Cool Streets

2020 continues to be a year of momentous challenge. As we mourn the loss of so many lives lost and traumatized by COVID-19 and violent systemic racism, it’s hard to think about what’s next. But environmental injustice will not pause for our exhaustion. The extreme heat of recent summers  required rethinking how we use public space as a critical support of public health. This summer the Columbia Center for Resilient Cities and Landscapes, Resilient Cities Catalyst, the RETI Center, and Resilient Red Hook with support from the Kaplan Foundation partnered volunteer designers with the people of Red Hook to create a Resilience Design Corps. This effort has endeavored to support the design and building of prototypes for cooling in the public realm directly with local community organizations.

As we collectively processed the shock, stress, and challenge of the viral spread in March, April, and May, we started to understand how much of a marathon coping with this pandemic would become.  Many questions emerged, but as summer approached, we focused on how to sustain the public health benefits of social distance while responding to the challenge of surviving extreme heat in a dense urban setting.

Exposure to the extreme heat of New York City’s summers can compromise the body's ability to regulate temperature,which can have catastrophic results, including heat cramps, heat exhaustion, heatstroke, and hyperthermia, and death. The elderly, the very young, those with cardiovascular, cerebral,and respiratory illness and the immunocompromised are less able to cope with extremely high temperatures. Heat waves are also associated with increased hospital admissions for cardiovascular, kidney, and respiratory disorders. Non-white Black and Brown New Yorkers  are five times more likely to suffer from chronic conditions such as asthma and diabetes than their white counterparts. During any normal summer in New York City, 50% of all people who die from heat are Black. 

Cool Streets started with an extensive community engagement process, situated in front of RHI, a community organization located on W9th Streets. RHI has been hosting grocery donations done by the Redemption Church entire summer. Volunteers set up tents and tables during the grocery donation to learn from the community the hotspots where Cool Streets could happen and what type of activities they wanted to see in their neighborhoods. Along with community engagement, volunteers made t-shirts as a gift for participants.