Partner and funded by: U.S. National Park Service

Prior to the formal organization of PSRG in 1996, the core members of the group worked together as consultants on several planning projects. The first was the Rapid Ethnographic Assessment Procedure (REAP) for the Ellis Island Access Project–a proposed bridge between Ellis Island National Monument and the mainland in Jersey City, New Jersey. The REAP was part of a federal environmental impact statement on the proposed bridge. PSRG conducted interviews with park visitors, focus groups, community meetings, transect walks, and behavior mapping in the summer of 1994 to determine and evaluate the potential cultural impacts of the proposed bridge on parks in New York City and New Jersey, on the users of those parks, and on the surrounding neighborhoods.