PROSPECT HEIGHTS — A local civic group wants to know how you feel about the future of Prospect Heights — and particularly, how the Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park project may affect it.
The organizers behind “Intersection: Prospect Heights” — the recent participatory art project that brought interactive guidebooks and two neighborhood “storytelling sessions” to the area this fall — have teamed up with the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council to complete one more part of their work.
The groups are asking Prospect Heights residents, past and present, to fill out a detailed online survey created to gauge what locals think are the area’s “strengths and weaknesses,” the survey says, and “what needs to be done in order to preserve and improve the experience of living in Prospect Heights.”
The “Intersection” survey includes questions about the race, income and number of children in a household and how respondents feel about school conditions, policing and characteristics of the community including “social and economic diversity,” “architectural quality” and “housing opportunities.”
A large part of the survey has to do with the future of the neighborhood, asking questions such as “What type of new commercial development do you believe would be beneficial for Prospect Heights?” and “Which statement about future development do you agree with?”
Along those lines, a whole section of the survey is dedicated to the Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park development, the 22-acre building project located in the neighborhood’s northwest corner. Among other questions, locals are asked, “How do you feel about the Atlantic Yards (Pacific Park Brooklyn) project?” and are told to choose a response from “very good” to “very concerned.”
The “Intersection” project first began as a series of interviews and photographs collected by artist Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani during the run-up to the beginning of construction at the development site, between 2000 and 2005, she said. Now, 10 years later, Bendiner-Viani has revived the project with the hope as “a catalyst for community conversations,” she told DNAinfo.
The “Intersection: Prospect Heights” survey and more information about the project is available at inter-section.org.
