PAST WORKSHOPS
Modeling Community Visions for a Future Without the BQE is a series of free and open to the public community design workshops where Brooklyn residents reimagine their neighborhoods in a vibrant post-BQE future. The divisive and polluting BQE, built by Robert Moses from 1937 to 1964, is falling apart. With the City’s recent federal funding appeal for repairs denied, local community groups have amplified their call for a holistic rethinking of the entire BQE corridor. To support that effort, IPA Fellows Marcus Wilford and Severn Clay-Youman, with IPA Research Assistant Jennifer Pham, developed large-scale detailed physical models of neighborhoods adjacent to the BQE. The models, with a removable kit of parts including buildings, landscapes, and alternatives to the highway, are modified by workshop participants, with their proposals documented and then shared with local leaders and elected officials. Workshops include presentations by architect Adam Paul Susaneck, founder of Segregation by Design, featuring specific buildings, civic spaces, and social groups in the neighborhood that were destroyed by the construction of the highway.
Brooklyn residents gathered to discuss ways to redress the damage that the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (BQE) continues to inflict on their communities. Modifying large-scale physical models of urban fabric along the BQE, workshop participants collectively removed the highway and proposed housing, retail, offices, schools, parks, gardens, recreation, and urban farms in the former right-of-way, sharing their visions for the future of their neighborhoods.
In his remarks on June 16th during the inaugural MCV workshop, Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso contrasted the BQE with the West Side Highway, a former elevated highway that was replaced by a street level tree-lined boulevard with bike lanes and waterfront parks, saying “it’s up to political will, it’s up to us, to fight together, to say that we don’t want the status quo.”
Monday, June 16th
Fifth Avenue Committee︎
621 DeGraw Street
Brooklyn, NY 11217
Fifth Avenue Committee︎
621 DeGraw Street
Brooklyn, NY 11217
Monday, June 23rd
Community Board 7︎
4201 4th Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11232
Community Board 7︎
4201 4th Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11232
ABOUT MCV
“If the future BQE, with freight moved to rail and water, were to become a tree-lined street rather than a six-lane highway that divides and pollutes neighborhoods, what would communities want to do with this newly available ‘land bank'?”
-Institute for Public Architecture (IPA)
Since 2020, IPA has been highlighting the institutional segregation and environmental impacts created by the highway and helping to raise awareness of the historical exclusion of underserved communities in decision-making about their physical space. Modeling Community Visions for a Future Without the BQE is the crucial next step in reimagining the BQE and giving voice to the community to decide what should take place in the threshold between vibrant existing neighborhoods and a re-imagined highway.
The project is supported by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature; by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council; New York Institute of Technology, School of Architecture & Design; and private donations.
Model Fabrication: We are very grateful for the generous participation of New York Institute of Technology, School of Architecture & Design. Special thanks to Dean Maria Perbellini; Associate Dean for Academic Operations Giovanni Santamaria; Director of Digital Technologies & Fabrication Brian Polgar; and Fabrication Lab Coordinator Ana Finkelstein, for their support.
Help Support MCV!
-Institute for Public Architecture (IPA)
Since 2020, IPA has been highlighting the institutional segregation and environmental impacts created by the highway and helping to raise awareness of the historical exclusion of underserved communities in decision-making about their physical space. Modeling Community Visions for a Future Without the BQE is the crucial next step in reimagining the BQE and giving voice to the community to decide what should take place in the threshold between vibrant existing neighborhoods and a re-imagined highway.
The project is supported by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature; by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council; New York Institute of Technology, School of Architecture & Design; and private donations.
Model Fabrication: We are very grateful for the generous participation of New York Institute of Technology, School of Architecture & Design. Special thanks to Dean Maria Perbellini; Associate Dean for Academic Operations Giovanni Santamaria; Director of Digital Technologies & Fabrication Brian Polgar; and Fabrication Lab Coordinator Ana Finkelstein, for their support.
Help Support MCV!
Past Events
Green Gentrification and the Future of the BQE
March 11, 2025 6:30pm–8:00pm
at Center for Brooklyn History
︎︎︎ Learn More
The Story of the BQE Documentary Screening
March 13, 2025 6:30pm–8:00pm
at Green Lung Studios
︎︎︎ Learn More
Team
Sponsors
