & Adams St., Brooklyn.
Space on the tour is limited; RSVP required
Please RSVP to rostenwoo@gmail.com

Reception
6:30 p.m. At the Metropolitan Exchange,
33 Flatbush Ave., Brooklyn

Wednesday-Saturday 12-6 PM, May 15 through June 5

Produced by students at Pratt Institute, with help from professors David Frisco and Meredith TenHoor, the exhibit BROOKLYN EXCHANGES presents Downtown Brooklyn’s past and present development projects in order to imageine a more creative and just vision for its future. In the ground floor gallery of MEx, 33 Flatbush Ave. in Brooklyn.

Monday March 30, 7 PM

A roundtable discussion with Katie Dixon (Dowtown Brooklyn Partnership), Ken Smith (Ken Smith Landscape Architects) and Thomas Leeser (Leeser Architecture)

Our guests will discuss the latest architectural projects in the BAM Cultural District, the arts district in the neighborhood surrounding the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The BAM Cultural District’s plans for affordable performance and rehearsal space for non-profit visual, performing, and media arts groups as well as mixed-income housing, and new public open space are currently in various stages of progress and completion. Our guests, who are involved in the current developments, will be able to give an update on what is actually being planned, designed and built and how the current economic crisis is affecting the district and its projects.

Katie Dixon from the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership will give an update on the district as a whole, discussing the development of the master plan over the past several years, followed by special presentations by Thomase Leeser of Leeser Architects, and Ken Smith of Ken Smith Landscape Architects.

Tuesday, October 28th – 7PM

a talk by Tom Angotti

Tom Angotti will present his new book, New York for Sale, published by MIT Press.

Remarkably, grassroots-based community planning flourishes in New York City—the self-proclaimed “real estate capital of the world”—with at least seventy community plans for different neighborhoods throughout the city. Most of these were developed during fierce struggles against gentrification, displacement, and environmental hazards, and most got little or no support from government. In fact, community-based plans in New York far outnumber the land-use plans produced by government agencies. (more…)