Project Description

Lower Manhattan Development Corporation

CHALLENGE

  • LMDC wanted to gauge the public’s interest in designs it was mulling for the new World Trade Center site; the Freedom Tower and the adjacent memorial.
  • Retained BPR help it launch “Plans in Progress,” a public outreach campaign for feedback on nine WTC designs. The initiative included two public hearings simulcast in the five boroughs, and a campaign to promote online voting on the proposed designs.

SOLUTION

  • In the age before social media marketing, BPR initiated strategic mailings to key ethno-cultural community groups, and circulated several thousand flyers around New York City. T
  • Pitched, and then secured articles in mainstream news media as well as niche publications.
  • Identified meeting sites that would attract the most ethnically and social-economically diverse population of New Yorkers, and coordinated transportation, seating, parking and access for the disabled.

RESULTS

  • More than 2000 people attended the public hearings.
  • Through the public meetings, media placement, flyers and direct mailings, members of the community participated in the process of choosing the new design for the World Trade Center site by voting online.