MAS Member Policy Breakfast: Reimagining POPS for an Evolving City

MAS members are invited to a policy breakfast on Thursday, February 5: Reimagining POPS for an Evolving City, featuring Jerold S. Kayden in a conversation with Thomas Balsley, FALSA and Erik Botsford moderated by MAS President Keri Butler. This program will also include a chance to learn about the MAS Public Realm Action Plan.

New York City’s approximately 600 privately owned public spaces (POPS) play an important role as places of social gathering, rest, and passive enjoyment, but the policies governing these spaces have not been updated in nearly a decade. Since then, rezonings and hybrid work trends have transformed the audiences that POPS serve and the incentives that make POPS attractive to businesses. Likewise, the acceleration of climate change forces us to urgently seek innovative mitigation solutions. What policy changes might help our city’s POPS continue to flourish and meet the evolving and diverse needs of New Yorkers?

Program Schedule:
8:30 – 9:00 am: Breakfast
9:00 – 9:15 am: MAS presentation: Public Realm Action Plan and POPS
9:15 – 10:15 am: Panel Discussion and Q&A
10:15 – 11:00 am: Post-Panel Networking

Jerold S. Kayden is the Frank Backus Williams Professor of Urban Planning and Design at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and Founding Director of the Master in Real Estate Program. He previously served as co-chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Design and director of the Urban Planning Program. His teaching and scholarship address issues of land use and environmental law, public and private development in cities, public space, urban disasters and climate change, and design competitions. As an urban planner and lawyer, Professor Kayden has advised governments, non-governmental organizations, and private and public real estate developers in the United States and around the world.

Thomas Balsley, FASLA, is a world-renowned landscape architect whose New York-based studio, SWA/Balsley, is best known for its fusion of landscape and urbanism into award-winning parks and waterfronts often found in the margins and post-industrial edges of cities. Sparking the public’s imagination, he has reshaped urban public realms throughout the U.S. and abroad with verdant, sustainable civic spaces that are teeming with life.  His firm’s diverse portfolio includes more than 100 plazas and public landscapes throughout NYC, including Peggy Rockefeller Plaza and Hunter’s Point South Waterfront Park, exhibited at MoMA. In a rare gesture of recognition, a park he designed on 57th Street was named Balsley Park.

Erik Botsford is the Director of Planning for Manhattan at the NYC Department of City Planning (DCP). Over a 23-year career with the agency, he has helped guide the borough’s development, serving as an urban designer, planner, and team lead for the West Side before becoming Deputy Director and then Director. ​Over his career, Erik has led neighborhood planning initiatives for West Chelsea, East Harlem, SoHo/NoHo, Governors Island, and Midtown South. He also served as the agency’s representative on the High Line design and development teams and led the citywide update of regulations for privately owned public spaces (POPS). Erik holds a Master’s degree in Urban Design and Planning from the University of Washington.

This event is only open to members of the Municipal Art Society of New York. Join today! >

This event is now waitlisted. Please RSVP if you wish to be added to the waitlist. You will be notified if a space becomes available.