Advance notice of conference:
Title: "Integrating Differences -
Theories and Applications of Universal Design"
Conference Dates: Friday & Saturday
October 19 & 20, 2001
Pre-Conference UD Site Tour Date: Thursday October 18.
Location: State University of New York
Campus of Fashion Institute of technology (F.I.T.)
Seventh Avenue at West 27 St.
New York, NY 10001-5992
USA
Sponsor: The FIT Teaching Institute and the FIT College-Wide Committee
on Diversity
Conference information will be posted on the FIT / SUNY Web Site by mid
to late April.
www.fitnyc.suny.edu
If you need to start making plans now,
for conference Registration information, contact
Celia Baez,
Office of Academic Affairs, FIT,
phone 212-217-7456,
E-Mail: [log in to unmask]
Best airport: Newark ("NWK") is across the river in New Jersey, but
actually it's the most delay-free of the 3 airports serving NYC. And
it's by far the closest in terms of getting from airport to Manhattan.
Take airport bus to Newark's Penn Station, then take New Jersey Transit
20 minute train to New York's Penn Station. The SUNY / FIT Campus
conference site is 4 "short blocks" (31st Street to 27th Street) to the
south of that station, just 5 minutes away.
--
There is a separate Registration required for the Pre-Conference UD Site
Tour, on Thursday Oct. 18.
This will be in the afternoon, and will tour several sites within a few
blocks of the FIT campus, that are major sites in the modern history of
Universal Design. I'll be conducting this tour:
1. The site of the first ADA lawsuit for making a building accessible,
the Observation Deck of the Empire State Building. Suit was filed by
civil rights group Disabled In Action. Several modifications in this
public facility were made, including lowering the landmarked parapet to
enable people using wheelchairs or scooters to see the view.
(We hope to have plaintiff in the suit, and the architect present.)
2. New UD outdoor Public Toilets. (This has been a long struggle in
NYC. We hope to have the leading advocate over the past decade, for
making these UD, not just segregated "accessible", present.).
3. Site of the first public facility in the US to be influenced by an
innovative disabled community-initiated & managed Public Input Process.
As a result, this train station expansion, to open in 2005, will have
more than a dozen features that make for access levels much closer to
universal, than the weak ADA-AG would permit. (This public input
process will be the subject of my slide lecture at the conference.)
4. An example of the total lack of enforcement of the ADA Access
Guidelines & the local equivalent access code. On the way to the UD
sites, we'll briefly pass a new storefront entry with multiple code
violations.
5. Possible fifth site, to be determined.
This entire tour is within an approximately 4 block radius of the FIT
campus, and does not require any transport other than using the
sidewalks.
--
If you happen to be coming to this conference, please let me know. I'd
love to meet people on this list-serv in real space, who have been just
virtual presences in cyber-space.
Jim Davis
www.fitnyc.suny.edu
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