[2] He was on the Advisory Board of Creative Cities,[7] a group of architects with a stated mission of "putting culture and community at the heart of urban planning.

[3] He regretted that one project on which he worked, a park planned to be located on top of the Hudson River landfill through which the Westway highway was to run, was never created.

"[4] Schwartz's work has won him and his firm numerous national and international awards and design competitions, including the prestigious Rome Prize in Architecture.

[4] In a report on this initiative, The New York Times described Schwartz as: "The Man Who Dared the City to THINK Again,"[4] and used his ideas as the framework for its "Think Big" Planning Study on the first anniversary of 9/11.

"[11] The twenty-five-minute film recounts how the home, built in the late 60s, was first slated for demolition by a developer who wanted to clear the area for new construction, but was ultimately saved by the dedication of a small group that was able to move it on a two-day journey by barge from Loveladies, New Jersey, to Long Island, New York.

[11] In New York, Schwartz was the architect for the completely renovated Staten Island Ferry Whitehall Terminal, which included the new two-acre Peter Minuit Plaza in Lower Manhattan.

[13] The terminal accommodates over 100,000 tourists and commuters on a daily basis (for transportation open 24 hours a day), and the new design establishes the terminal as a major integrated transportation hub, connecting it with a new South Ferry subway station with access to four subway lines, three bus lines and taxis.

[14] A "gateway to the city," set against the backdrop of Manhattan's greatest buildings on one side and the river on the other, the design was created to imbue the terminal "with a strong sense of civic presence.

"[13] Described as "an elegant addition to [the] city's architecture," a 2005 Newsday writer called it a transit hub that is so beautiful that it has become a "destination": with "the panorama of lower Manhattan from the top of the escalators, the vast windows framing the Statue of Liberty, the upstairs deck with views of the harbor -- these are reasons to take shelter here for a little longer than the ferry schedule makes strictly necessary.

Disaster offers a unique opportunity to rethink the planning and politics of our metro-regional areas -- it is a chance to redefine our cities and to reassert values of environmental care and social justice, of community building and especially of helping the poor with programs for quality, affordable, and sustainable housing.

[16]Schwartz and his team became the lead planners for District 4, the district that includes the "largest concentration of public housing in the city" (Iberville, St. Bernard, Lafitte and B. W. Cooper), and according to Schwartz he "made every effort to involve the residents and the community in the planning effort," while ensuring that the design of the new housing "could maintain the look and feel of surrounding neighborhoods with a mix of both modern interpretation of historic typologies and new urbanist models.

"[1] As a Manhattan resident present in the city the day of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, Schwartz was deeply affected by the tragedy.

[23] The airport will be unique because of the incorporation of two lush and sustainable gardens, visible through towering glass walls throughout the terminals, creating a "dialogue" between the exterior and interior spaces.

[23] The project will allow rain water to be delivered through the design of the terminal's hovering 300 meter-long wing-like roofs (which fold downward to form the walls of the gardens) to a series of cisterns and tunnels, where it will be stored for use as irrigation during the dry season.