The Slope Survey returns for its 32nd installment.
Maddy Samaddar Johnson (B.Arch., M.Arch., M.L.Arch.) is an architect, landscape architect and urban planner and has worked in design and project management for over sixteen years, with works spanning in over a dozen countries in four continents (Asia, Africa, Europe, Americas), under her own consultancy and with esteemed architecture firms. Educated in England, India, Canada and the USA, Maddy comes from a multi-ethnic, multinational background and speaks six languages.
Trained in classical dance (ballet and Bharatanatyam) she was a lead dancer in several stage productions, and also active in English-language theater as a performer and set designer in her earlier years. An avid high altitude mountaineer, in recent years that sport has taken a backseat. She still has one foot in the music, film and art world with another firmly in ecological urbanism and design. Her lifelong work both locally and globally with animal-rescue and animal rights on her own and with various non-profits, has led her to launch the group Park Slope Cats in this neighborhood.
What brought you to Park Slope?
When I first moved to NYC – I lived in the Upper East Side. Although I had brief stays at Park Slope in the aughts, my more frequent visits commenced around 2010 when I started editing a book for a dear friend who lived here, and also started collaborating on an extensive world music project (Planetary Coalition) with guitarist Alex Skolnick who is a long time Park Slope resident. One thing led to another, including helping with cat-adoptions in the area, and soon I was residing here in North Slope…I’ve lived in several different cities and countries now, including Canada, Italy, India, UK and other cities in the US – with some 20+ addresses prior, and surprisingly, Park Slope has always remained the home-base for many years now.
What is your most memorable Park Slope moment?
There’ve been more than one! There’s that time in the midst of the pandemic-year, I suddenly found myself raising three tiny dumped neonatal motherless kittens which were barely a week old. I’ve raised others but in this case, I felt like Diogenes, practically living in a bathtub bottle-feeding them hourly with no sleep for several weeks – imprisoned in the Slope! (They all survived and were adopted together.)
Other memorable moments have been the tranquility I find in the midst of the trees here – be it in Prospect Park, in the small community gardens, and especially under that lovely weeping willow tree on 15th street or the gorgeous cherry blossom tree during peak bloom on President Street close to where I’m at – both along 6th Avenue. I cherish les petits plaisirs de la vie and these are easy to find in the Slope – the sunflowers at the farmers’ market, the festive mood during the 5th Ave fairs, concerts or parades, or just sitting in some local resto’s patio or inside a cozy coffee shop. And of course – in the independent bookstores – my favorite. In the fall and spring I absolutely treasure the walks under the changing foliage and filigreed sunlight along the picturesque streets lined by old townhomes.
So it’s hard to pin just one particular moment.
Describe your community superpower.
Despite being an extremely private introvert, with an unfiltered and blunt candor and a finely-tuned BS detector when it comes to people, I’ve been able to embark on effective community outreach for many years when it pertains to animals. This includes rescuing, educating, finding loving foster and forever-homes over the years in Park Slope and beyond, even in countries far away – individually or through rescue organizations. In other cases (through my professional work) I’ve been able to galvanize community intervention to stop a few old-growth forests in Quebec from being bulldozed and certain wetlands in Florida from being built over. Also, professionally, I’ve always spoken up about greater visibility for women in architecture and engineering and on occasion, when asked to, delivered speeches on a podium against social injustices.
I’m not really sure if that’s a “superpower” but this feels like one: the instant affinity all dogs, even the shy ones – instantly have for me!
If you could change one thing about the neighborhood, what would it be?
I’d like to say the awful drainage situation on 4th avenue which has led to flooding woes for many, even though I’ve not been personally affected, and providing elevator access in all the subway stops in Park Slope. However, something that can be more easily changed for the voiceless – simply through compassion and education – would be raising heightened awareness of the state of homeless, stray, abandoned or unfixed cats (and dogs) in the neighborhood. There are also neglected store and bodega cats who are trapped lifelong in windowless basements – the latter situation being one that most don’t wish to talk about, but rescuers and insiders know well.
I wish more local residents would become advocates for spaying/neutering and rescuing, instead of leaving it to the greatly overwhelmed handful of local TNR/rescue folks to do so.
I also wish more people in Park Slope would look up the horrific barbaric and heinous atrocities in the fur industry and educate themselves on where real fur trims, pompoms and such other products come from. Animals skinned alive brutally for the sake of a fashion accessory. Turning away from the truth does not make facts or suffering disappear.
What do you think Park Slope will look like in 10 years?
With zoning changes that have occurred and will continue, several more high-rise buildings like those popping up on 4th Avenue will sprout along 5th Avenue too. Park Slope in 10 years will become more crowded, more traffic-jammed and more expensive. I also think some of its character may get lost – as family-run stores and eateries will get priced out with rising rents and national chain-stores may take their place more frequently – hope not! I do hope the community stakeholders unite to preserve its green spaces.
What are you reading, would you recommend it?
There are a bunch of books I’m currently rotating during subway commutes or before bedtime and the first three are re-reads after a few decades. They’re not recently-written but their wisdom is timeless. The first is by philosopher Bertrand Russell… he was my late mother’s favorite philosopher. Mom had a PhD in philosophy with a minor in mathematics, and Russell as you know was a mathematician-philosopher and quite a polymath. The next two are by astrophysicist Carl Sagan who I adored since childhood: his Pulitzer prize winning book The Dragons of Eden and his last book Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millenium. A fourth book I’m reading very slowly was written by my own paternal great grandfather who was an archaeologist and historian specializing in Buddhist civilizations. Funnily enough, it was recommended by a writer I met at a book talk who said she was reading his book for her research. And lastly, I just finished a quick short book Rosalind Franklin and DNA by Anne Sayre.
If you couldn’t live in Park Slope or in Brooklyn, where would you go?
The world is so vast and there are always options! This may be daydreaming, but I wish I could live in the top rooms of Shakespeare & Co. bookstore in Paris with books and cats as company! (rent-free if possible!) Or in southern France, the Liguria region of Italy, or in solitude (with lots of animals) in Finland or Iceland. I also love several parts of Canada and the UK and there are enclaves in NY state & Vermont that are very nice too. I’ve done a lot of mountaineering in the Himalayas and other ranges with some of the most stunning landscapes, but the infrastructure can get tricky there, so that’s not on my retirement options!.
What is your greatest extravagance?
I’m generally a frugal person, so I’d say the cost of living in New York City, including in Park Slope itself, is likely the greatest extravagance! And of course, the unavoidable vet bills when you have to help an animal in need.
Who is your hero, real or fictional?
I think the romantic notion that one-man/one-woman can single handedly save the world is a fantasy, as several achievements by individuals have been proven more to be a case of team-work; and there’ve been too many instances of exposing the huge disparity between the public facade of “heroes’’ vs their private shortcomings.
When I was a kid, I used to adore fictional crime-solving men and women of “logic” like Spock, Sherlock, Tintin et al.
As I grew older my list got more realistic. The oft-forgotten “heroes” to me are the scientists, engineers, inventors who make our lives so easy we take it for granted: the sanitation engineers and inventors of functioning plumbing and sewage systems; (People tend to glamorize the past forgetting it was the time of chamber pots and dumping waste on the streets!) Others include the structural engineers of buildings and bridges, train systems, electrical systems, good aviation engineers, researchers who made vaccines against life-threatening diseases possible, those who contributed to surgical advancement in human and veterinary medicine…
Frankly, unless we’re living completely off the grid – none of us can claim to be some ultra-ethical, “purist” who is removed from our urban lifestyles. So, as long as we’re dwelling in cities, it’s important to thank the ones who keep our pampered lives smoothly running.
And, of course, those who selflessly rescue and defend animals, and fight for their rights, despite the ridicule they face. And, this is important, those who are not hypocrites while they’re at it.
Those who stand against bullies are heroic.
Well, now you’ve opened Pandora’s box – because the writers, artists and musicians whose ideas and creativity have soothed our souls are admirable and inspiring too.
Last Word, What’s is turning you on these days?
Wish I could come up with something more erotic, but the honest answer is good music – mainly jazz and classical; the beauty of trees; the way the sunlight filters through leaves as you look up at an azure sky; the allure of well-strung written words; kindness; nature documentaries such as BBC’s Planet Earth; nuanced rationality; as a fact-nerd since childhood, I always get a high when I find out how things work or evolve – whether it’s something related to geology, primatology, neuroscience, ecology….I suppose the pursuit of knowledge and the poetics of art-forms turn me on. As does objectivity and fact-based truth.
