NYC Department of City Planning
Community conversations captured how people living along the Cross Bronx Expressway understand its legacy and are shaping a new story for the corridor’s future.
Hear Bronxites speak in their own words about what it’s meant to live along the infamous corridor.
The conversation portal captures the borough’s history of survival while actively building its future, bringing together 20 conversations with 60 Bronxites into a shared record of community voices and insight.
Read on to learn more about how Cortico is working with the NYC Department of City Planning.
“This way of working has allowed us to understand a lot more about community strengths and assets, which is something that can get left behind, as well as those kind of deep stories that inform why people feel the way they do about their neighborhood or about a particular place or a project. Our job is to continue to build our skills in listening and interpretation so that instead of asking people to participate in a way that works well for us, we learn how to listen in a way that works better for them.”
–Elizabeth Hamby, Director of Civic Engagement, New York City Department of City Planning
Challenge: Bringing lived experience into a long-running public process
As NYC City Planning continued its Reimagine the Cross Bronx engagement, there was a need to surface fresh, resident-led perspectives on what the expressway has meant for communities and what a transformed future could look like. The goal was to make room for stories that reflect resilience and pride, not just hardship.
Solution: Conversations to capture community history, impact, and vision
From February to June 2025, students from Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School partnered with NYC DCP and Cortico to host 20 small-group conversations with more than 60 Bronx residents. Participants shared memories of the corridor’s past, realities of the present, and hopes for the future, building a collective record of what change should prioritize.
Results: A public storybank and a living narrative for transformation
Insights and highlights from the conversations were gathered into the Cross Bronx Community Storybank, an interactive collection that lifts up Bronx voices on environmental justice, neighborhood well-being, and community-led infrastructure change. These voices are also featured in Cross Bronx / Living Legend, an exhibition at the Bronx River Art Center that pairs photography, historical archives, and community testimony to tell the story of neighborhoods imagining a better future for the corridor.
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