Serving as a refuge for queer homeless youth from around the country, Christopher street pier isn’t the refuge it used to be. This project aims to follow the precedent of the early queer occupiers of the 60’s and 70’s. In the highly gentrified neighborhoods of the meat packing district, there is no longer viable abandoned infrastructure to appropriate so the aim was shifted to other underutilized urban voids. With two main interventions, a new system of urbanism and homeless shelter are envisioned. The first is a partnership with the Ali Forney center and housing works to create an expansion of the institutional infrastructure of organizations helping queer homeless youth. This main intervention on the pier provides expanded spaces for the institutions to better serve the community and act as a face for the public it serves. The other intervention is elevated permanent housing that appropriated the underdeveloped air rights of New York City as an opportunity for a new urban condition. These housing units are paired with vertical hydroponic cannabis farms. These serve as an extension of housing works strategy of using cannabis dispensaries as ways to subsidize housing for queer homeless in New York. Together these speculate on a new queer urbanism for New York.
