Dear (First Name),
Asking people how they met their favorite people is infinitely interesting. Woven through these stories are shared values, shared vision, sometimes a shared love of food or books. In our case, it’s our shared love of New York City and the streets in our neighborhood.
We met nine years ago through our kids’ school on the Upper West Side. At the time, Lisa was working on a campaign called The Upper West Side Streets Renaissance and frequently attended Community Board meetings. Sara was (and still is) a self-described policy wonk and wanted to learn more about our most elemental form of government. We met to talk about Community Boards, and less than a year later, Sara had joined hers. She hasn’t stopped blaming Lisa since! 😉
During those years, Sara would attend CB meetings as a member, and Lisa would attend as an advocate. The CB debated and discussed many issues and resolutions related to our work – protected bike lanes, curb reform, Central Park cross park routes, the Robert Moses era 79th Street Rotunda redesign. Each issue felt critically important to get right. Lives and livelihoods were at stake.
And, we started to collaborate on activating our public spaces through Park(ing) Day events, Weekend Walks along Broadway, and then, during the pandemic, along our West End Avenue and West 103rd Street Open Streets. These events were playful and joy-filled, but they were also statements: we need inclusive, community-oriented, non-car-dominated streets and spaces in order to thrive.
In 2018, Lisa made the transition from the Open Plans Board to staff, launching our advocacy work, and Sara joined in 2021 as our (first) Director of Policy. Earlier this year, we became the co-Executive Directors of Open Plans (again, our first). For both of us, this work really matters.
How did you meet your favorite people? What values do you share? We are leading Open Plans to be New York’s most inclusive organization valuing streets and other public spaces as a way of bringing people together in community. We hope you will support us in this season of giving by making a contribution.
With gratitude,
