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December 7, 2016 by A. Adam Glenn

Urban Policy Blog Spotlights Harlem Heat Project

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The Harlem Heat Project features prominently in an essay on community-engaged urban planning for climate resilience published Dec. 7, 2016 on The Nature of Cities web site.

The essay was co-authored by AdaptNY editor and Harlem Heat Project coordinator A. Adam Glenn, with urban ecologist Zoé Hamstead of the University at Buffalo School of Architecture & Planning and Timon McPhearson, chair of the environmental studies program and director of the Urban Ecology Lab at the Tishman Environment and Design Center at The New School in New York City. 

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October 25, 2016 by By Sarah Holder, AdaptNY

Harlem sensor data reveals dangerous indoor heat risk

Most of the residences Harlem Heat Project gathered heat index data from this summer were hotter than outdoors. (Graphic: Brian Vant-Hull, Prathap Ramamurthy, City College)

Most of the residences Harlem Heat Project gathered heat index data from this summer found indoor temperatures were hotter than outdoors. (Graphic: Brian Vant-Hull, Prathap Ramamurthy, City College)

Indoor air temperatures in apartments in the Harlem section of Manhattan were up to 7 degrees hotter this summer than outdoor temperatures, creating hidden dangers for residents, according to field data gathered by AdaptNY’s Harlem Heat Project reporting initiative.

In New York City this July and August, the average outdoor temperature in the area was 83 degrees Fahrenheit. But during that same period, average indoor temperatures at the Harlem residences reached over 90 degrees.

That’s per City College researcher scientists Prathap Ramamurthy and Brian Vant-Hull, who shared the findings at a community workshop on Oct. 15.

The data was gathered as part of the summer-long initiative in which community-based citizen scientists placed digital sensors in 30 apartments around northern Manhattan starting in July. Thousands of data points were collected, with temperatures and relative humidity measured in each residence every 15 minutes. Continue reading →

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October 25, 2016 by By Sarah Holder, AdaptNY

Workshop connects Harlem residents, experts in search for extreme heat solutions

Harlem resident Michelle Holmes, left, works with scientist Prathap Ramamurthy, to brainstorm solutions to the challenges of urban heat at an Oct. 15 workshop.

Harlem resident Michelle Holmes, left, works with scientist Prathap Ramamurthy, to brainstorm solutions to the challenges of urban heat at an Oct. 15 workshop. (Photo: Sarah Holder, AdaptNY)

It was a connection between caregivers.

The Harlem Heat Project’s Julia Kumari Drapkin, who had come to New York with her infant son to take part in the initiative’s Oct. 15 community workshop, nodded across the room to Helen Jones, a Harlem resident and host to one of the projects heat index sensors, who sat rocking her own grandson’s baby carriage.

“Helen’s sensor was hot this summer!” exclaimed Drapkin. “Her grandson was so hot he had to take showers to cool down.”

The exchange was one of the more poignant during a four-hour-long gathering at New York’s City College of non-profit professionals, community organizers, public health researchers, weather experts, and urban planners, along with some of the Harlem residents whose homes were outfitted with the sensors this summer. Continue reading →

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October 25, 2016 by by Matthew Schuerman, WNYC

Making New York Cool Again

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One idea to come out of the Harlem Heat Project workshop was to plant community gardens on the roofs of buildings, and “vertical farms” on the exterior walls. (Photo: Sarah Holder, AdaptNY)

To conclude its three months of research, outreach and storytelling this past summer, the four organizations that pioneered the Harlem Heat Project held a community workshop Oct. 15. Participants in the project, as well as invited experts from the fields of public health, architecture, emergency management and climate change, brainstormed ways to alleviate the risks of extreme heat in cities. Here are their ideas: Continue reading →

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May 31, 2016 by AdaptNY

White House Webinar: Prepping Communities for Dangers of Extreme Heat


If you have an interest in how communities like Harlem can best prepare for extreme heat, especially for more vulnerable populations, there was a good listen last week with a White House webinar on the topic (above). The 90-minute program ran May 26 as part of its national Beat the Heat Campaign.

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May 23, 2016 by AdaptNY

AdaptNY Launches Harlem Heat Project

Heat waves can be a silent killer. Photo courtesy <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/katiecarman/" target="_blank">Katie Carmin</a>, <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/legalcode" target="_blank">Flickr Creative Commons</a>

Extreme summer heat is the subject of a special news initiative at AdaptNY, focused on the community of Harlem. Photo courtesy Katie Carman, Flickr Creative Commons

Hot summer days can bring plenty of pleasant associations. But for many at-risk city dwellers, hot weather is a silent killer.

“Urban heat islands” like New York trap heat with concrete and asphalt, and have relatively little vegetation to cool things off. That means more heat-related illnesses and premature deaths, especially among the vulnerable elderly, young children and those with chronic medical conditions.

And the danger worsens as climate change brings a rise in heat waves around the country.

So just how hot is it getting? And how can communities prepares themselves for this new reality? Those are among the questions we’ll explore in depth this summer, when AdaptNY launches a new reporting project to look at the harmful health effects of heat.

New York’s Harlem neighborhood and its at-risk populations are the focus of this latest initiative. We will draw on crowd-sourced data and citizen journalists to find out just how hot is it in Harlem. We’ll investigate how the city and community are responding to the threat. And we’ll capture voices of the community on the problem and possible solutions.

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