The Bronx Museum of the Arts and the Design Trust for Public Space have named Dongsei Kim '09 and Jamieson Fajardo '09 winners of Intersections: The Grand Concourse Beyond 100, an international ideas competition for the future of the Grand Concourse in the Bronx. Their bold proposal calls for a sleek ribbon-like pump device, about as wide as a lane of traffic, to be installed along the Major Deegan Expressway as a way to clean air, provide acoustic buffering, filtrate rainwater, and ultimately provide pedestrian access to a new green waterfront. Called a p.U.M.p. (purifying Urban Modular parasite), the new kind air purification technology would be manufactured in the industrial district adjacent to the Lower Concourse, spurring development of new green industries in the Bronx. This idea edged out nearly 200 other proposals from more than 25 countries in a competition coorganized and presented by The Bronx Museum of the Arts and Design Trust for Public Space. They will be illustrated, along with four other finalist concepts, in Intersections: The Grand Concourse Beyond 100, an exhibition of renderings, drawings, videos and models on view through January 3, 2010 at The Bronx Museum of the Arts, 1040 Grand Concourse at 165th Street.

"These bold new visions may look like science fiction—but in fact they are glimpses of the urban future, based upon the existing character of the Grand Concourse—and are feasible given evolving technology and urban planning," says Holly Block, director, The Bronx Museum of the Arts. "Altogether, they suggest that the Grand Concourse has the potential to become the city's most adventurous and livable urban experiment." "Altogether, the pervasive assessment running through the proposals is that the Grand Concourse should be transformed from a thoroughfare for cars into a dynamic new public space for people with separate strands for transportation modes and activities," says Deborah Marton, executive director, Design Trust for Public Space.