Jerome Chou Talks About Garment District: Made in Midtown and Making Midtown

All are welcome to hear Jerome Chou, who will be talking about his work at The Design Trust and specifically a two-part initiative about the Garment District: Made in Midtown and Making Midtown. It should be a great talk on a vital part of New York’s design life!

Speaker: Jerome Chou, Director of Programs, The Design Trust for Public Space
Date: Monday, October 10, 6pm
Location: Wollman Hall, 65 West 11th Street, 5th Floor

About the project: In 2009, the Design Trust for Public Space, a nonprofit devoted to improving New York City’s public realm, partnered with the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) to create Made in Midtown, a study of the fashion industry, the Garment District, and why both the industry and the neighborhood are an integral part of New York City’s economy, identity, and sense of place.
Made in Midtown is about much more than fashion. It’s about one of the last neighborhoods in Manhattan that has not yet been remade by recent waves of new development. It’s about jobs and immigrant workers. It’s about the decisions city officials make to support certain kinds of businesses and land-use development, whether it’s baseball stadiums, high-rise condominiums, or factories.

Made in Midtown is about what kind of city we want New York to be–we think it should continue to be a place that values and promotes creative industries of all kinds, including fashion.

For Phase II of the project, Making Midtown, the Design Trust for Public Space will facilitate public forums around the role of creative industries in New York City. Building on these discussions, and the findings of Phase I, we will work with all stakeholders to generate strategies for zoning and land-use, to build city support for the fashion industry, and to develop programming or urban design initiatives that increase the industry’s presence in the public realm.