{"id":18378,"date":"2017-02-02T20:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-02-02T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/architizer.wpengine.com\/new-york-city-little-syria\/"},"modified":"2022-05-31T07:37:11","modified_gmt":"2022-05-31T11:37:11","slug":"new-york-city-little-syria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/architizer.com\/blog\/inspiration\/industry\/new-york-city-little-syria\/","title":{"rendered":"Immigration Nation: New York City Plans a Park to Celebrate its Historic \u201cLittle Syria\u201d Neighborhood"},"content":{"rendered":"

Urban design holds a unique power in its potential to unite people of different faiths, ethnicities and income-levels. Strong city planning can promote inclusivity among thousands or even millions of different residents. Parks, especially, are free public spaces that embody these ideas of civil liberty, community and connection.<\/p>\n

At a time when much of the world is focused on the fate of people fleeing conflict in the Middle East and immigration law is on everyone\u2019s mind<\/a>, a new project has emerged that serves to highlight how design can encourage tolerance and celebrate diversity. New York City, a metropolis founded by, built for and thriving off<\/a> a massive immigrant population, has announced a proposal for a public park with huge relevance in light of the current political climate. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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A plan of the proposed park; i<\/i>mage via Untapped Cities<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n

After nearly six years of planning, the city is set to honor its history of housing Syrian immigrants through the creation of a new, permanent park in the historic downtown neighborhood of Little Syria \u2014 a community that existed from the 1880s to the 1940s before Robert Moses built the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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Map of existing land uses in downtown Manhattan with site marked;<\/i>i<\/i>mage via Untapped Cities<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n

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Diagram of proposed park areas; <\/i>i<\/i>mage via Untapped Cities<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n

Last week, the Parks Department and the Department of Cultural Affairs chose the winning proposal for a public art monument to go inside the 20,000-square-foot park, officially named Elizabeth H. Berger Plaza. Thanks to the city\u2019s Percent for Art Program<\/a>, French and Moroccan artist Sara Ouhaddou<\/a> will create a stained glass art piece inspired by Arabic calligraphy to commemorate the neighborhood\u2019s literary history.<\/p>\n

Coinciding with the news, a traveling exhibition on Little Syria<\/a>, courtesy of the Arab American National Museum<\/a> in Detroit, Michigan, opened at the Metropolitan College of New York last week. Both the exhibit and the urban park project simultaneously link the past and present experiences of Syrian refugees into the United States.<\/p>\n

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Neighborhood boys playing stickball on Albany Street between Greenwich and Washington Street in 1946; photo courtesy John and Helen Fornazor<\/i> via The Broadsheet<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n

In an effort to escape the oppression of the declining Ottoman Empire and avoid military conscription, over 40,000 people from Greater Syria (present-day Palestine, Israel, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon) emigrated to U.S. urban centers including Boston, Detroit and New York in the late 1800s.<\/p>\n

The New York\u2013based Syrians settled in the Lower West Side from Washington Street to Battery Park, quickly establishing the area as the nation\u2019s capital of Arabic culture. A predominantly Christian population, this educated, multilingual community made its mark as an eclectic group of writers, poets, news editors, essayists and novelists. The group dispersed at the start of construction on the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel and planning for the original World Trade Center.<\/p>\n

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The new park will help return the car-dominated space \u2014 pictured above \u2014 to pedestrians; image via The Broadsheet<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n

Today, New York\u2019s Syrian-Jewish population lives mainly off of Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. But the recent decision to create a public park celebrating the lost Manhattan community of Little Syria sheds light on both the city\u2019s diverse past and its willingness to continue to be a refuge for displaced immigrants.<\/p>\n

The site, which will also serve as a pivotal pedestrian pathway from the 9\/11 Memorial to Battery Park, is expected to be complete in 2019.<\/p>\n

Images via Untapped Cities<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New York City is set to honor its history of housing Syrian immigrants through the creation of a new, permanent park and artwork in the historic downtown neighborhood.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"architizer_featured_type":"projects","architizer_featured_image":"1923498","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,3],"tags":[],"architizer_project":[],"architizer_brand":[],"architizer_firm":[],"architizer_product":[],"class_list":["post-18378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-industry","category-inspiration"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nImmigration Nation: New York City Plans a Park to Celebrate its Historic \u201cLittle Syria\u201d Neighborhood - Architizer Journal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/architizer.com\/blog\/inspiration\/industry\/new-york-city-little-syria\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Immigration Nation: New York City Plans a Park to Celebrate its Historic \u201cLittle Syria\u201d Neighborhood - 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