Clarence Eckerson Jr.
Clarence Eckerson Jr. is the Director of Video Production for NYCSR's StreetFilms and producer of bikeTV. He loves the color purple, chocolate chip cookies, and enjoys walking, biking, and taking transit. He has never owned a driver's license.
Recent Posts
Parking: Searching for the Good Life in the City
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Streetfilms is proud to partner with ITDP to bring you this fun animation that’s sort of a cross between those catchy Schoolhouse Rock shorts and the credit sequence for a 1960s-style Saul Bass film. For too long cities tried to make parking a core feature of the urban fabric, only to discover that yielding to parking demand […]
How a Massive Bike Tour Inspired Montreal to Become a Bike-Friendly City
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Especially in the warmer months, Montreal is simply alive with street life and, of course, lots of bicycling. Its car-free spaces are inviting to everyone, and there’s so much art and interactive installations in public space. In 2001 and again in 2003, I got to ride the Tour de l’Île in Montreal while on group trips with NYC’s Five Borough Bike Club. Both times were incredibly exciting, […]
Parking Craters: Scourge of American Downtowns
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Streetsblog’s Angie Schmitt popularized the term “parking crater,” and she explains it simply: A parking crater is “a depression in the middle of an urban area formed by the absence of buildings.” Different types of “meteors” left behind parking craters in the 20th Century — sprawl subsidies, the erosion of manufacturing, highway building. Whatever the cause, parking craters absolutely destroy sections of downtowns and make […]
“The Better Block” Celebrates Four Years of Re-imagining Streets
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Streetfilms has wanted to profile Jason Roberts and the amazing work of The Better Block for a long time. So it felt like destiny when, a few weeks ago, we were able to sync up and chronicle the fourth anniversary of The Better Block in Oak Cliff, Texas. This temporary pedestrian plaza is right next to […]
Hal Grades Your Bike Locking 2014
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It’s hard to believe, but it’s been nearly five years since we last went traipsing around SoHo grading people’s bike locking with Hal Ruzal from Bicycle Habitat. So it was time for the next chapter with the mechanic who wears pink-purple socks, admonishing you about how to lock your wheels, frame, and seat correctly. The process is […]
Lakewood, Ohio: The Suburb Where Everyone Can Walk to School
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The inner Cleveland suburb of Lakewood (population 51,000) calls itself a “walking school district.” Lakewood has never had school buses in its history, and kids grow up walking and biking to school. Mornings and afternoons are a beehive of activity on streets near schools, as kids and parents walk to and from classrooms. You can feel […]
How Do Streets Affect Your City’s Happiness?
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In this Streetfilm, Streetsblog publisher Mark Gorton interviews award-winning journalist Charles Montgomery about his fantastic new book, “Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design,” which delves into the hard-to-measure question of how the built environment affects our mental wellbeing. Mark and Charles discuss how research from the fields of neuroscience, behavioral economics, and psychology […]
National Bike Summit 2014: United Spokes
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Usually I limit conference wrap-up videos to right around four minutes in length. But there were so many great (and funny!) moments at this year’s National Bike Summit, it was important to pack in all of the coverage we could grab. So sit back and enjoy many of the faces and fun that made this […]
Watch Bill de Blasio’s “Vision Zero” Announcement
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In 2013, NYC recorded a record-low 333 homicides, yet at least 286 people lost their lives to traffic violence. At a press conference yesterday, Mayor Bill de Blasio said it’s “shocking to see how much those two numbers correspond.” In announcing his first steps to implement Vision Zero, the goal of eliminating traffic deaths, he said, “The first […]
The Rise of Open Streets
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Streetfilms has been documenting the open streets movement for over seven years, beginning with our landmark film in 2007 on Bogota’s Ciclovia, currently the most viewed Streetfilm of all time. The next year, Mike Lydon of The Street Plans Collaborative decided to get an open streets event going in Miami, which led to his research for The Open Streets […]
The Metamorphosis of NYC Streets
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There’s nothing more dramatic than looking back five or ten years at Streetfilms footage to see how much the streets of New York City have changed. In this wonderful montage, check out the incredible changes at Times Square, Herald Square, the Brooklyn waterfront, and many other places that outgoing NYC DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan and […]
Riding the Bike Share Boom
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Without a doubt, 2013 has been a banner year for bike-share in the United States. Major systems were implemented in New York City and Chicago, and many others debuted or expanded in other cities. In fact, Citi Bike users have biked over 10 million miles and the system is closing in on 100,000 annual members! The Institute for Transportation & Development […]