Renewable Rikers: How to Power a City

Confronting Rikers island’s racist past is key to determining its future. The infamous jail on Rikers Island has become synonymous with violence, alienation, and deep injustice. The jail will close forever in 2027. What happens next has the potential to be transformative and restorative. This walk offers a virtual tour of Rikers island’s history from the pre-Dutch era to the present, and outlines the Renewable Rikers proposal, which would repurpose the Island as renewable infrastructure. Through Renewable Rikers, Rikers Island will be transformed from one of the nation’s worst sites for social injustice into a locus for environmental justice–a solar farm and battery array that will reduce pollution and waste in environmental justice communities, particularly in adjacent areas of Queens and the Bronx.