11th Annual Lillian Wald Symposium
Henry Street Settlement's annual civic forum examines New York City governance, housing, childcare, and public infrastructure — who decides, who benefits, and what the city owes its residents.
Why we picked this
Named for Lillian Wald, who founded Henry Street Settlement in 1895 and invented public health nursing, this symposium keeps her tradition of direct engagement with how the city actually works — or fails to — for its most vulnerable residents.
The Lillian Wald Symposium is Henry Street Settlement’s annual examination of the forces shaping New York City’s future. Now in its eleventh year, the forum draws together community members, policymakers, and advocates to interrogate how the city makes its decisions: who controls infrastructure budgets, how housing and childcare policy gets written, what role arts and transportation play in the lives of lower-income New Yorkers, and what past city governments got right or wrong.
This year’s panel takes up the legacies of past administrations as a way of understanding present-day constraints and possibilities. The discussion will examine how financial and infrastructural decisions made decades ago still determine what is possible now — and where genuine openings exist for communities to shape outcomes. ASL interpretation will be provided, reflecting Henry Street’s long-standing commitment to access.
Lillian Wald founded Henry Street Settlement in 1895 on the Lower East Side after witnessing the conditions in which immigrant families lived and worked. She went on to invent the concept of public health nursing, establish the Children’s Bureau, and organize for labor rights and women’s suffrage. The symposium bearing her name makes her question its own: What does a city owe the people who live in it? The answer, every year, requires new reckoning.