ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author borrow the sociological concept of career from to describe two simultaneous but distinct processes of construction of an urban public space, in both the spatial and the political sense, in the same location, a former derelict pier on the New York City Hudson riverfront. Urban interstices are pieces of land seemingly abandoned for more or less durable periods of time throughout metropolitan areas. The public is made of regular users who become co-hosts of a place itself regarded as a common good, just as they were doing when the pier was an urban interstice. In the 1990s a group of community activists created the Friends of Pier 84 (FOP84) to advocate for its reopening to the public as open space and for incorporation into the Hudson River Park plan. FOP84 became a member of the Hudson River Park Alliance, a not-for-profit organization created to support the park Project.
