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HOUSTON (June 24, 2019) Ed Emmett, Former Harris County Judge, provided grants to the Buffalo Bayou Partnership and the Bayou Preservation Association as his final act as the Fight Flooding PAC Chairman.  The Fight Flooding PAC raised over $1.2 million and campaigned for the most successful Harris County Bond Proposition on record, garnering over 85% of votes in favor of a $2.5 billion flood control program.

“Since we raised this money to prevent flooding and make Harris County more resilient, it is appropriate to give the remaining funds to these two non-profit organizations that do so much to preserve our bayous for future generations,” said Emmett.

Each of the charities received over $64,000 from the PAC.  Buffalo Bayou Partnership will use the funds to restore green spaces and other areas damaged in Hurricane Harvey. 

“Buffalo Bayou Partnership (BBP) is so appreciative of the Fight Flooding PAC fund,” said Anne Olson, president of the Buffalo Bayou Partnership. “We thank the PAC’s leadership and especially former Harris County Judge Ed Emmett.  These funds will help BBP continue its restoration efforts in Buffalo Bayou Park. Riparian planting along the water’s edge will be a priority in the year ahead and the PAC’s funds will be invaluable.”

The Bayou Preservation Association will use the funds as part of its Stream Corridor Restoration Program to restore the floodplains riparian buffer zones, through the removal of invasive species in approximately 30 acres of land and conduct workshops to help ensure that stakeholders maintain these restored lands. Projects like these support Bayou Preservation Association’s mission to celebrate, protect and restore the natural richness of all our bayous, creeks and streams.  

“We are honored that Ed Emmett and the Fight Flooding PAC are supporting our efforts to support a return of function and resilience in riparian buffer zones of the floodplains within three Harris County watersheds heavily impacted by Hurricane Harvey – Cypress Creek, Clear Creek, and upper Buffalo Bayou – and to increase public understanding and support for the roles that healthy riparian areas play to the overall floodplains and ultimately the bayous.” said Robert Rayburn, Board Chairman of Bayou Preservation Association.

The Fight Flooding PAC drew support from many local organizations and businesses leaders, from the Greater Houston Partnership’s Ed Wulfe and the Houston Association of Realtors’ Ed Wolfe to the Houston Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the Greater Houston Black Chamber.  The bond proposition received endorsements from nearly every state senator and representative in the region, regardless of party.

“The community came together behind Ed Emmett’s leadership,” said Auggie Campbell, Fight Flooding PAC Treasurer and West Houston Association President & CEO.  “We worked hard with environmental leaders like Jim Blackburn and MaryAnne Piacentini because we all want to make our region more resilient.  Judge Emmett’s decision to call the flood bond election and to put the PAC funds that are left towards restoring land are legacies that will continue to benefit Harris County.”

About Buffalo Bayou Partnership
Established in 1986, Buffalo Bayou Partnership (BBP) is the non-profit transforming and revitalizing Buffalo Bayou, Houston’s most significant natural resource.  The organization’s geographic focus is the 10-square mile stretch of the bayou that flows from Shepherd Drive, through the heart of downtown into the East End, and onto the Port of Houston Turning Basin.  Thanks to the generous support of foundations, corporations, individuals and government agencies, BBP has implemented more than $200 million in improvements for the redevelopment and stewardship of the waterfront – spearheading award-winning projects such as Buffalo Bayou Park, protecting land for future parks and green space, constructing hike and bike trails, and operating comprehensive clean-up and maintenance programs.  Buffalo Bayou Partnership also activates the waterway through pedestrian, boating and biking amenities; volunteer activities; permanent and temporary art installations; and wide-ranging tours and programs that engage tens of thousands of visitors each year.

About Bayou Preservation Association

The mission of the Bayou Preservation Association is to celebrate, protect and restore the natural richness of all our bayous and streams, with a vision of a network of healthy bayous, streams and watersheds. It works to Increase understanding of area bayous and creeks and their watersheds by providing educational programs and opportunities, activities and events to engage all the region’s demographics. Bayou Preservation Association also strives to expand stewardship and stewardship opportunities to improve the health of our watersheds, creeks, and bayous. For information, go http://www.bayoupreservation.org/Home or call 713-529-6443.

PHOTO: Pictured left to right: Anne Olson, President of the Buffalo Bayou Partnership; Ed Emmett, Former Harris County Judge; Auggie Campbell, Fight Flooding PAC Treasurer and West Houston Association President & CEO; Robert Rayburn, Chair of Bayou Preservation Association; and Sarah Bernhardt, Executive Director of BPA

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Buffalo Bayou Partnership is excited to announce that Buffalo Bayou Park has been selected as a finalist for the Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence (RBA) 2019 Gold and Silver medal prizes. The Gold Medalist will receive $50,000, and four Silver Medalists will each receive $10,000 to enhance their projects. BBP extends our congratulations to the park designers and consultants as well as our sincerest thanks to the Kinder Foundation for its catalyst gift and to all of the generous funders that made Buffalo Bayou Park possible. Special thanks also to the Downtown Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone (TIRZ) #3 that provides BBP with annual funding for the park’s operations and maintenance.

For more than 30 years, the biennial RBA has recognized transformative places that contribute to the economic, environmental, and social vitality of American cities. Seventy-eight projects in 27 states have been honored since its founding. The 2019 RBA finalists are:

Beyond Walls—Lynn, MA
Grassroots public art and lighting initiative revitalizing a former industrial city. (Submitted by Beyond Walls)

Buffalo Bayou Park—Houston, TX
Enhancement of a historic waterway into a resilient public greenspace. (Submitted by SWA Group)

Crosstown Concourse—Memphis, TN
Rehabilitation of an abandoned Sears, Roebuck & Co. distribution center into a mixed-use vertical village and arts, education, and healthcare destination. (Submitted by Crosstown Arts)

Parisite Skatepark—New Orleans, LA
Youth-driven DIY creation of a new public park on vacant land beneath a highway overpass. (Submitted by Administrators of the Tulane Educational Fund)

Sulphur Springs Downtown—Sulphur Springs, TX
Renewal of a rural, small-town civic plaza and main street. (Submitted by Toole Design Group)

RBA entries comprise completed projects across the contiguous United States. Finalists and medalists are chosen by a nationwide committee of urban experts through an in-depth evaluation process involving input from the award application, site visits, interviews with project participants and community members, and committee discussions. The 2019 Selection Committee includes:

Libby Schaaf—Mayor, City of Oakland, CA
Adrian Benepe—Senior Vice President and Director of National Programs at the Trust for Public Land, New York, NY
Brenda Breaux—Executive Director for the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority (NORA), New Orleans, LA
Carol Coletta—President and CEO of the Memphis River Parks Partnership, Memphis, TN
Marc Norman—Associate Professor of Practice at the University of Michigan, Taubman School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Ann Arbor, MI
Carol Ross Barney, FAIA—Principal Designer, Ross Barney Architects, Chicago, IL

Next month, RBA staff will begin site visits to each finalist project in preparation for the committee’s selection of the medal winners in June. Metropolis magazine will tell the stories of each of these sites through a series of online features. Findings and lessons learned will be relayed through detailed case studies and published in book form in 2020 as a resource for educators, practitioners, and students. Past case studies are available here.

“The range of issues addressed in this year’s submissions reflect the evolution of our understanding of placemaking in cities,” says RBA Founder Simeon Bruner. “The five finalists illustrate the shifting role of design in response to the imperatives of social inclusivity and environmental resilience.”

Buffalo Bayou is one of five North American sites to host inaugural exhibition

Opens to the Public
Wednesday, February 20, 2019

HOUSTON – January 30, 2019 – Houston’s Buffalo Bayou has been selected as the inaugural site for New Monuments for New Cities, a collaborative public art project organized by the High Line Network, a coalition of visionary North American industrial reuse projects that are transforming underutilized infrastructure into new urban landscapes and redefining what parks can be.

Debuting in Houston on February 20, the public art initiative’s theme is meant to stimulate discussion and community discourse on the evolving nature of monuments and ask questions such as “What does it mean to monumentalize a person, an idea or moment in time?”

In coordination with High Line Art, each High Line Network participant invited five of its city’s artists or artist groups to create proposals in the form of posters for new monuments.  The resulting proposals span from traditional monuments, to revised historical statues, to newly imagined methods of public commemoration.  There are drawings, photographs, renderings, Wikipedia pages, collages, and bold text-based statements.

Following Houston’s presentation, all 25 artworks will travel to Austin, Chicago and Toronto, culminating in New York on the High Line in September 2019.  In Houston, the artwork will be displayed in the form of light boxes integrated into benches beckoning visitors to reflect and enter the discourse on the meaning of monuments.  The structures will surround the cherished Spindle by Henry Moore in Buffalo Bayou Park along Allen Parkway at Gillette Street.

Major underwriting for Houston’s exhibition is provided by East River, a Midway development with additional support from the Susan Vaughan Foundation and TXRX.

“We are honored to be among a select group of cities that are exhibiting these thought-provoking artworks,” says Judy Nyquist, BBP Board Member and Public Art Committee Co-chair.  “The theme, NewMonuments for New Cities, is so timely as our nation and its citizens are rethinking what form monuments should take today.” 

Participating Houston artists are:  Regina Agu, Jamal Cyrus, Sin Huellas: Delilah Montoya and Jimmy Castillo, Phillip Pyle, II, and Nick Vaughan and Jake Margolin.  Artists selected by the other High Line Network participants include:

• Austin:  Nicole Awai, Daniela Cavazos Madrigal, Teruko Nimura and Rachel Alex Crist, Denise Prince, Vincent Valdez
• Chicago:  Eric J. García, Tonika Johnson, Chris Pappan, Richard Santiago (TIAGO), Zissou Tasseff-Elenkoff
• Toronto:  Susan Blight, Coco Guzman, Life of a Craphead (Amy Lam and Jon McCurley), An Te Liu, Quentin VerCetty
• New York:  Judith Bernstein, Guerrilla Girls, Hans Haacke, Paul Ramírez Jonas, Xaviera Simmons

In addition to the New Monuments for New Cities exhibition, Buffalo Bayou Partnership is sponsoring the following complementary programming and events:

Saturday, March 2, 1-2pm
Monuments Monologue: Artists Talk
Meadow surrounding the Henry Moore Spindle sculpture in Buffalo Bayou Park
Allen Parkway at Gillette Street

Wednesday, March 20, 2019, 6:30pm
Message and Meaning: Reconsidering Monuments Today
Panel Discussion with New Monuments for New Cities Artists,
Melanie Kress, Associate Curator, High Line Art and
Moderator, Karen Farber, Executive Director, Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts Kathrine G. McGovern College of the Arts University of Houston
Eldorado Ballroom
2310 Elgin Street, Houston, TX 77004

Saturday, April 6, 10-11 a.m.
Monuments Monologue: Artists Talks
Meadow surrounding the Henry Moore Spindle sculpture in Buffalo Bayou Park
Allen Parkway at Gillette Street

Saturday, April 20, 10-11 a.m.
Monuments Monologue: Artists Talks
Meadow surrounding the Henry Moore Spindle sculpture in Buffalo Bayou Park
Allen Parkway at Gillette Street

Saturday, April 27, 8-10 p.m.
A Monumental Evening: Closing Party
Buffalo Bayou Partnership Silos along Buffalo Bayou’s East Sector
801 N. Nagle Street, off of Navigation, Houston, TX  77003

New Monuments for New Cities Schedule in Other Cities

• Waller Creek, Austin                                                       March-May 2019
• The 606, Chicago                                                           May-June 2019
• The Bentway, Toronto                                                     May-August 2019
• The High Line, New York                                                September-October 2019

About Buffalo Bayou Partnership
Established in 1986, Buffalo Bayou Partnership (BBP) is the Houston nonprofit organization transforming and revitalizing Buffalo Bayou, the city’s most significant natural resource. Thanks to the generous support of foundations, corporations, individuals, and governmental agencies, BBP has raised and leveraged more than $150 million for the redevelopment and stewardship of the waterfront. The organization develops award-winning projects such as the $58 million Buffalo Bayou Park, protects land for future parks, constructs hiking and biking trails, and operates comprehensive clean-up and maintenance programs. BBP also seeks ways to activate Buffalo Bayou through pedestrian, boating, and biking amenities, volunteer activities, permanent and temporary art installations, and wide-ranging tours and events.

About High Line Network
The High Line Network is a group of industrial reuse projects—and the people who help them come to life. As cities become denser and land for traditional parks becomes scarce, citizens are finding creative ways to bring greenspace to their neighborhoods. Projects in the High Line Network transform underutilized infrastructure into new urban landscapes. Redefining what a park can be, these hybrid spaces are also public squares, open-air museums, botanical gardens, social service organizations, walkways, transit corridors, and more.

The High Line Network is presented by Friends of the High Line, the nonprofit organization responsible for the High Line, raising nearly 100% of its annual budget. Owned by the City of New York, the High Line is programmed, maintained, and operated by Friends of the High Line, in partnership with the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation.

The High Line Network is made possible by the founding support of The JPB Foundation.###

Buffalo Bayou East Sector Master Plan

High Line Network Joint Art Initiative

Sincerely,

“We are delighted to welcome this stellar group to our board,” said Anne Olson, president of Buffalo Bayou Partnership. “Our new members bring a wealth of experience and strong interest for protecting, preserving and improving Buffalo Bayou.” 

The 36-member board of directors also includes: Murad Ajani, C. Ronald Blankenship, Carolyn W. Dorros, Gaynell Floyd Drexler, Michael D. Fertitta, Cristina Garcia Gamboa, Stacey Gillman, Guy Hagstette, Samir Khushalani, Lisa Marshall, Ginni Mithoff, Christina Morales, Sara-Ashley Moreno, Judy Nyquist, David Ott, Jr., Alison Porter, Winifred Riser, Shannon B. Sasser, Carson Trapnell Seeligson, Christof Spieler, Karl S. Stern,  Saul Valentin, Anne Whitlock,  and Renee Wizig-Barrios. Chair Emeritus members include Chuck Carlberg, Brady F. Carruth, Collin J. Cox, Thomas Fish, Mike Garver, Sis Johnson, Susan Keeton and Bob Phillips.

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Created in 1986, Buffalo Bayou Partnership is the 501(c)(3) non-profit organization transforming and revitalizing Buffalo Bayou, Houston’s most significant natural resource. For more information, visitwww.buffalobayou.org.

Media Contact
Trudi Smith
BBP, Director of PR and Events
tsmith@buffalobayou.org
713.752.0314 x103

Five cities imagine new monuments
February – September 2019

NEW YORK, NEW YORK (December 4, 2018) — New Monuments for New Cities, A Buffalo Bayou Partnership and High Line Network Public Art Project, is a new collaboration between industrial reuse projects in North America. New Monuments for New Cities is a public art exhibition that will travel across the United States and Canada throughout 2019. Five urban reuse projects, which are part of the High Line Network, invited five of their local artists or artist groups to create proposals (that can take the form of posters, video projections, etc.) for new monuments. Each participating location will produce an exhibition of the 25 artworks, specific to their site.

Participating sites include:

• Buffalo Bayou, Houston, Texas; February – April, 2019
• Waller Creek, Austin, Texas; March – May, 2019
• The 606, Chicago, Illinois; May – July, 2019
• The Bentway, Toronto, Ontario; May – August, 2019
• The High Line, New York, New York; September – October, 2019

Participating artists include: Houston, TX – Regina Agu, Jamal Cyrus, Sin Huellas artists: Delilah Montoya and Jimmy Castillo, Phillip Pyle, II, Nick Vaughan and Jake Margolin; Austin, TX – Nicole Awai, Daniela Cavazos Madrigal, Teruko Nimura and Rachel Alex Crist, Denise Prince, Vincent Valdez; Chicago, IL – Eric J. García, Tonika Johnson, Chris Pappan, Richard Santiago (TIAGO), Zissou Tasseff-Elenkoff; Toronto, Canada – Susan Blight, Coco Guzman, Life of a Craphead (Amy Lam and Jon McCurley), An Te Liu, Quentin VerCetty; New York, NY – Judith Bernstein, Guerrilla Girls, Hans Haacke, Paul Ramírez Jonas, and Xaviera Simmons.

“As memorials to the deeply imbalanced history of the Western world are being torn down, the current moment demands critical thought and creativity about the monuments that adorn our cities. These proposals from today’s artists offer an inspiring range of vision for how we might eternalize this point in society’s progress,” says Cecilia Alemani, the Donald R. Mullen, Jr. Director & Chief Curator of High Line Art.

New Monuments for New Cities begins with Houston in February and ends its run on the High Line in the fall of 2019, coinciding with the annual convening of the High Line Network. This fifth assembly of the High Line Network will be its first public symposium, to be held in New York City, and will bring together experts, practitioners, and leaders from across North America working to expand the developing field of infrastructure reuse.

“New Monuments for New Cities is an exciting opportunity for different communities to share ideas about activating public space with art, taking insights specific to each location and finding common themes around monumentality and legacy that resonate on an international level,” says Ana C. Traverso-Krejcarek, Manager of the High Line Network. “The eclectic mix of proposals developed by the artists selected reflect the social and political hallmarks that make each city’s heart beat.”

Local supporters of New Monuments for New Cities at Buffalo Bayou, Houston, include East River, a Midway development and Susan Vaughan Foundation.

What Should Monuments Look Like Now? 25 Artworks Reveal Some Ideas

by The New York Times

“[A] part,” a poster design by Sun Huelllas Artists: Delilah Montoya and Jimmy Castillo

“[A] part” is a monument to the families holding steady as they are pulled apart. Sun Huellas is composed of Mexican, Chicana/o, and American participants formed to reveal issues of borders, migration, detention, and deportation in the United States.
The work is for a project called New Monuments for New Cities by the nonprofit Friends of the High Line. It is a public art exhibition in which artists were asked to imagine new monuments. Their designs, on posters or on renderings that will be projected, will travel to five cities in the United States and Canada next year, to be displayed in industrial reuse spaces, beginning inBuffalo Bayou in Houston in February, and ending on the High Line in New York in October.

Read Full Article

ABOUT HIGH LINE NETWORK
Presented by Friends of the High Line, the High Line Network is a group of industrial reuse projects—and the people who help them come to life. As cities become denser and land for traditional parks becomes scarce, citizens are finding creative ways to bring greenspace to their neighborhoods. Projects in the High Line Network transform underutilized infrastructure into new urban landscapes. Redefining what a park can be, these hybrid spaces are also public squares, open-air museums, botanical gardens, social service organizations, walkways, transit corridors, and more.

The High Line Network is made possible by the founding support of The JPB Foundation.

ABOUT HIGH LINE ART
Presented by Friends of the High Line, High Line Art commissions and produces public art projects on and around the High Line. Founded in 2009, High Line Art presents a wide array of artwork including site-specific commissions, exhibitions, performances, video programs, and a series of billboard interventions. Led by Cecilia Alemani, the Donald R. Mullen, Jr. Director & Chief Curator of High Line Art, and produced by Friends of the High Line, High Line Art invites artists to think of creative ways to engage with the unique architecture, history, and design of the High Line, and to foster a productive dialogue with the surrounding neighborhood and urban landscape.

Lead support for High Line Art comes from Amanda and Don Mullen. Major support for High Line Art is provided by The Brown Foundation, Inc. of Houston, and the Charina Endowment Fund. High Line Art is supported, in part, with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the New York City Council, under the leadership of Speaker Corey Johnson.

For further information on High Line Art, please visit thehighline.org/art.

ABOUT BUFFALO BAYOU
Established in 1986, Buffalo Bayou Partnership (BBP) is the Houston nonprofit organization transforming and revitalizing Buffalo Bayou, the city’s most significant natural resource. Thanks to the generous support of foundations, corporations, individuals, and government agencies, BBP has raised and leveraged more than $150 million for the redevelopment and stewardship of the waterfront. The organization develops award-winning projects such as the $58 million Buffalo Bayou Park, protects land for future parks, constructs hiking and biking trails, and operates comprehensive clean-up and maintenance programs. BBP also seeks ways to activate Buffalo Bayou through pedestrian, boating, and biking amenities, volunteer activities, permanent and temporary art installations, and wide-ranging tours and events.

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