#FinalNotice is an interactive map app that exposes climate change, environmental racism & historical erasure on the Brooklyn waterfront

The first of its kind, the #FinalNotice app reveals the interrelationships between climate change, environmental inequality, and the multilayered, complex histories of Brooklyn’s coastal neighborhoods in order to meet the needs of its citizens — present and future.

O U R G O A L S :

>>> Mobilize users to join community organizing efforts and locate accessible solutions;

>>> Invest in local BIPOC teen leadership through paid career exploration in the arts, technology, conservation, environmentalism, and health equity;

>>> Be the connective tissue between neighborhood residents and existing non-profit organizations, advocacy groups, and grassroots initiatives;

>>> Build inter-borough coalition to support Brooklynites experiencing structural and environmental racism;

>>> Affect local policy change.

Collaboratively Built.

By centering and amplifying the voices of local youth and community allies, we reimagine “archive” as a collaboratively generated, living record where science, history, personal storytelling, and activism meet.

Community Driven.

Through partnerships with Red Hook Initiative, El Puente, and other local organizations and activists, we aim to draw attention to the disproportionate effects of climate change and environmental racism on Black and Latinx populations.

Mobilizing for Change.

Our “Take Action” feature directs users toward nearby affordable resources, facilities, and events to learn more about how they can participate in local activism in their daily lives.

C O L L A B O R A T I V E L Y B U I L T

By centering and amplifying the voices of local youth and community allies, we reimagine “archive” as a collaboratively generated, living record where science, history, personal storytelling, and activism meet.

#FinalNotice was initiated by Danielle Russo Performance Project (DRPP), a Brooklyn-based cooperative of diverse artists who design interdisciplinary performances and experiential artwork for public spaces—architectural, historical, and politically-charged environs—as a catalyst for mutual storytelling and social activism, alike.

In Summer 2020, DRPP began its partnership with Red Hook Initiative, a community center working to combat institutional racism and inequity by empowering local youth. Through The Freedom School of the Children’s Defense Fund, we led a virtual S.T.E.A.M. (Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Mathematics) collaboratory with its paid Youth Leaders. Together, we gathered past and living histories, public documents, and growing scientific data to create an interactive portrait of Red Hook, revealing the serious effects of climate change and local policy on the neighborhood.

Each week, via Zoom, we spoke with an environmentalist, conservationist, historian, activist, or community organizer actively working in the neighborhood to broaden our exploration and encourage local engagement and alliance. The DRPP team worked with the Youth Leaders to gather, process, and organize research and data content. In doing so, we prioritized their self-authorship and reclaiming narratives — particularly championing the Youth Leaders, many of whom are Black and Brown adolescents whose lived experiences have been directly impacted by the systemic and environmental racism investigated in our collective research.

Simultaneously, we collaboratively designed the blueprint for the culminating mobile app experience, exploring different technological models and debating how our findings could be effectively arranged and shared with a public audience. What icons best symbolize our research topics? What colors most accurately reflect these topics and their urgencies? What app features or buttons are most engaging? Most intuitive?

We continued project development with Red Hook Initiative and El Puente in 2021, expanding into neighborhoods in North Brooklyn. All Youth Leaders are paid for their participation through their community center’s youth development and employment training program for career exploration in the arts, health, social justice, and environmental advocacy.

In Summer 2021, DRPP introduced a new “Dancing for Social Change” workshop in the S.T.E.A.M. curriculum. DRPP teaching artists and the Youth Leaders created site-specific dances inspired by their research that activates the app. In celebration of the official #FinalNotice app launch, a free outdoor performance series will take place in Southside, Williamsburg and Red Hook on September 25 & 26. Performances will begin at The RETI Center’s barge, at the intersection of the Erie Basin and Gowanus Bay, and will continue along the coastline. The performers will wear GoPro cameras that will actively record the landscape endangered by climate change, documenting and humanizing this time in history. GoPro footage will be live-streamed live through the app for a remote audience option, as well. Stay tuned for more details!

C O M M U N I T Y D R I V E N

The EPA defines Superfund and Brownfield sites as areas contaminated by hazardous waste posing risks to human and environmental health and requiring long-term rehabilitation. Several of Brooklyn’s East River tributaries and industrial sites became Superfunds and Brownfields due to decades of oil, ink, and mercury dumping.

Demonstrated by Superstorm Sandy, legacy pollution at Superfund and Brownfield sites will continue to be exacerbated by climate change with unprecedented floodwater carrying contaminants into residential areas at unsafe levels. According to the DEC, sea levels will rise 50 - 75 inches by 2100 and submerge East Riverfront properties. Yet, Mayor de Blasio’s current protection plan focuses on Manhattan. Moreover, air pollution caused by these sites has made already compromised residents extra vulnerable to COVID-19.

Utilizing action research methodology, we are partnering with Brooklyn community centers founded on social and environmental justice and youth leadership platforms: Red Hook Initiative and El Puente. Both community centers are adjacent to several Superfund and Brownfield sites, and have implemented grass-roots programming to rouse local attention in Red Hook, Gowanus, Williamsburg, and Greenpoint.

In 2010, the EPA added the Gowanus Canal to the National Priorities List for Superfunds, with long-term cleanup slated to start in March 2020. Images courtesy of Whitney Browne, the Gowanus Canal Conservancy, and the Irma and Paul Milstein Division of The New York Public Library. (All rights reserved)

These industrial and post-industrial districts are storm-surge zones, but most importantly, they are home to minority, low-income, and immigrant communities who are caught living in a paradox of extreme invisibility and visibility under governing agencies. Studies show that Black and Latinx neighborhoods in Kings County are at a 65% higher probability to experience the extreme weather patterns, events, and air pollution caused by climate change. Conversely, they are subjected to slow and/or absent response from the city and are inundated with immediate threats such as ICE raids, deportation, and police misconduct. Further, corporate real estate development, entangled with local politics, has led to hyper-gentrification and rent increase, causing rapid displacement.

#FinalNotice fosters community alliances with several existing non-profit organizations, grassroots initiatives, and advocacy groups and leaders whose work aims to shatter and undo structural and environmental racism in the neighborhoods where we work. Not only do these allies contribute to the research and writing of the app, but they participate in our S.T.E.A.M. collaboratories. For example, some of our allies in Red Hook include:

>>> Environmental Activist Karen Blondel of T3 Turning the Tide Environmental Justice;

>>> Gita Nandan of Resilient Red Hook Committee;

>>> Tim Gilman-Ševčík of The RETI Center & BlueCity;

>>> Michelle Montalbano of The Brooklyn Public Library and its new merger with Brooklyn Historical Society — The Center for Brooklyn History;

>>> Carolina Salguero and Peter Rothenberg of PortSide NewYork.

Through their paid apprenticeships, Youth Leaders are not only immersed in the research and local happenings of these awesome experts, but they have the opportunity to build professional skill sets to further their career endeavors in social justice and intergenerational organizing, education, environmental conservation, and health equity on a local level.

Images of Todd Shipyard courtesy of the Underwood Archives, and of Percy Loomis Sperr via The Irma and Paul Milstein Division at The New York Public Library. Image of “Anne Moses in Todd Shipyard Helmet” courtesy of the collection of Michael A. Levine