Sam Goodman, an urban planner in the Bronx borough president's office and a lifelong resident of the Concourse, noted that African immigrant women from the neighborhood had harvested tomatoes and other vegetables last summer from the soil in the medians on the Concourse. The dangers of planting and harvesting vegetables on a narrow median in the middle of lanes of speeding traffic notwithstanding, the occurrence – however peculiar or perilous – was telling, Goodman noted. It showed the stark contrast from the Concourse's lowest days in the 1960s, when, after the grass had withered on the medians, the city Parks Department decided to forego replanting, instead filling the medians with concrete and painting them green.
The symposium was also a chance for participants to dream a little. "Let's bring back the Sunday Stroll," one audience member suggested, referring to a pre-1990s era when the Concourse was closed to vehicle traffic every Sunday during the summer and fall, sparking more ideas: a dedicated bicycle lane, closing portions of the Concourse to traffic on Sundays or weekends, or during certain seasons of the year to encourage pedestrian use. The Sunday vehicle lane closures were terminated during the Giuiliani administration. Bronx officials have sought for years to reinstate the Sunday traffic ban, including a recent push last year, but to no avail – a narrative which only underscored Libeskind's assessment of the Bronx as the underdog borough in need of greater political clout.
In generating ideas for the newly designed Concourse, which the Design Trust for Public Space will work to implement, Susan Hoeltzel, director of the Lehman College art gallery and member of a panel focusing on the future of the boulevard, noted the importance of designing the physical space to make the suggested uses feel more permanent: "To do it in a way that you can never take it away."
