WEBVTT

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My dream is to build the world's first

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underground park in New York City.

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Now, why would someone want
to build an underground park,

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and why in New York City?

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These three tough little buggers

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are, on the left, my grandmother, age five,

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and then her sister and brother,

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ages 11 and nine.

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This photo was taken just before they left

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from Italy to immigrate to the United States,

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just about a century ago.

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And like many immigrants at the time,

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they arrived on the Lower East Side

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in New York City

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and they encountered a crazy melting pot.

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What was amazing about their generation

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was that they were not only building new lives

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in this new, unfamiliar area,

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but they were also literally building the city.

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I've always been fascinated by those decades

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and by that history,

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and I would often beg my grandmother

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to tell me as many stories as possible

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about the old New York.

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But she would often just shrug it off,

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tell me to eat more meatballs, more pasta,

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and so I very rarely got

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any of the history that I wanted to hear about.

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The New York City that I encountered

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felt pretty built up.

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I always knew as a kid that I wanted

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to make a difference, and to somehow

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make the world more beautiful, more interesting

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and more just.

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I just didn't really know how.

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At first, I thought I wanted to go work abroad,

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so I took a job with UNICEF in Kenya.

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But it felt weird to me that I knew more about

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local Kenyan politics than the
politics of my own hometown.

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I took a job with the City of New York,

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but very quickly felt frustrated

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with the slowness of government bureaucracy.

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I even took a job at Google,

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where very fast I drank the Kool-Aid

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and believed almost wholeheartedly

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that technology could solve all social problems.

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But I still didn't feel like I was
making the world a better place.

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It was in 2009 that my friend

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and now business partner James Ramsey

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alerted me to the location of a pretty spectacular site,

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which is this.

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This is the former trolley terminal

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that was the depot for passengers

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traveling over the Williamsburg Bridge

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from Brooklyn to Manhattan,

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and it was open between 1908 and 1948,

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just around the time when my grandparents were

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living right in the area.

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And we learned also that the site

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was entirely abandoned in 1948.

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Fascinated by this discovery,

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we begged the authorities to draw us into the space,

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and we finally got a tour,

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and this is what we saw.

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Now, this photo doesn't really do it justice.

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It's kind of hard to imagine the unbelievably magical

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feeling that you have when you get in this space.

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It's a football field of unused land

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immediately below a very crowded area of the city,

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and it almost feels like you're Indiana Jones

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on an archaeological dig,

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and all the details are all still there.

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It's really pretty remarkable.

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Now, the site itself is located at the very heart

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of the Lower East Side,

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and today it still remains one of the most

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crowded neighborhoods in the city.

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New York City has two thirds the green space

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per resident as other big cities,

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and this neighborhood as one tenth the green space.

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So we immediately started thinking about how we

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could take this site and turn it into something

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that could be used for the public,

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but also could potentially even be green.

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Our plan, in a nutshell,

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is to draw natural sunlight underground

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using a simple system that
harvests sunlight above the street,

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directs it below the city sidewalks,

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and would allow plants and trees to grow

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with the light that's directed underneath.

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With this approach, you could take a site

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that looks like this today

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and transform it into something

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that looks like this.

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In 2011, we first released some of these images,

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and what was funny was,

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a lot of people said to us, "Oh, it kind of looks

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like the High Line underground."

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And so what our nickname ended up becoming,

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and what ended up sticking,

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was the Low Line, so the Low Line was born.

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What was also clear was that people really wanted

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to know a lot more about how the technology

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would look and feel,

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and that there was really much more interest in this

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than we had ever thought possible.

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So, like a crazy person, I decided to quit my job

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and focus entirely on this project.

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Here is us with our team

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putting together a technology demonstration

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in a warehouse.

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Here's the underbelly of this solar canopy

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which we built to show the technology.

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You can see the six solar collectors at the center there.

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And here's the full exhibit all put together

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in this warehouse.

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You can see the solar canopy overhead,

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the light streaming in,

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and this entirely live green space below.

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So in the course of just a few weeks,

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tens of thousands of people came to see our exhibit,

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and since that time, we've grown

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our numbers of supporters both locally

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and among design enthusiasts all over the world.

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Here's a rendering of the neighborhood

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just immediately above the Line's site,

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and a rendering of how it will look

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after major redevelopment that is coming

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over the course of the next 10 years.

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Notice how crowded the neighborhood still feels

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and how there's really a lack of green space.

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So what we're proposing is really something that will

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add one football field of green space

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underneath this neighborhood, but more importantly

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will introduce a really community-driven focus

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in a rapidly gentrifying area.

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And right now, we're focusing very closely

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on how we engage with the City of New York

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on really transforming the overall ecosystem

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in an integrated way.

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Here's our rendering of how we would actually

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invite people into the space itself.

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So here you see this iconic entrance

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in which we would literally peel up the street

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and reveal the historical layers of the city,

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and invite people into this warm underground space.

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In the middle of winter, when it's
absolutely freezing outside,

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the last place you'd want to go would be

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an outdoor space or outdoor park.

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The Low Line would really be a four-season space

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and a respite for the city.

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So I like to think that the Low Line actually brings

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my own family's story full circle.

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If my grandparents and my parents were really

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focused on building the city up and out,

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I think my generation is focused on reclaiming

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the spaces that we already have,

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rediscovering our shared history,

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and reimagining how we can make our communities

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more interesting, more beautiful and more just.

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Thanks.

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(Applause)