Municipal Art Society of New York
Information on the purpose of your organization
The Municipal Art Society of New York (MAS) is a civic advocacy organization that protects the history and character of New York's built environment and charts holistic, sustainable paths for growth and development. Through research and advocacy; public convenings, walking tours and education programs designed to increase urban literacy; and direct engagement with neighborhood stakeholders, MAS addresses the urban planning, design, historic preservation and artistic opportunities that have the power to shape cities. Our mission is to create more livable and resilient cities by empowering citizens to participate in the planning, design and placemaking efforts that socially, culturally, environmentally and economically transform neighborhoods.
Information on your programmes and activities in areas relevant to the subject of the Summit and in which country or counties they are carried out.
MAS has been the leading civic voice for visionary and pragmatic city-building in New York City for over a century. We continue to provide a crucial bridge between decision-makers, bringing city government and the real estate development industry together with community activists, urban innovators, the design and planning professions, business, artists, academia, and the general public to develop solutions that enhance our city?s livability and resilience. Our mandate is always to highlight how the physical city affects the daily lives of its residents: how land is used and buildings, parks and public spaces and places are zoned, planned, designed and managed. Over decades MAS has advanced an impressive list of practices and public policies now globally understood to be critical to effective city-building, including establishing the first zoning ordinances, affirming the constitutionality of the nation?s first landmarks preservation law, and pioneering community-based planning approaches that empower residents to play a direct role in shaping their neighborhoods. We continue to be the leading advocate for mixed-use and diverse development that builds complete neighborhoods; includes effective public spaces; enhances economic diversity, neighborhood and city resilience; and always maximizes the value of civic assets in local neighborhoods.
MAS will host an Urban Thinkers Campus, contributing to The World Urban Campaign?s City we Need process, in New York City on October 24th, 2015. The Urban Thinkers Campus is an initiative of UN-Habitat?s World Urban Campaign, conceived as an open space for critical exchange between urban researchers, professionals and decision makers who believe that urbanization is an opportunity and can lead a positive transformation for sustainable development. The NYC Convening on The City We Need will allow participants the opportunity to contribute to the New Urban Agenda. MAS leads the organizing body for the Urban Thinkers Campus, and is partnering with the New School, the Sherwood Institute, the Huairou Commission, Columbia University, University of Pennsylvania, the Ford Foundation, the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, the International Accountability Project, the UN Major Group for Children and Youth, the Nature of Cities, the J Max Bond Center On Design for Just City, the International Council of Women, Global Family and NGO Committee on Sustainable Development, the Metropolitan College of New York, and AARP. Proposed working sessions include:
- Forwarding Community-Based Water Infrastructure
- Grassroots and Professional Partnerships for an Inclusive City
- Municipal Fiscal Health and Land Policy
- Community Designed Development, Decision Making and Monitoring
- Housing, Evictions and Resettlement
- Democratic Governance and Transparency
- Economic Diversity and Resilience
MAS will continue to mobilize the MAS Cities Global Resilience Network in work leading up to and at PrepCom3 and the Habitat III Conference.
Information on activities at the national or international levels
The MAS Cities Program
An initiative of the Municipal Art Society of New York, MAS Cities expands the scope of MAS advocacy work to engage, collaborate and partner with peer organizations and urbanists from cities across the country and around the world, focusing on the interaction between the physical built city and its livability and resilience.
MAS Cities promotes the idea that the resilience of urban systems - including their natural, physical, social and economic infrastructure - is strongly linked to the livability of neighborhoods and the city as a whole. Resilience is not just about emergency preparedness, it is a lens through which communities grow, adapt and address persistent challenges. Public agencies and institutions play a critical role in developing and implementing solutions, but an effective resilience strategy requires the mobilization of the social, intellectual and cultural capital of the residents that live and work in vulnerable communities.
In addition to fostering community-based resilience in New York City, MAS Cities has been building a network of local urban innovators, from around the globe, who are making cities more livable and resilient. Launched at The Rockefeller Foundation?s Bellagio Conference Center in 2011, the MAS Cities Global Resilience Network links urban innovators and strategic institutional partners with each other and with other international networking efforts to build their capacity.
MAS has hosted three convenings at The Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center on the topic of building urban resilience since 2011 as well as participating in the Foundation's first annual Chief Resilience Officer Summit in 2014.
Re-Imagining the Civic Commons
In 2014, the Municipal Art Society of New York partnered with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to bring together architects, artists, economists, urban planners, and public officials from across the country to discuss the emerging possibilities for the ?civic commons? (e.g., parks, libraries, public markets, etc.).
Through our workshops and subsequent research we found that a variety of factors have led to disinvestment in the commons. Over the last several decades more has become privatized and less shared. People commute via cars instead of the bus or train, backyards have replaced parks, and television has kept entertainment at home. Also, many existing assets?post offices for example?have lost their usefulness as societal needs have shifted. These trends combined with stretched city budgets, have resulted in decreased funds to libraries, reduced community center hours, reductions to park maintenance and programming, and sometimes the disposition of public land.
On June 11th and 12th, 2015, MAS Cities is convening urban innovators from key US and Canadian cities to focus on the importance of the civic commons to the livability and economic competitiveness of their cities. Building a Sustainable Civic Commons is a bi-national dialogue and civic provocation that will kick-off with a public session in New York City for an audience of over 300 urbanists, including lead policy makers from city government, leaders from business, philanthropy, academia, and the finance and investment community, social innovators, community activists, entrepreneurs and small business owners, along with key media from select outlets from across the New York Metropolitan Region.
Organization have an annual report? (YES/NO) (should contain financial statements and a list of financial sources and contributions, including governmental contributions)?
YES -
2014FinalFinancialStatements2.pdf
List of members of the governing body of your organization, and their countries of nationality
OFFICERS
Frederick Iseman, Chair
Vin Cipolla, President
James M. Clark, Jr., Treasurer
Frances A. Resheske, Secretary
Earl D. Weiner, Esq., General Counsel
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Enid L. Beal
Elizabeth Belfer
Eugenie L. Birch
Serena Boardman
Gabriel Calatrava
Lisa Smith Cashin
Vishaan Chakrabarti
Kathryn C. Chenault, Esq.
Vin Cipolla
James M. Clark, Jr.
Carol Coletta
Michael P. Donovan
Susan K. Freedman
Kitty Hawks
Daniel Hernandez
Manuela V. Hoelterhoff
Michael B. Hoffman
Frederick Iseman
Sophia Koven
David W. Levinson
Christy MacLear
Chris McCartin
Joseph A. McMillan, Jr.
Gregory Morey
Richard Olcott
Julio Peterson
Carlos Pujol
Frances A. Resheske
David F. Solomon
Kent M. Swig
Yeohlee Teng
Thomas Vecchione
Earl D. Weiner, Esq.
Thomas L. Woltz
William H. Wright II
Gary J. Zarr
DIRECTORS EMERITI
Kent Barwick
David M. Childs
Joan K. Davidson
Hugh Hardy
Philip K. Howard
John E. Merow, Esq.
Frederic S. Papert
Charles A. Platt
Janet C. Ross
Whitney North Seymour, Jr., Esq.
Jerry I. Speyer
Stephen C. Swid
Helen S. Tucker
EXECUTIVE STAFF
André Allaire, Vice President, Development
Meaghan Baron, Vice President, Communications & Public Affairs
Robert Libbey, Vice President, Finance & Administration
Margaret Newman, Executive Director
Mary Rowe, Vice President, Strategy
Kate Slevin, Vice President, Planning & Policy
All members of the MAS executive body are United States citizens or nationals.
Copy of the constitution and/or by-laws of the organization (WORD or PDF only), or a weblink to it
MunicipalArtSocietyBylaws1-29-20153.pdf
