Placemaking

We believe in working with communities to reimagine public spaces, promoting positive activities and increasing safety.

Placemaking focuses on increasing participation in the public square. The philosophy behind placemaking goes back to the 1960s and pioneering writers such as Jane Jacobs who believed the best indicator of the resiliency and safety of a neighborhood is the vitality of its public life.

A good example of our placemaking work is in the efforts in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn. Our Brownsville Community Justice Center helped start a community-wide effort to turn a distressed shopping corridor to a thriving civic and commercial district. The Belmont Revitalization Project created an award-winning space for block parties, festivals, and street markets. The pedestrian plaza was chosen to anchor New York City’s first Neighborhood Innovation Lab. After surveying residents of a local public housing development, the Justice Center also worked with young people to create a youth and community clubhouse on a formerly vacant lot.

Other placemaking work that we have done in Brownsville and in Crown Heights, Brooklyn includes public art installations, neighborhood signage and branding campaigns, and horticulture projects.

Initiatives

Brownsville Community Justice Center

The Brownsville Community Justice Center works to reduce crime and incarceration, and strengthen community trust in justice in central Brooklyn.
Neighbors in Action

Neighbors in Action works to make the central Brooklyn neighborhoods of Crown Heights and Bedford-Stuyvesant safer and healthier for all.

Publications & Digital Media

Publication
Fact Sheet: The Bronx Community Justice Center

The Bronx Community Justice Center works to create a safer, more equitable Bronx through community-driven public safety initiatives, youth opportunity, and economic mobility efforts focused in the South Bronx. Our vision is to support the South Bronx community to become a safe and thriving place where local ownership, community-led investment, and youth opportunity can flourish. The Bronx Community Justice Center works toward this vision by focusing on community safety, restorative practices, and youth and economic development.

Community Justice, Diversion, Placemaking, Reducing Trauma, Reducing Violence, Youth Initiatives
Publication
They Can't Quit Recidivism: A New Vision for Evaluating Community Safety Work

by Suzanne Boswell

Community safety is multidimensional. Yet efforts to build community safety outside of the criminal legal system are often evaluated only using data generated by that same system. This means effective strategies of crime and violence prevention can be overlooked by policymakers and funders. We make an urgent case for a new paradigm.

Evidence-Based Practices, Placemaking, Reducing Violence
Publication
Eviction Prevention and Mental Health

by Ignacio Jaureguilorda, Faith Laurel, Ruth Lopez, and Merrill Rotter

While eviction is a universally stressful event, people with mental health conditions can face unique obstacles with housing retention for reasons related specifically to their disability. This guide provides a review of housing settings and specific risks of eviction for individuals with mental illness before focusing on housing court and the challenges these individuals and court personnel face therein and identifies junctures at which supportive, problem-solving interventions can ensure the necessary community supports and legal representation.

Placemaking, Reducing Trauma, Reentry

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News

'A Space for Everyone to Come To': Placekeeping in Brownsville

April 11, 2023
Vital City

This photo essay displays Brownsville Community Justice Center's work in placekeeping and includes personal narratives from members of the Youth Leadership Council who dreamt up the spaces that will foster healing in their community.
Designing New York: Streetscapes for Wellness

December 9, 2022
NYC Public Design Commission

Youth participants of our Brownsville Community Justice Center considered how physical spaces can foster healing from traumatic events. They envisioned shared public installations and helped create them to cultivate healing and comfort. These unique spaces designed for their community were highlighted in NYC Public Design Commission's "Streetscapes for Wellness" report! Take a look at these "healing spaces" (page 58).
Opinion: How a Court’s Mission Aligned with its Response to Superstorm Sandy

October 29, 2022
City & State

Judge Alex Calabrese is stepping down from his 22-year tenure as Red Hook Community Justice Center's presiding judge. The nation's first multijurisdictional court in the country with criminal, family, and housing court cases all appearing before a single judge, this courtroom put people—and the community—at the center of justice. The model has now been replicated in jurisdictions across the country, and internationally, showing the effects of a holistic approach to justice. In this op-ed published by both City & State and NYN Media, Judge Calabrese reflects on 22 years of service, recalling times when the courtroom was turned into a crisis center to meet the needs of the moment, and all the ways in which the Justice Center improves lives in the Red Hook, Brooklyn community.

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