Right to the City

SEE THE LIVESTREAM OF THE URBAN ENCUENTRO BY CLICKING HERE.  It was an amazing night with over 100 students in attendance and 100 people watching through livestream. See Frank Morales' great speech below.  How has an idea of the right to the city influenced me? My practice? Well,let me say that personally, it’s a very near and dear notion to me, the right to the city! I’m a NYC kid. And for those of you who are NYC kids, that meanssomething! I grew up here! Born and raised on the Lower East Side, Jacob Riis public housing projects on 12th and D, decades later, in the late 70s, I did some squatting in the South Bronx with the people there - abeautiful experience – then I decided to move back downtown (I was living on 139th and Saint Ann’s at the time) to move back down to theneighborhood, now called the East Village, and I recall the feeling that I had then, that I had a right to be there … that these were my streets … In my memories I saw myself running around those streets … And so, with scores and scores of empty vacant buildings all around,brutal…