Hello Friends & Neighbors––
Please join us at Sunview Luncheonette this Thursday, May 30, at 7 pm for a book discussion with author Daniel Campo, in conversation with Stephen Zacks, on the occasion of the release of Campo’s new book, published by Fordham Press. Campo’s book spotlights grassroots efforts to recover, rebuild, and enjoy architecturally iconic but economically obsolete places in the American Rust Belt.
POSTINDUSTRIAL DIY: RECOVERING AMERICAN RUST BELT ICONS
“A pioneering Detroit automobile factory. A legendary iron mill at the edge of Pittsburgh. A campus of concrete grain elevators in Buffalo. Two monumental train stations, one in Buffalo, the other in Detroit. These once-noble sites have since fallen from their towering grace. As local elected leaders did everything they could to destroy what was left of these places, citizens saw beauty and utility in these industrial ruins and felt compelled to act. Postindustrial DIY tells their stories.
The culmination of more than a dozen years of on-the-ground investigation,
ethnography, and historical analysis, author and urbanist Daniel Campo immerses the reader in this postindustrial landscape, weaving the perspectives of dozens of DIY protagonists as well as architects, planners, and preservationists. Working without capital, expertise, and sometimes permission in a milieu dominated by powerful political and economic interests, these do-it-yourself actors are driven by passion and a sense of civic duty rather than by profit or political expediency. They have craftily remade these sites into collective preservation projects and democratic grounds for arts and culture, environmental engagement, regional celebrations, itinerant play, and in-the-moment constructions. Their projects are generating excitement about the prospect of Rust Belt life, even as they often remain invisible to the uninformed passerby and fall short of professional preservation or environmental reclamation standards.”
Pierogi & Polish beer will be available by donation, or BYOB.
About our Guests
Daniel Campo is Associate Professor in the School of Architecture and Planning at Morgan State University in Baltimore. Previously, he was a planner for the New York City Department of City Planning.
Stephen Zacks is an advocacy journalist, architecture critic, urbanist, and project organizer based in New York City.
