2021 Newsletter #5 | AAPI Heritage Month, Ali Sutherland-Brown, and Karp Strategies in Medford, MA

Congratulations to Ali Sutherland-Brown for her promotion to Principal at Karp Strategies!

As Karp Strategies’ second employee, Ali has been with us since nearly day one. Now, she will play a critical role in leading the firm into a new chapter as we take on several exciting, challenging new projects. Her focus areas will include: community-economic development, strategic planning and policy analysis, and real estate advisory.

Ali’s experience, insights, and instincts as a community-economic development strategist have helped guide our work on important projects for years - and her passion to ensure that projects are driven by the needs and feedback of local communities has never been more critical. After a year when COVID and the concurrent crisis of systemic racism underscored the need for cities across the US to enact a fresh approach to economic development, Ali has emerged as a leader of that effort particularly in the New York metropolitan region. Whether spearheading an inclusive strategy for affordable housing development, designing the strategy for public engagement around the reimagining of public space in the SoHo Broadway district, or supporting an equitable mixed-use plan for the 28-acre post-Amazon development site in Long Island City, Ali has been at the center of many important conversations shaping the future of the post-COVID urban fabric of New York and cities across the northeast US.

We - and our clients - are incredibly lucky to have Ali join our executive leadership team.

The Karp Strategies team celebrates Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month. We invite you to learn more about AAPI history through selected recommended AAPI-authored books and educational events happening this month. We also share some of our favorite AAPI-owned local businesses to support during this time.

Learn more about the rich AAPI heritage by joining events by ABNY, New York Public Library, Library of Congress, LACMA, and more!

Join ABNY Talks on May 19 at 10AM for Let’s Celebrate AAPI Heritage! to celebrate the AAPI community’s contributions to New York City, learn about impactful AAPI organizations, and recognize the challenges that have arisen with the surge in AAPI hate crimes. Register here.

Join The Library of Congress on May 19 at 3PM for Virtual Orientation: Asian Americans & Visual Culture, an orientation session that will include a brief introduction to works primarily by Asian American creators, including photography and artists’ prints and drawings from the Library’s Prints & Photographs Division. Register here.

Join the Smithsonian Museum for Southeast Asia Got Something to Say workshop on Wednesday, May 19 from 6:30-8PM on Southeast Asian cooking and learn a recipe or two! Register here.

Join Cooking with LACMA: Chirashi Zushi Inspired by Yoshitomo Nara and learn how to make chirashi zushi (scattered sushi) and explore the theme of childhood on Tuesday, May 25 at 9PM. Register here.

Join Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month Family Storytime hosted by the New York Public Library for a live, online program with songs, rhymes, and read-aloud books on Thursday, May 20 from 10:30AM-11AM. Register here.

Engage at your leisure by watching a 5 minute video on the history of Angel Island Immigration Station, an immigration station in San Francisco that processed immigrants from all over the world, including Germany, Austria, Poland, and hundreds of thousands of Chinese immigrants from 1910 to 1940. Learn more about the history of Angel Island here.

Read National Parks Service’s tales of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders preserved in our national parks, memorials, and historic sites here.

Donate to Send Chinatown Love, an organization that supports local Chinatown businesses and underserved community members. Founded by a team of volunteers when COVID-19 first hit New York City, you can donate here to keep their network of impacted merchants afloat or gift-a-meal to underserved community members that can be redeemed at partner merchants. The theme of this year’s AAPI heritage month is visibility. Send Chinatown Love is committing $101,500 to fund Gift-a-Meal campaigns with all 29 of its partner merchants. Learn more about the campaign here. There are dozens of amazing Asian eateries throughout the city; we are sharing a few of our favorites here. Please share your favorites across the boroughs!

• Visit Nom Wah Tea Parlor at 13 Doyer Street offering Hong Kong-style dim sum.

• Try traditional Malaysian desserts at Kuih Cafe, located at 46 Eldridge Street.

• Sample a mochi donut from Alimama Tea, located at 89A Bayard Street.

• Try some kimchi jjigae (kimchi stew) at Five Senses in Koreatown, located at 9 W 32nd Street.

• Grill your own korean barbeque at Baekjeong NYC in Koreatown, located at 1 E 32nd Street.

• Try some spicy hand-pulled noodles at Spicy Village, located at 68 Forsyth St B.

• Discover some traditional Filipino Pork Belly Adobo or some Thai Green Papaya Salad at Pig and Khao, located at 68 Clinton Street.

• Slurp on some soup dumplings at Nan Xiang Xiao Long Bao in Queens, located at 39-16 Prince Street, #104.

• Visit Geido in Brooklyn for an array of homestyle Japanese cuisine, located at 331 Flatbush Ave.

• Indulge in a range of traditional Japanese delicacies from sushi to barbeque with sake pairings at Yopparai, located at 49 Clinton Street. Lucky diners will snag a spot under a kosatsu on cool spring nights.

Karp Strategies, in collaboration with project lead Agency Landscape + Planning, Innes Associates, ARUP, and LANDAU Design + Technology was selected to support the City of Medford, MA’s Master Planning process. Karp Strategies will focus on economic development analysis and strategy for Medford. The Master Planning process will place a strong emphasis on public participation. The Karp Strategies team is excited to work with Mayor Lungo-Koehn, the Office of Community Development, Energy & Environment, and our partners to deliver Medford’s vision and goals. Visit this website for the latest updates.

Want to continue the conversation? We’d love to hear from you. As always, we welcome the opportunity to connect with your network of partners and clients or to work with you. Reach out to us at info@karpstrategies.com.