Nostrand Park has announced a new pilot program, Destination Nostrand, launching June 25, which will see a series of pop-up installations invade the empty shop fronts along Nostrand Avenue. The project, a collaboration between Brooklyn architecture firm VAMOS Architects and marketing company Masai Marketing, is designed to enliven the down and out area of Crown Heights.
As The Real Deal previously reported, Crown Heights, a multicultural Brooklyn neighborhood with stunning architecture but a troubled history, was hit particularly hard by the recession, with stalled residential sales, boarded-up homes and commercial vacancies.
This strategy for rebirth, funding by a Community Development Block Grant from the New York City Department of Small Business Services, has worked in other American cities, including Chicago and Los Angeles. — Katherine Clarke