Architects' Renewal Committee in Harlem (ARCH) @ 60: Bridging Past Visions and Present Realities

2024 marks the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Architects’ Renewal Committee in Harlem which was started to serve the planning and urban design needs of Harlem residents. It was formed by planners and architects to ensure residents were the ones shaping their community's future and was once led by J Max Bond, former dean of the architecture school at City College. ARCH at Sixty will use several of ARCH’s projects - ARCH itself as a model for community design centers everywhere, its advocacy and organizing work on housing and tenant's rights, and visions for 125th Street that countered the plan for the State Office Building - as starting points for conversations about Harlem’s transformation physically and demographically amidst ongoing development, including the need for more affordable housing, and the fight for neighborhood autonomy.

9:30 AM - 10:00 AM
Check-in and coffee in the lobby

10:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Program introduction and welcoming remarks

10:30 AM - 12:00 PM
Panel 1: Community Design in Harlem, Then and Now
Moderator: Venesa Alicea-Chuqui, Kean University
Brian Goldstein, Swarthmore College
Wayne Benjamin, Land Use, Community Board 12
Melvin Mitchell, Bryant Mitchell Architects
Roberta Washington, Roberta Washington Architects

12:00 PM - 1:30 PM
Lunch on your own

1:30 PM - 2:50 PM
Panel 2: Housing Harlem
Moderator: Milton Curry, Cornell University Department of Architecture
Dominique Bernucca-Hood, Met Council on Housing
Gregory Baggett, APRSNA
Yvonne Stennett, Community League of the Heights
Kirk Goodrich, Monadnock Development

2:50 PM - 3:15 PM
Coffee in the lobby

3:15 PM - 4:35 PM
Panel 3: 125th Street & the Shift of the Private Sector
Moderator: Shawn Rickenbacker, J. Max Bond Center, CCNY, SSA
Curtis Archer, Harlem Community Development Corporation
Kenneth Knuckles, New York City Planning Commission
Marc Norman, New York University, Schack Institute of Real Estate
Maxine Griffith, Trinity Church Wall Street

This event is supported by funding from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts and the West Harlem Development Corporation.

Please also join us for the symposium keynote on Friday, November 15th, at 5:30 pm. The keynote is co-sponsored by the New York Chapter of the National Organization of Minority Architects (nycoba|NOMA); AIANY Diversity and Inclusion Committee and is this year's AIANY J Max Bond, Jr. Lecture. To register for the keynote portion of the symposium, please use this link.