🕒 TIME STAMPS 🕒
00:00 Intro
1:35 Tram Ride
4:01 The West Promenade
4:36 Smallpox Hospital
5:03 Four Freedoms Park
6:09 Cornell Tech
7:43 Gentrification: From the original master plan to the current reality
15:33 The Octagon
16:47 Roosevelt Island Lighthouse
18:00 Conclusion

There's more to New York City's Roosevelt Island than some random landmarks and a place to see the skyline. In this first episode of Black in the Core we'll see the tourist sites, but we'll also dig deeper.

We'll examine the island's fascinating past, evolving present, and likely future, joined by some long-time island residents. In its early days of being called Blackwell's Island and Welfare Island, it was a place of hospitals, asylums, and prisons. It was renamed Roosevelt Island in the 1970s, when New York officials decided to create, in the words of the master plan, a "multi-mix community in every way".

Celebrated architects and urban planners were brought in to design a brand new island town in the middle of the metropolis. They combined progressive architecture and technology with socioeconomic guidelines, and a racially and economically diverse community was born. Clean, safe, car-free, and surrounded by parks and water, it was a success story...as close to an urban utopia as you can imagine.

But now, decades later, the affordable housing is being transitioned to luxury units and a new technical college is pushing prices even higher. The Black, brown, and working class white people who formed a unique, close-knit community are being economically pushed off the island by wealthy newcomers. Will this oasis in the city be turned into just another Manhattan neighborhood, with no sense of community or soul? Is Roosevelt Island falling prey to what you might call the plague of gentrification? Watch this episode to learn more.

2000 Median Income: $49,976.
2010 Median Income: $76,250.
47% jump in 10 years!

* NOTE:
Riverwalk Park, Building #8 of the Riverwalk complex, will have app. 340 units of affordable housing. However, the total percentage of affordable units in Riverwalk's nine buildings will only be 40%. The other 60% are market rate, instead of 25% market rate as originally envisioned for the island.

RECOMMENDED PLAYLIST:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzdbYN9avVh-zBskhXbDcXjsrSvn_2YWp

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzdbYN9avVh8Xzxc30au3CTcVtQ8BTkDF

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzdbYN9avVh-sBjUU1SXq4p_PSDMnplZc

Black In The Core Visits And Reports On Fascinating History, Evolving Present And Likely Future Of Roosevelt Island - Sees Gentrification And A Stolen Dream For Working And Middle Class People
https://rooseveltislander.blogspot.com/2020/11/black-in-core-visits-and-reports-on.html

Stop the privatization of Roosevelt Island's public spaces
https://www.change.org/p/rioc-board-of-directors-stop-the-privatization-of-roosevelt-island-s-public-spaces/c

"The Island Nobody Knows", 1969 Master Plan by Philip Johnson and John Burgee: https://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15324coll10/id/173995/

Roosevelt Island Daily Newspaper:
https://rooseveltislanddaily.news/category/roosevelt-island-news/

Inside information from John Johansen, one of the original architects of Northtown:
https://www.johnmjohansen.com/Roosevelt-Island.html

Four Freedoms Park Conservancy:
https://www.fdrfourfreedomspark.org/

Cornell Tech:
https://tech.cornell.edu/campus/

🕒 TIME STAMPS & MUSIC TRACKLIST 🕒
00:10 Walk Through The Park - TrackTribe
2:13 Night on the Town - TrackTribe
3:55 The Sea Captain & The Mermaid - Asher Fulero
4:34 Window Demons - Roljul
5:01 Road Trip - Slynk
6:07 Castlevania - Density & Time
7:25 Lost Highway - Au.Ra
7:43 70’s Summer - Royalty Free Music
10:19 It Doesn’t Need To Be More Than That - pATCHES
10:30 Bike Sharing to Paradise - Dan Bodan
11:47 Electro Fight - Kwo
14:35 Tides - Windows of Ken
15:04 Take Me Down To The Fashion Show - NoMBe
15:30 Assembing - Asher Fulero
16:27 The Missing 11th - DJ Williams
17:19 Spy In The 60’s - Sir Cubworth
17:56 Black Swan - Quinoas Moreira

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