Click here for a two-page spread of the proposed Southpoint project (PDF).

Click here for a page-by-page version of the proposed project (PDF)

The Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation recently asked the Trust for Public Land (TPL) to undertake a conceptual planning process for Southpoint Park – closed for decades but opened eleven months ago.  TPL says it will take five months to analyze community needs and existing conditions, consider the opportunities offered by the site, and develop a plan.

Meanwhile, a landscape artist supported by the Ford Foundation has spent nearly two years doing much the same thing, providing groundwork and community liaison that could become the basis for TPL’s planning.

Bonnie Sherk, whose Life Frames, Inc., has been turning portions of Roosevelt Island into a “Living Library,” has been working with teachers and children at PS/IS 217, where a garden was planted in the courtyard last Roosevelt Island Day, and with Island organizations, spotting opportunities for planting.  While Southpoint is the focus of their conceptual plan, the groups gathered under the Living Library umbrella have also looked at Lighthouse Park, areas around the Senior Center, and – with Roosevelt Island Housing Management – at the plantable areas along Main Street it controls.

The Southpoint plan, in addition to embracing concepts put forward by the Island organizations Sherk has worked with, brings the United Nations into the picture.  Sherk is fond of speaking about “cultivating the human and ecological garden,” envisioning a rich interplay between the literal garden of ecosystems and the figurative garden of human cultural diversity.  In Southpoint, she sees an opportunity to create a “think park” with resources – like a conference center in a restored Renwick Ruin – aimed at addressing global matters like hunger, international conflict, global ecology, sustainable development, and education for world citizenship.

Sherk has put together a Living Library in San Francisco as well and can muster supporting quotations from dozens of people who’ve worked with her there.  In New York, she has captured the imagination of the Roosevelt Island people she’s working with.  Ronald Becker, the director of therapeutic recreation at Coler-Goldwater Hospital, sees Sherk’s work as “a catalyst for bridging cultures and peoples from around the world.”  Indeed, Sherk envisions high-tech connections she calls “digital gateways” between foreign lands and corollary international gardens in Southpoint Park – live two-way video “bridges” that might also show cultural archives for the areas represented.

Miguel Garcia, the program officer at the Ford Foundation whose portfolio embraces Sherk’s work, sees Southpoint as “a diamond in the rough.”  (Ford also supports TPL.)  Garcia says the foundation seeks to “animate open and recreational space to benefit mixed-income and mixed-race communities,” and says that “Bonnie’s identification of the UN as an important driver of her master plan demonstrates a commitment to that approach.”  He adds, “As TPL goes forward with planning, they’re well-suited to take stock of Bonnie’s community organizing work and some of the ideas in her conceptual master plan.  Her work represents a very grand vision for the property that embodies the spirit of the United Nations and the adjacent communities on Roosevelt Island.”  Besides international video connections, Sherk sees point-to-point connections on the Island as part of the park, along with kiosks representing the diversity of communities within the overall Roosevelt Island community.

Garcia concedes that the cost of realizing Sherk’s plan for Southpoint would be “substantial,” but adds, “At this point it’s intended to stimulate the imagination and creativity of a community and to engage citizens in a democratic process, to think broadly about the space.”  Costing it out and identifying funding sources would come later, he says.

Sherk recalls that her first meeting on Roosevelt Island, with PS/IS 217 Principal Sherry Gregory, took place on September 12, 2001 – the day after 9/11.  Gregory is excited about the Living Library concept: “PS/IS 217 has embarked upon an exciting journey,” she wrote recently.  “We are focusing our sights on cultivating our human garden and transforming our school and Island.  Collaborating as part of a Living Library think tank team... maximizes our potential.  [This] will augment our children’s progress and bond all Island constituencies, drawing upon a common language and belief system.  We have begun our journey of growth and discovery!  Watch us bloom!”

Such enthusiasm around Sherk’s approach isn’t unusual.  An expert on monarch butterflies and their migratory patterns, noting the presence of a monarch butterfly meadow in Sherk’s Southpoint plan, sees a relationship between their international travels and the United Nations.  A teacher at Jamaica High School see Southpoint as a perfect location for a “planetary dance” in which participants “make an offering to the planet and voice their commitment to peace.”  A geologist in Maine who runs a “rock detective” educational program sees Roosevelt Island as a geological showcase: “Using the rubble at Southpoint from the building of the New York subway system exposes the geology of Manhattan,” she writes.

On the Island, Sherk has captured the support of several representatives to the Residents Association Common Council.  Click here to read RIRA President Matthew Katz’s comments.  Margie Smith (Rivercross) writes, “Bonnie’s enthusiasm and hard work have breathed life into this project for me.  Her plan ties together areas of the Island physically using landscape techniques, and electronically, integrating us with the world community – and emotionally, uniting us by incorporating into the plan the Island’s personality, people, and its hopes for the future.”  Common Council Secretary Sherie Helstien adds, “Bonnie Sherk has shown the community how it can not only enhance and develop its own open spaces, but also become connected with communities throughout the United States and the world who share these same interests...  These are important lessons for our children.”

Sherk has been invited by the Trust for Public Land to participate as it works toward its own conceptual master plan for the future of Southpoint.  Meanwhile, she presses on with her own planning and the Island-wide projects of her Living Library.

Click here for a two-page spread of the proposed Southpoint project (PDF).

Click here for a page-by-page version of the proposed project (PDF).