CooperKatz helped the Civic Alliance to Rebuild Downtown New York attract participants to – and publicize deliberations of – its 21st century town hall meeting of nearly 5,000 tri-state area residents.

The purpose of the event, entitled ‘Listening to the City,’ was to provide a representative group of local participants with the opportunity to react to plans prepared by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation for the World Trade Center site. ‘Listening to the City’ utilized a unique model, created by the non-profit organization AmericaSpeaks, that combined small, face-to-face discussions with high-technology, wireless polling/data capture.

CooperKatz reached out to hundreds of local media outlets, including borough, neighborhood and ethnic publications and radio stations to encourage people of all walks of life to register for the event. Techniques included one-on-one pitching, press releases, newsletter articles, letters-to-the-editor, mini-press conferences, public service announcements and advertising. CooperKatz also designed all collateral materials — logo, flyers, leaflets and posters – used by community outreach teams.

Some 250 members of the media, including over 30 broadcast crews, attended ‘Listening to the City,’ generating thousands of newspaper stories – many front-page with photos – plus over 650 television reports by broadcast network, cable and local TV outlets. Most importantly, ‘Listening to the City’ provided strong public input to decision-makers that dramatically changed the course of the rebuilding process for Lower Manhattan.
 
   
 
   

On behalf of The Civic Alliance to Rebuild Downtown New York and the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, CooperKatz created the branding scheme and collateral materials – flyers, leaflets, posters and advertisements – for a massive ‘town hall meeting’ at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City.

 Entitled ‘Listening to the City,’ the event enabled tri-state residents to react to initial designs for the World Trade Center site. Field teams and community groups utilized the multi-lingual materials we produced to recruit 5,000 demographically-representative participants to the gathering.