News.

“Trust Exercise”- Urban Omnibus. The Western Queens Community Land Trust

An interview conducted by Urban Omnibus, In conversation with Memo Salazar, Co-chair of the Western Queens Community Land Trust, and Nandini Bagchee; discussing the future of the Community Land Trust model and the process of acquiring land through the DOE Building project located at the corner of Vernon Blvd, and 44th Drive in Long Island City.

Click here to read the full article.

“Public Land in Public Hand” – Community building with the Western Queens Community Land Trust

A community envisioning event hosted by the Western Queens Community Land Trust at Queensbridge park. The event was geared towards residents of Queensbridge houses and broader Western Queens to initiate conversations and solicit ideas on the future of the publicly owned DOE building located on the corner of Vernon Blvd, and 44th Drive in Long Island City.

Read, Weigh in on the Future of Two Publicly Owned Buildings in Western Queens Saturday for more information.

“Remaining Connected”- Urban Omnibus. The Laundromat Project in Bed-stuy

The Laundromat Project is an arts non profit organization that advances artists and neighbors in the city’s communities of color. Listen to a short interview conducted by the Urban Omnibus Dispatches series with Hatuey Ramos-Fermin, the director of programs at the Laundromat Project, Cievel Xicohtencatl, the Community Engagement Manager at the LP and Erica Rawles, a program fellow at the LP. Discussing the challenges of moving into their new home in Bed-Stuy and the arduous task of building a meaningful relationship with their neighbors in the time of the Covid 19 pandemic.

Click here to listen.

Counter Institution – Lecture at Salt Beyoğlu

In cities across the United States in the 1970s, the devaluation of property created a vacuum of ownership. Vacant lots, storefronts, schoolhouses, factories, and abandoned tenement housing in New York City became havens for experimental, communal practices. In her 2018 book Counter Institution: Activist Estates of the Lower East Side (Fordham University Press), Nandini Bagchee revisits the spaces where activist groups meet to organize and plan acts of political dissent and collective participation. The term “counter institution” in the title represents both a conceptual and a literal struggle to create a space for civic action in a city that is built upon real estate speculation.

Focusing on her research for the book and an ongoing engagement with questions of urban justice and access to the city, Bagchee will share her methods of documenting and interrogating the history of the counter institution. In her capacity as a social historian/architect, she generates timelines and maps that chart out territorial occupations at different geographic and temporal scales to represent the larger reach of the social movements within specific buildings in the geography of downtown Manhattan. Using drawings, maps, timelines, and photographs to underline the connections between people, politics, and space, Bagchee offers new ways to imagine buildings as a critical part of the civic infrastructure of activism within the city.

Click Here to read on www.saltonline.org

Interference Archive – Building For Us Exhibition Opening

Exhibit designed by Nandini Bagchee in collaboration with Marlisa Wise, Graham Foundation 2019 grant recipients.

The Urban Homesteading Assistance Board (UHAB) grew out of the self-help housing movement. The exhibition features the families and people who fought to turn vacant or neglected buildings into vibrant co-ops, as told through the photographs, newsletters, oral histories, and training manuals found in UHAB’s archive. Their stories illuminate the origins of New York City’s affordable housing cooperatives, and the work that residents put into saving and preserving the city’s housing stock, one building at a time. This exploration of a single organization’s archive offers one way to understand the people, policies, and programs that helped shape this history.

Decades after the homesteading and squatting movements took hold in NYC, there is a resurgent public interest in exploring cooperative ownership models, particularly as a tool for addressing the current housing affordability crisis. Building for Us honors both the vibrant history of cooperative housing in NYC and sheds light on the hard work and the community it takes to create and sustain cooperatively owned housing.

Click Here to read on www.interferencearchive.org

Cooper Union Lunchtime Lecture – Counter Institution: Insurgent Spaces

From Counter Institution – Aerial View of Lower East Side with the El Bohio Community Center (PS 64) in the foreground. Photo by Gilbert Santana.

An examination of participatory practices in New York City reveals the critical relationship between real estate and activism. In cities across the United States, in the 1970’s, the devaluation of property created a vacuum of ownership. Vacant lots, storefronts, schoolhouses, factories and abandoned tenement housing in New York City became havens for experimental, communal practices. In her book, Counter Institution (Fordham University Press, 2018) author Nandini Bagchee revisits the spaces where activist groups meet to organize and plan acts of political dissent and collective participation. The counter institution in the title represents both a conceptual and a literal struggle to create a space for civic action in a city that is built upon real estate speculation

In a talk focused on her research for the book and an ongoing engagement with questions of urban justice and access to the city, Nandini Bagchee will share her methods of documenting and interrogating the history of the Counter Institution. Envisioning spatial practices in relation to physical space is at the core of these explorations. In her capacity as a social historian/architect Bagchee generates timelines and maps that chart out territorial occupations at different geographic and temporal scales to represent the larger reach of the social movements within specific buildings in the geography of downtown Manhattan. Exposition through the mapping of information has long been a part of the lexicon of protest tactics. Using drawings, maps, timelines, and photographs to underline the connections between people, politics, and space, Bagchee offers new ways to imagine buildings as a critical part of the civic infrastructure of activism within the city.

Click Here to read on www.cooper.edu

Activist Estates – Gallery Talk with Nandini Bagchee and Miranda Martinez

From www.loisaida.org – Architect Nandini Bagchee in conversation with Sociologist Miranda Martinez at the Loisaida Center.

Nandini Bagchee is the designer and curator of the exhibit and author of Counter Institution: Activist Estates of the Lower East Side (Fordham University Press, 2018). Miranda Martinez is the author of Power at the Roots: Community Gardens, Gentrification, and the Puerto Ricans of the Lower East Side (Lexington Books, 2010). They will be engaging content of the exhibit: Activist Estates: A Radical History of Property in Loisaida.

Click Here to read on www.2019.archtober.org

Click Here to read on www.loisaida.org

East Village Activist History on Display at Loisaida – Greenich Village Society for Historic Preservation

Mother Earth by the Bread and Puppet Theatre was paraded in the streets of New York on the event of the third UN Special Session on Disarmament. Photography by David McReynolds, 1988.

Few places have made more significant contributions to civil rights and social justice struggles, artistic creativity, and freedom of expression than the East Village. Now more than ever, it’s important to remember and pay tribute to that history and to the lessons learned from it.  That is why it is important to take note of a just-opened exhibition called Activist Estates: A Radical History of Property in Loisaida. It’s an examination of participatory practices that illuminate the critical relationship between livable neighborhoods, real estate, architecture and activism…

Click Here to read on www.gvshp.org

Activist Estates – Opening Reception at The Loisaida Center

Click Here to read on www.loisaida.org

Activist Estates – Archtober 2019

An exhibition curated by the Architect/Historian Nandini Bagchee in partnership with Loisaida Inc. Center. The exhibit visualizes the narratives of a historic space-based activism via maps, models, photographs, pamphlets and posters.

Click Here to read on www.2019.archtober.org