President’s Letter: January 2025

Monthly observations and insights from MAS Interim President Keri Butler

January 31, 2025

Last weekend, I gathered with a group of neighbors for a brunch hosted by the Center for Family Life, a community-based organization that provides meals and services to families in need, including those who have recently arrived in our country seeking safety and opportunity. I was inspired by the determination of the group’s leader to keep working in times of uncertainty, as she repeated the phrase “On we go,” to Churchillian effect. This same spirit of tenacity guides our work at MAS, particularly now.

Many New York City nonprofits and governmental agencies are unsure of the future of their federally funded projects, whether they be tied to family services, housing, or public works. Despite this general atmosphere of uncertainty, now is the time to push City and State legislators and local industries to step up and lead in funding and innovation across both climate and public health. MAS will continue to advocate for major infrastructure projects that have the potential to improve the quality of life for New Yorkers like the new Penn Station, a transformed BQE, and the emergence of our city’s waterways as “blue highways.”

The Privately Owned Public Space (POPS) at 550 Madison in Midtown. Photo Credit: Keri Butler.

Through our Greener Corridors research into urban arterials, MAS will continue to envision healthy streetscapes and multimodal climate corridors. While congestion relief pricing is facing challenges at the federal level, there is early proof that the program is easing traffic and reducing pollution. We urge the NYC Department of Transportation to double down on their pedestrianization and Vision Zero projects, taking the opportunity to add more temporary plazas and protected bike lanes while traffic has decreased.

MAS will also intensify our fight to expand and enhance public space, including parks, streetscapes, and Privately Owned Public Spaces (POPS). Safe, well-maintained, and activated public resources are critical to the wellbeing of New Yorkers as places for community-building, recreation, and respite. Now more than ever we must strengthen these spaces for people and ensure that diverse voices across our city feel welcome and supported.

To meet these goals, the City must increase baseline funding for maintaining our parks, libraries, and other public spaces that promote public health and community gathering and find innovative ways to add public amenities. New York City parks are allotted a shamefully low percentage of the city budget despite the increasingly difficult job of maintaining well-used public space. And the City must identify opportunities for public-private partnerships that will add public open space.

MAS is pleased that the mayor’s office will prioritize housing and open space for families through an expansion of POPS as part of the City of Yes for Families. Since the 1980s, MAS has advocated for the enhancement and expansion of POPS, collaborating with William Holley Whyte on the Street Life Project in the 1960s and 1970s, and creating the APOPS map with Jerold Kayden in the 1990s and 2000s.

In 2025, we will continue the fight for an expansion of well-designed POPS to underserved communities to ensure they provide a true benefit to the public. We will push for easier ways for community groups to activate and maintain their neighborhood spaces. And we will seek opportunities to increase and improve public space for people across the city.

I am grateful for your support and partnership as we strive for a city that is more equitable, sustainable, and inspirational—more livable—for all New Yorkers.

children play on the shore near the Brooklyn Bridge. Photo: Giles Ashford.

MAS is proud to fight alongside you for a city where growth is balanced and character endures.

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