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The 34th Avenue Oral History project is documenting the story of 34th Avenue, the Open Street in Jackson Heights, Queens, that closes to traffic from 8am-8pm every weekday and allows locals to jog, stroll, bike, and socialize without fear of cars. The website holds profiles of community members whose lives are impacted by the 34th Avenue Open Street: people who lost work and creatively pivoted to sustain their livelihoods; people who are forming new friendships and connecting to their neighborhood more deeply than ever; people who are reimagining the city's streetscape and rethinking post-pandemic New York City.
The project is spearheaded by Bridget Bartolini, an incoming Public Humanities Fellow at SOF/Heyman. This project is supported by a Public Humanities Grant from Humanities New York, the Humanities in Practice Initiative of the Society of Fellows/Heyman Center for the Humanities at Columbia University, and The Laundromat Project's Creative Action Fund.