Earth Day's Birthday

On the eve of Earth Day’s 40th Birthday, I had to share this article. Fred Kent is a venerable leader and a professional friend.

I thought you might like to read about his story as one of the coordinators of the first Earth Day back in 1970 and his positive impact since then.

Transformative Times: Earth Day 1970, Placemaking, and Sustainability Today

By Fred Kent

40 years ago this week, I coordinated the first Earth Day celebration in New York City. The city had never seen anything like it.

We were laying the groundwork for a new way of looking at the world--expanding the public's thinking beyond the limited vision that characterized fields like industry, economics, science and politics to embrace a much larger view of the whole planet.

Earth Day transformed New York-literally. To draw attention to protecting the environment in cities, we turned Fifth Avenue into a "place" by eliminating traffic from 59th Street to Union Square. People poured out of offices and apartments to walk down the middle of the most important street in New York on a beautiful spring day. (This was five years before I founded Project for Public Spaces, but you can see the idea was already germinating.)

It was a lot of fun for everyone, but also a potent symbol that this new movement could bring great, positive changes to our lives. And ideas born on the first Earth Day are coming to fruition today.

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