Thank you to everyone who attended our year-end Holiday Party and Urbanist Awards ceremony.

We are giving one last shout-out to all the nominees and the winners from the night's awards ceremony. We want to thank each one of the following nominees for their outstanding contributions to Philadelphia’s urbanist movement in 2020!

A huge thanks to our distinguished guest speaker Dr. Paul Farber, Director of Monument Lab for talking about 2020 as a year in public space and talking about the work of Monument Lab, a public art and history studio based in Philadelphia that facilitates critical conversations around the past, present, and future of monuments.

Also, we just need 🔥 THREE MORE PEOPLE 🔥 to join us to reach our goal of 250 members by the end of the year!

⚠️We are so close to reaching this goal and need your support! We will send you a 5th Square shirt for FREE as a thank you.

When you join as a member, you help us raise the resources we need to keep building and mobilizing our base of supporters again and again, whether it's for safer streets, better transit, or dozens of other local issues in your area, or in city and state elections.

Join 5th Square today and get a FREE T-Shirt

2020 URBANIST AWARD NOMINEES & WINNERS

🚍 Urbanist Changemaker of the Year

Runners-Up:

• Marisa Denker (Co-Director and Co-Founder of Connect the Dots)
• Nikil Saval (Senator-elect, First Senate District, Pennsylvania)

Winner:

• Yocasta Lora (Director of Advocacy & Outreach for AARP Pennsylvania)

  Her work on AARP's Livable Communities Action Plan, which has been adopted by the Kenney Administration this year, has been amazing. She is a powerful organizer who is capable of putting together a broad coalition of partners including folks from 5th Square.

  The Livable Communities Action Plan provides an important consensus agenda for housing, transportation and public space and includes many of the priorities that we also engage with. Yocasta is also a member of the Transit Forward Philly coalition and the Vision Zero Alliance.

🛴 City Staffer of the Year

Runners-Up:

• Lily Reynolds (Deputy Director, Complete Streets at City of Philadelphia)
• Seth Bluestein (Chief Deputy Commissioner at the Office of City Commissioner)

Winner:

• City staff that facilitated outdoor dining: Mike Carroll, Rich Montanez, Justine Bolkus, Joshua Stratton-Rayner, Kristin Del Rossi, Sarah Adamo, Dave Munson, Alex Smith, Eryn Santamoor (Office of Councilmember Domb)

  This is the team that facilitated the city's outdoor dining options by advocating and creating guidelines to 1) allow outdoor dining by-right, citywide; 2) allow extension of outdoor dining privileges to neighboring property; 3) allow dining in the parking lane; 4) allow outdoor dining in vacant/parking lots; 5) allow street closures for outdoor dining.

  This team consists of OTIS, Streets, Commerce, Planning and L+I from the administration, and people who led the efforts on the legislative side.

🚲 Neighborhood RCO Champion

Runners-Up:

• Andrew Ortega (East Kensington Neighbors Association)
• Jonas Maciunas (Garden Court Community Association)

Winner:

• Larissa Mogano and Monica Allison (Cobbs Creek Neighborhood Association)

  Larissa and Monica have been major neighborhood advocates fighting for their neighbors in the Cobbs Creek Section of West Philly. Their work on bringing support to Cobbs Creek road safety improvements pushed it over the edge and brought substantial changes during a critical year of traffic violence.

🏙️ Best Development of the Year

Runner-Up:

• Philly Office Retail - Blaisdell Pencil Factory, Wayne Junction

Winner:

• Front Flats - Onion Flats
  

  Green, transit-oriented, and energy-producing 28-unit apartment building in Fishtown/Kensington, reviewed by Inga Saffron.

🏆 5th Square Volunteer of the Year

Winner:

• Steph Davis
  

  Because it's Steph! She does all of the behind the scenes work to keep 5th Square moving smoothly, always lends a helping hand and she gets stuff done. A constant cheerleader, tireless worker leading our organizing and elections committee, and she spearheaded our 2020 SEPTA facemask campaign.

🚇 Urbanist Media Champion

Runners-Up:

• Inga Saffron (Architecture Critic, The Philadelphia Inquirer)
• Michaela Winberg (Billy Penn / PlanPhilly)

Winner:

• Patricia Madej (Transportation Reporter, The Philadelphia Inquirer)
  

  Pat worked hard all year to provide detailed policy reporting on the issues that mattered for transit, safe streets, and transportation funding in PA and Philadelphia. She also moderated events held by 5th Square and partners this year as a trusted intermediary and for this she deserves our thanks!

💩 NIMBY Anti-Hero

Winner:

• Society Hill Civic Association
  

  This RCO continues to push against safe streets and housing, refusing to open up to become a neighborhood for everybody. As one of our city's whitest and richest neighborhoods, this year, they lobbied and won legislation to designed to restrict development and exclude new residents in the name of preservation.

The competition was fierce this second year of our awards and we thank all our well-deserved nominees and winners for participating!

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