2025 Recap

Hello Hive Friends and Family,

Each project reminded us that public space is more than infrastructure. It's care. It’s creativity. It’s community.

Thank you to every neighbor, partner, and collaborator who helped us create spaces rooted in wellness, accessibility, and belonging.

Here are some incredible highlights that shaped our journey in 2025, creating memories that will last a lifetime:

Traveling Art Project

This traveling art project spread LOVE across five neighborhoods in New York City. Through collaborative art making, nearly 500 wooden hearts were created and shared with people of all ages and abilities, celebrating resilience, joy, and the power of community connection.

Placekeeping + Active Programming

A three-part night market series rooted in wellness, local entrepreneurship, and community creativity. Each event created space for neighborhood vendors to share their work while inviting residents to move, connect, and care for their well-being together.

Through free, multigenerational programming such as cycling, healthy cooking, yoga, sound meditation, and high-energy fitness, Zion Triangle came alive. The market supported more than 20 local entrepreneurs, welcomed new visitors, and celebrated the creative energy of the Pitkin Avenue Corridor, transforming the space into a place to gather, recharge, and thrive.

Project Team: Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and Pitkin Avenue Business Improvement District

Public Art

A creative and communal anchor in the heart of Zion Triangle, inviting neighbors to take a seat, share stories, exchange ideas, and find moments of rest and reflection along the vibrant Pitkin Avenue corridor.

Building on the existing lighting installation, the piece creates a bridge between past, present, and future while serving as a beacon of belonging and community pride. Suspended above, translucent hexagons capture and refract light, casting a colorful glow below. Each hexagon carries handwritten messages and dreams from community members responding to the prompt “Brownsville is,” transforming the installation into a living dialogue shaped by collective voice.

Project Team: Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Pitkin Avenue Business Improvement District, and Brownsville residents.

Community Engagement / Housing Plan

The Manhattan Plan is now live. This bold initiative aims to tackle New York City’s housing crisis by adding 100,000 new homes in Manhattan over the next decade.

Once a place where people from all walks of life could begin their New York City journey, Manhattan’s access to jobs, transit, and culture made it a hub of opportunity. Rising costs and limited housing production have pushed that promise out of reach for many. The Manhattan Plan seeks to restore Manhattan’s role as a place to live, grow, and belong by reimagining a more inclusive future for the city.

Project Team: Agency Landscape + Planning (Project Lead), Karp Strategies, Partner and Partners, Marble Fairbanks, Buro Happold, Sherwood Engineers

Public Art | School Fence

This piece reimagines Strauss Street as a joyful community space rooted in youth creativity and belonging. Building on a strong school community relationship, the project reflects the playful spirit of young people while welcoming neighbors of all ages.

We invited students, families, and neighbors to participate in hands-on ideation and design sessions. Their voices shaped a vibrant fence art installation of colorful flowers, bees, and butterflies moving along a whimsical path, transforming the street into a place of imagination, pride, and connection.

Project Team: Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Riverdale Avenue Community School and Brownsville residents.

Safer Street Activations

Reimagining NYC Streets

As a DOT programming partner, we joined efforts to promote safer, more bicycle-friendly streets by supporting and leveraging temporary street closures that provided neighbors with protected spaces to gather, bike, walk, and play, free from traffic. Through programs such as Bike the Block, we offered an array of creative programming, while a local bike organization provided tips for safe riding, bike repair, rules of the road, group rides, and giveaways. In October, we collaborated with local partners on Trick or Streets, fully closing streets in Woodside and Jamaica for an evening of spooky fun. As part of our Blooming Futures project, and alongside key organizational partners, we demonstrated how Open Streets for Schools can serve as vibrant, festive spaces for students, staff, and surrounding neighbors while also providing safe pick up and drop off areas.

We are so grateful to DOT for recognizing us with the "Public Realm Picasso Award" for being the partner with the most artistic and creative activations!

Project Team: Department of Transportation

We are proud of what we have built together, and we are confident that the seeds we have planted will blossom into even greater successes in the coming year. We will continue to dream big, care for one another, and deepen our focus on health, wellness, and belonging. Together, we will create spaces and experiences that strengthen community, support wellbeing, and make a lasting, positive impact.