Great Trees of New York with Allison C. Meier | Episode 210

Posted on
PAST PROGRAM | Virtual Programs

Celebrate Earth Day with some of New York City’s oldest and most beautiful trees. Six years ago, writer Allison C. Meier set out to visit and learn about each of NYC Parks’ official “Great Trees,” and she turned her exploration of these august arbors into her recently-published The Great Trees of New York Map. Join our conversation with Allison as we discuss some of her favorite trees, how to find them, and why they are such an important part of the city’s historic and ecological landscape. We will even join the conversation live from some of the Great Trees of Prospect Park.

>> Continue reading

Brooklyn Botanic Garden: Making Brooklyn Bloom

Posted on

Technical production assistance for virtual public program // 2021 and 2022

Turnstile Studio provided pre-production, training, coordination, and production services to Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s staff for their annual community event, Making Brooklyn Bloom, which was held on Zoom in March 2021 and 2022 with hundreds of participants both years. This work included creating a production plan and run-of-show to make the online event as interactive as possible, training the staff, volunteers, and guest speakers on relevant Zoom features and production tasks, managing a Facebook Live stream, directing all visual and audio features of the broadcast, coordinating with American Sign Language interpreters, and facilitating other accessibility accommodations.

Expanding Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s Welcome

Posted on
Photo of a tour group showing a woman leading to tour, an ASL interpreter, a guest in a wheelchair, and another guest standing, with trees in the background

Staff Training and Capacity Building for Accessibility // 2019–2022

Starting in 2019, Turnstile was engaged by Brooklyn Botanic Garden to act as the key consultant in the implementation of a multi-year grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services titled “Expanding BBG’s Welcome,” which seeks to further advance accessibility of the site for people of all abilities through staff training and professional development. Turnstile conducted a baseline internal assessment of the experience and knowledge of staff related to accessibility through observations, surveys, and focus groups by department. Using the results of the assessment, Turnstile designed and has led training workshops for over 200 frontline staff across the institution that have been customized by departmental roles and have focused on practical interactions with visitors. Turnstile has also developed a range of learning modules on accessibility-related topics, including empathy-building, physical navigation and wayfinding, and multimodal communication strategies, that are being incorporated into in-house staff trainings and provides ongoing support to the Garden’s accessibility initiatives, including facilitating connections with disability service providers and advocates to serve as advisors and trainers, the roll-out of accessible services, programs, and signage, and supporting interdepartmental coordination on crafting institutional policies and procedures.

The Great War and NYC: Prospect Park

Posted on
A statue of a soldier who stands clutching his gun and looking off into the distance as an angel begins to wrap her wing and arm around him

April 6, 2017 marked the 100th anniversary of the US entry into the First World War. America’s involvement was comparatively brief, yet the war had massive impacts on American society. This year, we will be posting a series of articles about the ways in which the war affected the sites where we work in New York City.

War has played an integral part in the history of Prospect Park. In August 1776, the future site of the Park was a battleground, as American troops tried to stop the British advance in the epochal Battle of Brooklyn. Originally conceived in 1861, the Civil War intervened; this turned out to be a blessing, as the pause gave the Park’s commissioners reason to reconsider the original design – with Flatbush Avenue coursing through the middle of the proposed park – and instead hire the visionary team of Calvert Vaux and Frederick Law Olmsted. 50 years into its life, World War I would arrive to alter the Park’s landscape yet again.>> Continue reading