Bethpage MoMA P.S.2
Juror summary: envisions a network of vibrant new arts institutions in transit-served downtowns across L.I., intended to build cultural capital and help stem the brain drain.
Bethpage: 48 minutes to NYC; 30 minutes to both shores of Long Island; part bedroom community, part local hamlet with history, part remnant of early suburban growth leaving behind underutilized industrial space – in other words, a quintessential Long Island village. For our designers, this stagnant downtown holds in itself a tremendous opportunity. Our design aims at channeling the influence of world-class art activities from Manhattan to Bethpage through the LIRR system – establishing the second affiliated modern art institution for MoMA – MoMA P.S.2.
In Bethpage, the spacious factories and warehouses provide artists the space that expensive Manhattan would never be able to provide; convenient transit offers frequent and easy connection with NYC. Artists would work here, live here, and socialize here, innovating the existing space, and fashioning a closely bounded community. This could feed into building a community that is less about the commute to NYC and is about truly living in the local.
In Bethpage, TOD has evolved into Transit and Art Oriented Development. Artists, with their creativities and mobile nature, repurpose the existing space, forming a tight community like Westbeth Artists' Housing, which makes possible the dense & mixed use development as well as affordable rental housing. Strengthened landscape and bike system would bring down the car usage–"transfer" no longer stands for " Park-n-ride" but "Bike or Walk-n-ride."
Of 156 areas of opportunity in Long Island, 84 are like Bethpage with rail service. By connecting them to the NYC art centers, Long Island will evolve as Better Burb under the power of art.
Key themes: cultural capital and the arts, stemming the brain drain, transit-oriented development (TOD), walkability
Collaborators: Nelson Peng, Yang Wang, Zhongwei Li