Incorporating a Cultural Blueprint for Healthy Communities in Gowanus and Bushwick

Element of We are Your Neighbors! summary report, which advocates for community planning priorities in Gowanus, Brooklyn. This and previous page: Imani Gayle Gillison, photo c/o NOCD-NY.

The Cultural Blueprint for Healthy Communities is a collaborative project developed by El Puente, Arts & Democracy, Hester Street, and NOCD-NY to ensure the planning and sustainability of culturally healthy communities in New York City and beyond. Community groups can use the tool to understand what their neighbors want to see brought back, preserved, and created in their neighborhoods. The toolkit includes an engagement worksheet and facilitator guide and a summary poster.

The Cultural Blueprint was refined through pilot engagements in Bushwick and Gowanus, Brooklyn. El Puente engaged Bushwick residents to inform the Bushwick Community Plan. Local artist Imani Gayle Gillison held workshops with fellow Gowanus public housing residents and Theater of the Liberated company members, with audiences during their Soft performance at BRIC in 2017, and with patrons visiting CHiPS who participated in a sidewalk workshop. These events helped source a “We are Your Neighbors!” summary report of local priorities that NOCD-NY and Arts & Democracy submitted to the NYC Department of City Planning to inform the PLACES: Gowanus Neighborhood Study and Draft Zoning Proposal.

Collaborators continue to scale up its use in additional New York City communities. In January 2018, NOCD-NY and the Cultural Blueprint team convened for a Peer Learning Exchange: Planning and Rezoning, where El Barrio (East Harlem), East New York, and Gowanus participants shared their rezoning experiences with a citywide audience of artists, community leaders, cultural workers and advocates. See a video of the exchange here: