The First Carbon-Neutral Net-Zero Energy Building in NYC

Solar One, the little environmental awareness center on the edge of the East River, is about to begin construction on a much bigger facility called Solar 2. The new building will be ten times larger than the current facility, and will let them expand their public programs around energy efficiency, renewable energy, green building, and urban ecology.

Of course, the building itself will be a prime example of green building practices. Check out this partial list of features from their website:

Net-Zero Energy Consumption 90Kw non-integrated PV Roof will provide 100% of power needed.

Green Roof will reduce heating and cooling loads on the building; filtering 
carbon dioxide and other pollutants out of the air; combating the urban heat effect, which makes cities measurably hotter than surrounding areas; and 
reducing storm water runoff, helping to alleviate the load on New York City’s wastewater management system and thereby preventing the flow of raw 
sewage into our natural waterways.

Natural Daylight Strategies include the building’s position, a north light 
skylight, glare reduction windows that allow light and solar heat gain to 
save energy.

Rainwater Collection will provide all non-potable water, conserving the 
municipal water supply.

Low Flush Toilets/Waterless Urinals will dramatically cut water consumption.

Recycled and Renewable Materials will be used in the building structure and interior furnishings.

The facility will also include indoor and outdoor classrooms, a green theater with a solar-powered stage, a wetlands exhibit, and an Eco-Café.

Construction begins next month. We can’t wait to see it!

A Hero Under the 7 Train

One of the ten finalists of CNN’s Hero of the Year contest is Jorge Muñoz of Queens. A school bus driver, he spends his off-hours handing out free food and beverages to immigrant day laborers who gather on Roosevelt Avenue under the 7 train in Jackson Heights.

Muñoz and his family are there distributing meals seven nights a week, 365 days a year, and he estimates that he has served 70,000 meals so far. Now that’s commitment!

According to the Village Voice blog, Muñoz has already received $25,000 as a finalist, and is using the cash to pay off his own bills and loans. And if he wins the $100,000 prize as Hero of the Year, he’ll be able to cover the costs of his “mobile food pantry” for the next two years.

Click here to find out more about all ten finalists and cast your vote for Hero of the Year.

To learn how you can support the Muñoz family’s efforts, visit An Angel in Queens, which is a registered nonprofit organization.

And to find out about other organizations that help out day laborers, see my previous posts from October 2008 and April 2009.

NYC Bloggers Cover Climate Change

Today is Blog Action Day, when thousands of bloggers agree to post about the same global issue. This year’s topic is climate change.

Bloggers around NYC are getting in on the action:

• A comic strip by N.C. Winters on Freelance Switch
• Eco-friendly restaurants at the Directory of New York City
• Going beyond green consumer choices by Soilicious: Green Life in Brooklyn
• Green buildings and social services from Views from The Bridge
• Weather observations by Daisy Soap Girl
• Green prisons and green jobs on Change.org’s Criminal Justice blog
• Videos of environmental speakers from PopTech
• Staff perspectives at Inhabitat

We know that can’t be it! So let us know what local blogs we missed by leaving a comment.

News Roundup: Lack of Diversity, Car-Free 42nd Street, etc.

In the news recently:

• Diversity Diminishes Closer to the Top at NYC Nonprofits and Foundations (New York Nonprofit Press)
• Flood Harvesting Housing Brings Tidal Power to New York City (Inhabitat)
• Without Cars, a Different Sort of 42nd St. (New York Times)
• Poster-Loving Civic Groups Protest Steep Fines (City Room)
• Scandal Leaves Lack of Service in Its Wake (City Limits)
• The Immigrants & Parks Collaborative (Urban Omnibus)
• Who’s the Real Rock Star of Bike Advocacy? (Urban Omnibus)
• New Online and Soon to Print Revista: Red Door NY (VivirLatino)

Seeding the City: Rooftop Gardens + Community Building

We love this Seeding the City project, which aims to both increase rooftop gardening and build community among environmentalists.

Participants who gather support from their neighbors (and landlords) can receive small (less than four square feet) green roof modules. The first module went to Georgia’s Place (Community Counseling and Mediation) in Crown Heights on October 1. Another went to EcoArtSpace, where the public can view the installation as part of the “Down to Earth Show” which runs through November. The plan is to put more modules in other neighborhoods around NYC.

The project’s not only about increasing the number of green spaces in New York. Participants also receive a Seeding the City flag and sign in order to promote the idea, and are required to get support from their neighbors in order to receive the module.

Check it out, and learn how you can participate in the project.

After the Feast

I was extremely lucky to be able to attend last week’s Feast Conference. Presented by All Day Buffet, The Feast is billed as a gathering of “the world’s greatest innovators from across industries and society to empower, inspire and engage each other in creating world-shaking change.”

An eclectic mix of speakers and a unique format made The Feast one of the most exciting conferences I’ve ever been to. Rather than forcing attendees to choose between competing sessions, The Feast presented only one speaker at a time, allowing for a shared experience among all attendees. The format was similar to that of TED—brief talks from a variety of fascinating people—but with the twist that all of the speakers were focused on social innovation and change. The group of more than a dozen speakers included Jay Parkinson from Hello Health, Elizabeth Scharpf from Sustainable Health Enterprises, Joshua Viertel from Slow Food USA, and Brian Bordainick, the last speaker of the day, who brought the house down with his heartfelt story of 9th Ward Field of Dreams, an effort to rebuild athletic facilities at a New Orleans high school.

The talks were interspersed with short, inspiring videos, which can all be seen here.

Though only a few hundred people were able to come to the Times Center to hear the talks in person, hundreds more were able to tune in online via a live feed. Missed it? Lucky for you, the entire conference was recorded and can be viewed here.

More than 1,100 (!) tweets were posted about the Feast, so if you want to really geek out, you can peruse them here.

As impressive as all of the speakers were, it was the diverse mix of attendees that really distinguished The Feast for me. Breaks between sessions allowed for socializing and networking among the more than 200 people who had come from as far as Germany and as close as around the corner, with backgrounds in the business, nonprofit, and creative fields. What everyone seemed to have in common was a bold ambition and belief in our ability to change the world for the better. One of the most memorable quotes from the day came from Uffe Elbaek, founder of KaosPilots, who asked: “Do you want to be the best in the world, or the best for the world?” To spend a day surrounded by hundreds of people dedicated to being the best for the world was a wonderful and humbling experience.

Other reflections on the Feast from around the web:

• All Day Buffet
• Treehugger
• Next American City
• The Changebase
• A. Lauren Abele

News Roundup: Green Supermarket, Rooftop Farm, etc.

In the news recently:

• To Help the Bronx, They Circled Manhattan by Boat (City Room)
• Longer Lines at Food Banks in the Bronx (City Room)
• City Admits Lapse in Data Release (City Room)
• Lessons from a Large Family (New York Times)
• Neighborhood Voices: A friend is gunned down (Hunts Point Express)
• Young Local Farmers (Ditmas Park Blog via Brooklyn Green Team)
• Proposed: NYC Should Have Even Smaller Apartments (City Limits)
• Garbage Hymns (Landfill Diaries via Freshkills Park Blog)
• Greenpoint Next Frontier in Commercial-Scale Rooftop Farms (New York Future Initiative)
• Green Market: Supermarket Signs Lease at LEED Hopeful Queens Family Courthouse Development in Jamaica (gbNYC)
• More Supermarkets, Please. (Racialicious)

Interns Help Small Businesses Go Green in Chinatown, LES

The Win-Win Campaign sounds to me like it would deliver about four big “wins.” So, who wins?

1. Youth: The training and internship program equips young people with green job skills, preparing them for work in a growing sector.
2. Small businesses: Small businesses can cut down on expenses by increasing energy efficiency, and better communicate their greening efforts to consumers.
3. Consumers: The program addresses the need for “Concrete, measurable, verifiable ways for consumers to gauge the greenness of a company.”
4. Our environment: Obviously, all of this would result in fewer carbon emissions and less wasted energy.

According to Ideal Bite, the program has been offering free energy audits to small businesses in Chinatown and the Lower East Side so far, and will expand to East Harlem early in 2010. Let’s hope the idea takes hold and comes to many more neighborhoods!

This Saturday: Photo Scavenger Hunt (with Prizes!)

The Columbia University chapter of Students for Free Culture is sponsoring a photo scavenger hunt this Saturday, October 10, with the goal of adding photo content to Wikipedia and StreetsWiki articles about NYC streets and sites. The event, called “Wikis Take Manhattan,” should please artsy photogs and competitive scavenger hunt-ophiles alike.

To participate, register here and show up at one of two pre-defined starting points at 1:00p.m. on Saturday:

• Columbia University starting point (uptown): the Sundial in front of Low Memorial Library
• The Open Planning Project starting point (downtown): 148 Lafayette Street, between Grand and Howard

Learn more about this event—where else?—on Wikipedia.

Graphic Designers + Public Policy Advocates = Win

The Center for Urban Pedagogy recently unveiled this year’s collaborators in their quarterly project Making Policy Public, which produces “a series of foldout posters that use graphic design to explore and explain public policy.”

According to the website:

This series aims to make information on policy truly public: accessible, meaningful, and shared. We aim to add vitality to crucial debates about our future. At the same time, we want to create opportunities for designers to engage social issues without sacrificing experimentation and for advocacy organizations to reach their constituencies better through design.

They do this by matchmaking pairs of advocates working on a variety of issues—from the “tomato supply chain” to “navigating juvenile justice” to “keeping parks public”—with graphic designers. Looking forward to seeing the beautiful work that’s sure to result from the newest roster!