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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Rosa Chang, Co-Founder and President of Gotham Park, on Public Spaces and Urban Infrastructure
5:59:04
·
125 sec
Rosa Chang from Gotham Park advocates for the importance of public spaces in New York City, emphasizing their role in community engagement, personal growth, and social cohesion. She highlights the critical work of public servants in maintaining the city's infrastructure and calls for increased financial commitment to public spaces, particularly for the Department of Transportation (DOT) and Parks Department.
- Gotham Park is described as a DOT Plaza beneath the Brooklyn Bridge in Manhattan, showcasing the similarity in function between parks and plazas as public spaces.
- Chang stresses the vulnerability of public spaces to neglect and their unique ability to nurture, inspire, and facilitate human connections.
- She argues for increased investment in the care of open spaces to build a stronger, happier, and more resilient city.
Rosa Chang
5:59:04
Hi.
5:59:05
Hello chairs Brandon and Krishnan and the finance committee members.
5:59:08
I am Rosa Chang from Gotham Park, a new public space beneath the Brooklyn Bridge in Manhattan.
5:59:14
And I would love to invite you and your colleagues for a tour of Gotham Park, is funnily enough, not a park, but in fact, DOT Plaza.
5:59:22
But to any user, a parks department park and a D R DOT Plaza are both public open space where you get to engage and spend time with your neighbors and where you get to celebrate and play and where our children learn how to become good human beings.
5:59:37
It's where we can catch a breeze and sit in the shade of a sheltering tree and where we can learn to fly by falling, picking ourselves up, and trying again.
5:59:45
And, yes, I might mean skateboarding on that one.
5:59:48
It's where we enjoy dialogue and develop friendships with people who look different than us, who worship different gods, dance different music, and have different lived experiences.
5:59:57
And by engaging with others that are different, that is how we learn and grow.
6:00:03
Today, I want to acknowledge and celebrate the incredible public servants who dedicate their hearts, bodies, and souls to dreaming, building, and maintaining this incredible city that we are all lucky to call home.
6:00:15
It's on their backs and with their efforts that we are able to live in and enjoy this magical city.
6:00:21
It takes hard work every single day to keep us from sinking into the water surrounded by our own garbage.
6:00:27
DOT and parks are equally critical and essential urban infrastructure.
6:00:33
However, they do not enjoy the same financial commitments.
6:00:36
We need to do better.
6:00:38
Public spaces are especially vulnerable to lack of care, but are uniquely nurturing, inspiring, calming, and in fact, the setting for the magic of human connection.
6:00:48
New York City wasn't built for cars or for rats or pigeons.
6:00:53
It was actually built for people, and building public space is just the first half of the battle.
6:00:59
To win, we have to invest in the care of our open spaces so that we can use them to build stronger, happier, more resilient, more creative, and more Time's expired.
6:01:09
Thank you.