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20th Anniversary Gala Recap

Hester Street’s 20th anniversary gala November 14, 2023 On November 14, 2023, Hester Street hosted nearly 200 friends, partners and allies to celebrate our 20th year and honor the people and organizations who founded and built our organization. We were delighted to pay tribute to our honorees – our founding architecture firm Leroy Street Studio, our […]


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NYCHA Design Build: Polo Grounds

In 2024, Polo Grounds Towers in West Harlem will become the first in public housing across the nation to host a state-of-the-art pneumatic waste collection system to collect both trash and recyclables. Working with NYCHA Sustainability and the Polo Grounds Resident Tenant Association from May to December 2022, Hester Street (HST) engaged the community to […]


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Meet Our 2023 Radical Imagination for Racial Justice (RIRJ) Cohort

Since 2020, through the Radical Imagination for Racial Justice (RIRJ) Initiative, Hester Street has partnered with the Surdna Foundation to provide grants and in-depth technical assistance to creative programs that advance racial and environmental justice through the lens of arts and culture.  We are excited to announce our new cohort of RIRJ grantees for the […]


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20 Years of Hester Street

Founded 20 years ago by Leroy Street Studio, Hester Street is celebrating 20 years of advancing racial and economic justice through community-based planning and design. Our video captures those who built the organization, including Leroy Street Studio, our founding executive director Anne Frederick and our previous co-executive directors Betsy MacLean and Nisha Baliga, as well as […]


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Joie Zhang

Joie Zhang is an equity and community-centered design researcher and service designer whose work revolves around building capacity with communities at the intersection of public engagement, climate justice, and innovation to design services for the public good. With years of experience in research, facilitation, and service design, she seeks to improve the ways in which […]


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The Comprehensive Plan for Brooklyn

Beginning in Spring 2022, the Office of Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, in partnership with the Regional Plan Association and the New York Academy of Medicine, kicked off a planning process to produce a long-term, boroughwide plan aimed at guiding land use decisions and addressing public health and housing needs in the Borough of Brooklyn. […]


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Council Member Julie Won Announces Comprehensive Community Planning For District 26

Queensbridge Park – On Tuesday, October 10, Council Member Julie Won was joined by Speaker Adrienne Adams, Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer, Assembly Member Steven Raga, a representative from Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez’s office, the Department of City Planning, labor unions, and community partners to announce the launch of two holistic community planning processes across District 26. These […]