Jamestown Renaissance Corporation
Jamestown Renaissance Corporation is a nonprofit organization working to strengthen Jamestown, New York, through neighborhood revitalization, downtown development, and community engagement. Working alongside residents, businesses, and local partners, JRC supports projects and programs that improve public spaces, encourage investment, and build a more vibrant and connected community.
CJ
One Famous visitor to the 1964 Worlds Fair shares her memories of the experience in Episode 8.
Free Black Woman’s Library
The Free Black Women’s Library is a social art project that features a collection of over 5000 books written by Black women and Black non-binary writers, a free store, a period pantry, a virtual Reading Club, a weekly book swap, and a wide array of workshops and free public programs.
High Line Fellows: Emerging Leaders Program
The High Line Fellows: Emerging Leaders Program is a three-year, paid youth development program for those in their sophomore year of high school through senior year. Fellows gain leadership skills, explore careers, and prepare for college and beyond—with a starting pay of $18/hour. This opportunity is more than just their best first job experience: Fellows get a one-of-a-kind hands-on learning opportunity that draws from the High Line’s core strengths, building their confidence as leaders while connecting with peers and professionals across New York City.
Youth Led Libraries of the Future
Youth-led Libraries of the Future is an Urban Design Forum project exploring how young people can help shape libraries as spaces for learning, connection, creativity, and belonging. Working directly with teens, the project developed an arts-based curriculum, a zine archive, and nine youth-led design guidelines—reimagining libraries not simply as places for young people, but as civic spaces created with them.
Urban Design Forum
The Urban Design Forum (UDF) is a New York–based organization that brings together more than 1,100 people working across design, planning, development, government, advocacy, and civic life to think collectively about the future of the city. For more than four decades, UDF has created a space for people who shape cities—often from very different perspectives—to exchange ideas, develop new approaches, and put those ideas to work in New York neighborhoods.
Its work ranges from public programs and policy initiatives to fellowships, international exchanges, and neighborhood partnerships, with a focus on issues including housing, public space, mobility, economic development, public health, and climate. Rather than approaching urban design simply as the design of buildings and spaces, UDF treats citymaking as a collaborative civic practice: connecting the people who design, build, govern, use, and care for the city.
Ayana Smith
Ayana Smith is a native New Yorker and experienced youth organizer whose current practice focuses on implementing participatory creative placekeeping projects as a tool to increase public safety in and around public housing developments. Prior to her current position, she held leadership positions at Teens Take Charge and Student Voice and has served as a youth advisor for several organizations such as Race Forward. Her work has been featured in publications such as the New York Daily News and presented at conferences such as Grantmakers for Education through the National Public Education Support Fund.
Bronxlandia
Bronxlandia is a cultural hub and multi-purpose live events venue located at 910 Hunts Point Avenue in the South Bronx, New York City. Created by community developers Majora Carter and James Chase, the space serves as a creative local venue addressing the borough's shortage of dedicated performance spaces.
Majora Carter
Majora Carter is a real estate developer, urban revitalization strategy consultant, MacArthur Fellow, Peabody Award winning broadcaster, and teaches at Princeton University.
She is responsible for the creation of numerous economic developments, technology inclusion projects, green-infrastructure developments & policies, and job training & placement systems.
Majora is quoted on the walls of the Smithsonian Museum of African-American History and Culture in DC — which is also the subtitle of her 2022 book, Reclaiming Your Community: "Nobody should have to move out of their neighborhood to live in a better one."
Carter applies corporate talent-retention consulting practice to reduce Brain Drain in American low-status communities.