The MAS Podcast The MAS Podcast

New York City has over a hundred monuments honoring specific men who’ve changed the course of history and made significant contributions to our communities. But guess how many women are up on pedestals in this city? Here’s a sad hint: you can count them on your fingers. One hand, even. Performance artist, playwright, and overall activist Lulu Lolo is on a mission to change that. In this Women’s History Month podcast episode, Lulu tells us about her latest venture, “Where are the Women? A Call for Monuments of Women in NYC,” and reminisces about growing up in East Harlem, a neighborhood where strong women (including the city’s first Puerto Rican librarian) graced every block.

“America needs to fall in love with planning again,” says Mitchell Silver, New York City’s Parks Commissioner. Since taking his post in May of 2014, this Brooklyn-born city planner (formerly Chief Planning Officer for Raleigh, NC, and Deputy Planning Director for Washington, D.C.) has worked on efforts to better fund nearly-abandoned neighborhood parks and to revitalize the experience of public space beyond the high-fence-around-a-chunk-of-asphalt gestalt of ‘70s and ‘80s New York.

In this episode, Commissioner Silver talks about his new Parks Without Borders project as well as plans to prepare the city’s coastlines for climate change. He also asks New Yorkers for their help in creating the next generation of public spaces throughout all five boroughs. As Silver says, “We need these outdoor spaces for your brain to breathe and relax.”

Who do you call when a coyote wanders into Chelsea or a peregrine falcon drops its kill on Wall Street? Who can explain how baby skunks have turned up in a Bronx subway station, or how to make Manhattan supertalls safer for the thousands of migrating birds careening through the obstacle course of our skyline? Our podcast guest this episode is naturalist Leslie Day, an expert on all the ways that the five, densely-populated boroughs of New York City are still teeming with wildlife. Leslie has written a surprising set of field guides to the natural world of New York (www.leslieday.nyc) and in this episode, she shares with us story after story of the many trees, plants, and creatures—other than humans—who have never given up their claim to city living, even in the dead of winter.

T.M. Rives, author of Secret New York, shares his favorite New York places, spaces, and sites of interest that most New Yorkers have never heard of before. If you think you know it all, this one's for you!

In this episode, we're joined by author Ada Calhoun, a life-long New Yorker who grew up on St. Marks's Place whose new book "St. Mark's is Dead" offers a fascinating history of these infamous 3 blocks in the heart of downtown Manhattan.

In this episode, James & Karla talk about the ongoing battle between character and conformity in today’s New York, and tell some never-before-heard stories about their extraordinary effort to document our city’s icons before they disappear forever.