The Lincoln Square Business Improvement District is always working to improve its operations to foster a clean, safe, and beautiful neighborhood. To further this goal, the BID is thrilled to welcome two talented new members—Summer Smith and Scott Etkin—to its small, dedicated team.
Summer started in August as the BID’s Information & Economic Data Manager. In this role, she is diving into New York City’s property and building databases to ensure the BID can best serve the businesses and property owners in the area, as well as locals and visitors to the district. She is also compiling detailed data and reports to improve the BID’s sanitation, maintenance, beautification, and public safety services, and is tracking our retail availability.
Summer comes to the BID directly from receiving her Master’s degree in Urban Planning at Columbia University. While there, she studied with our colleague, Matt Bauer, the President of the Madison Avenue BID, and gained hands-on experience at the NYC Department of Buildings. She also spent countless hours at the city’s Department of Finance looking through microfilms of old property deeds for her thesis on covenants as an alternative form of land use control. Originally from New Jersey, Summer left for college at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is enjoying life back on the East Coast, lives on the Upper West Side, and enjoys exploring new breakfast places and going on walks in Riverside Park, where she indulges her love of all things flowers and plants (currently her favorite type of flower is peonies).
Scott joined the BID in late August as a Marketing & Communications Manager. He is helping to spread the word about all the great things happening in the neighborhood—such as the BID’s Summer Jazz Sensations series of free concerts in Dante Park—and will be responsible for designing, implementing, and overseeing a comprehensive marketing and communications program to support local businesses, cultural institutions, and BID services. Scott’s professional background is in consulting—he has ten years of experience working at firms that specialize in public relations and software design.
As a native New Yorker, he has long been interested in local issues and how the city works. It’s this interest—particularly in small businesses, sanitation, parks, and transportation—that led him to write in his spare time for West Side Rag, a local news site. Over the past three years, he has contributed more than 300 articles about notable residents and changes happening around the Upper West Side neighborhood. Scott lives with his wife and their dog in the West 70s, just north of the district. They love to get dinner at Le Botaniste and see the amazing students from Juilliard perform at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall.
If you see Summer and Scott on the street, be sure to stop and say hello! They would love to hear about your favorite spots in Lincoln Square and what local issues matter most to you. To contact them directly, they can be reached at ssmith@lincolnsquarebid.org and setkin@lincolnsquarebid.org.
