Professor Karen Karbiener Wins Brownstoner RADD Award for Cultural Activism

LS Professor Karen Karbiener is among the honorees of the annual Brownstoner RADD Awards, recognizing outstanding individuals in Brooklyn real estate, architecture, design and development. Nominees are chosen because of their positive impact on the Brooklyn community in the year 2018. Karbiener has been recognized as a community leader because of her activism as the president of the 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, the Walt Whitman Initiative. Through her leadership, the Initiative has led efforts to protect Walt Whitman’s last standing residence at 99 Ryerson Street, Brooklyn, and to honor the site of the printing of Leaves of Grass in Brooklyn Heights with a public monument. The Initiative also hosts free poetry events for the public, including the annual “Song of Myself” Marathon in Brooklyn Bridge Park; this year’s reading on June 2nd will be its 16th iteration, and is themed as the “StoneWalt Edition”—celebrating Whitman’s 200th birthday and Stonewall’s 50th anniversary at once.