Sarah Goodyear tells the story of 596 Acres, a group that has worked since 2010 to map all of the publicly owned vacant land in New York City (the group has also expanded its efforts to Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and New Orleans). After noticing that many of the city's empty parcels were "related to the master planning and urban renewal efforts that took hold in the United States in the mid-20th century."
That's when co-founder Paula Z. Segal and 596 Acres, along with design firms Partner & Partners and SmartSign, undertook the Urban Reviewer project, which gathers all 155 adopted neighborhood master plans for New York City in one searchable map.
"Click on an area where a master plan was adopted and you will get scans of the original plan as well as detailed information about individual lots. There's also a way to leave stories and feedback for the researchers, and the site features essays that put the information into historical and political context," writes Goodyear.
