The All Along Project is a women-led initiative seeking to balance the naming inequalities seen in NYC parks by creating monuments honoring local women. It is both a monument to celebrate community activism and an ongoing project to serve as a catalyst for female empowerment.
Join us in celebrating these often untold histories.
In every community, women have driven social change, led movements, and been on the forefront of community activism. Yet they are largely excluded from our history and barely represented in our public monuments.
In NYC alone, 1.9% percent of monuments and parks are named after women. That is less than 1 in 55. Using NYC's existing public green infrastructure as sites, All Along seeks to transform unnamed public spaces into monuments to the women who have shaped our communities.
We've spent the past several years working with neighborhood organizers, archivists, community boards, designers, landscape architects, developers, and elected representatives to think of the best way to tackle this imbalance. We have put in countless hours of work and have reached a point where we need some support to get this project off the ground. With your help, we can bring our project one step closer to reality!
Using NYC's existing green infrastructure as sites, All Along will transform unnamed public spaces into monuments to the women who have shaped our communities.
Our initial idea was to create a single park to honor all women. But parks are a hot commodity in NYC so we started thinking about other publicly accessible locations. We stared at maps and looked at data and realized that there is a huge potential in two places: Greenstreets and Privately Owned Public Spaces (or POPS).
There are currently 592 POPS and more than 2,500 Greenstreets in the five boroughs, scattered throughout every neighborhood. You’ve probably walked through many without even realizing it. They are the perfect site for our proposal: unnamed, under-appreciated, and largely unprogrammed. They mirror our theme of honoring what has been in our communities All Along
Greenstreets (a partnership between NYC Parks and the Department of Transportation) are perfect locations for the All Along Project. Greenstreets currently provide New York City with stormwater drainage, reduced heat-island effects, and increased greenery throughout the boroughs. They are, effectively, unnamed and unoccupied parks along streets and roadways. We don’t want to remove their effectiveness at all (greenery is good for everyone), but they are a perfect location for our installation.
We’ve developed a system of markers that can be easily embedded within existing public spaces. These include sidewalk pavers, railing plaques, and free-standing signs. Our toolkits will contain everything needed for community boards to choose from and deploy our designs, from outlining the initial nomination process to detailing how the markers are installed.
For further context and insight, each marker will be embedded with a QR code that will lead to a digital interface where viewers can read more about each honoree, see an interactive timeline, and find other All Along locations.
Our Background
Lea Architecture x Neighborhood Women
Lea Architecture
Jane Lea, Principal and Project Cofounder
Jane (she/her) is the principal of Lea Architecture. She is a graduate of Columbia University, where she holds a Master of Architecture. Prior to starting her practice in 2017, she spent ten years working for firms in NYC, including eight years at Architecture Research Office. Jane has taught at Cooper Union, Parsons, and Pratt and is a licensed architect in New York and Pennsylvania. She is also a founding member of Design Advocates, a non-profit network of independent architecture and design firms who collaborate on pro-bono projects for small businesses, institutions, and organizations that serve disadvantaged communities and is an advocate for small design practices.
Her amazing team consists of Zachary Calbo-Jackson, Tara Chen Sue, Ariel Carroll, and past Collaborator Tytus Millikan.
Zachary Calbo-Jackson, Architectural Designer - Project Lead
Zachary (he/they) earned his Bachelor of Architecture and a minor in Italian from Cornell University, where he focused on how design helps organize cultural interactions and produces opportunities for communities. Their studies were often concentrated in marginalized groups, experiential design, and understanding the built environment on a personal scale.Their passion for social change, combined with their desire to integrate environmentally and politically aware designs has allowed Zachary to work with all types of designers.
Ariel Carroll, Architectural Designer 1
Ariel Carroll (she/her) graduated from Ball State University with a master’s degree in architecture and a certificate in social and environmental justice. Her academic focus was on the community and social impact of design. She has extensive experience in project management, digital fabrication, and construction documents. She has managed numerous projects for Lea Architecture and is the team’s BIM leader.
Tara Chen Sue, Architectural Designer
Tara (she/her) earned her Bachelor of Architecture, with a minor in Design and Environment Analysis, from Cornell University where she focused on how design and built space help organize interactions and produce opportunities for community. Her studies were often concentrated in the discussion of social good, experiential design and understanding design at a human scale. During her time in school, Tara helped co-found her school’s chapter of the National Organization of Minority Architecture Students. Her work has been exhibited as part of the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale in partnership with the U.S. Pavilion. Previously, Tara has worked with Architecture firms in Baltimore and New York City on a variety of project types from small scale residential to large scale commercial to create social change through equitable and sustainable designs. She believes in designing for the individual, and it is ultimately this passion that allows her to approach each project with creativity, imagination, and optimism.
Neighborhood Women
Jane Pool, Community Director and Project Cofounder
Jane Pool (she/her) is the director of Neighborhood Women (formerly National Congress of Neighborhood Women). Jane has served on the boards of the North Brooklyn Parks Alliance, The Firehouse North Brooklyn Community Center, Community Board 1-Brooklyn’s Women’s Committee, NB Chamber of Commerce Environmental Initiatives Committee. She was on the steering committee of the Greenpoint/ Williamsburg Waterfront Task Force. She has recently been tapped to reinvigorate Neighborhood Women of Greenpoint/Williamsburg. She is a lifelong community activist.