The Cities We Need: Book Launch and Conversation

UPCOMING

Tuesday, October 29
6:30 – 8:00 pm

The LP Storefront

1476 Fulton Street

The Cities We Need: Book Launch and Conversation

Join us at The LP Storefront for a celebration of The Cities We Need: Essential Stories of Everyday Places, a new publication written by photographer and urbanist Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani, a long-time community partner in developing arts & pedagogy at The LP! 

The Cities We Need is a twenty-year collection of thoughtful prose and neighborhood portraits of Brooklyn, NY, and Oakland, CA. The book explores how unassuming public places foster a sense of belonging and community, particularly in the face of gentrification, large-scale development, and, most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic. From churches to donut shops, our everyday places set the foundation for building an interconnected society rooted in public health and social justice.

The evening will include a riveting conversation between Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani, author of The Cities We Need, Blondel Pinnock, President and CEO of Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation (BSRC), and Ayesha Williams, our beloved Executive Director of The LP!

Refreshments will be provided.

ABOUT THE PANELISTS

Dr. Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani is a visual urbanist and cofounder of the interdisciplinary studio Buscada. She is the author of The Cities We Need: Essential Stories of Everyday Places (MIT Press, 2024) and Contested City: Art and Public History as Mediation at New York’s Seward Park Urban Renewal Area (University of Iowa Press, 2019), a finalist and honoree for the Brendan Gill Award. A widely exhibited photographer, she holds a doctorate in environmental psychology from the Graduate Center, CUNY.

Blondel A. Pinnock is the President and CEO of Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation (BSRC), the nation’s first and oldest Community Development Corporation. She is the first woman to hold that position in BSRC’s 55 year history. Before joining BSRC, Ms. Pinnock served as Chief Lending Officer for Carver Federal Savings Bank, the largest publicly traded black-managed bank in the US at that time. She has also exercised her passion for affordable housing and economic development during her tenure at NYC’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development. Blondel is a panelist and thought leader and has worked consistently in the area of wealth creation and economic mobility for the BIPOC community for close to 30 years. Ms. Pinnock earned a B.A. in History and Sociology from Columbia University and a J.D. from Hofstra University School of Law.

Ayesha Williams is an arts professional with almost two decades of experience working with visual artists, presenting programs, and generating funding for commercial galleries and nonprofit institutions. In addition to her professional experience, Ayesha is on the board of The Black School, Rivers Institute for Contemporary Art & Thought, and a member of Independent Curators International Independents. She also served as a Steering Committee member of the UN Women’s Conference. She received her Master’s degree in Visual Arts Administration from New York University and a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.