 Good morning and welcome. We're very excited today to hold a symposium on public-private partnerships and in particular focusing on two notable projects in our city. With the rapid urbanization around the world resulting all too often in congested, chaotic conditions for city inhabitants, we are inspired when we see some projects of beauty and delight emerge from this challenging environment. Both of these projects, these notable projects, the Highline and the Downtown Brooklyn Cultural District are projects that are enjoyed and utilized by the community across a broad, a wide spectrum of that community, not just specific segments of the population. That appeal to the broad spectrum of the community and in fact one could say representing those, the aspirations of that community in full is an all too rare occurrence in our urban development process. All too often development occurs with an objective to be realized by a dominant entity with some pushback or perhaps some modification or compromises provided to others in the community. So why do these projects then start to stand out as being the realization of such community opportunities? Let's start with the fact that they are distinctly a collaboration with the public sector representing that republic sector representing the community specifically and distinctly and the collaboration with the private real estate marketplace. This collaboration is bound financially and also aligned in their desire and need for success, the political success and the financial success. So we might query as to whether it might be this PPP structure, this public-private partnership structure, this formulation, a more defined collaboration through the development and continued life of the project between the public sector and the private sector that has been a key construct in achieving a much more community-oriented outcome. So introducing today's symposium, we're very fortunate to have someone who does this every day of his life, Mr. Robert Paley. Oh, sorry. The director of transit-oriented development at the MTA. Mr. Paley oversees the development of the MTA projects or properties associated with all of the transit-oriented aspects of the MTA system. Prior to joining the MTA, Mr. Paley developed residential buildings near transit for several private companies. So he has insight from both sectors, from the private sector, working around the transit-oriented opportunities and then now from the public sector. He's also fortunately for us an adjunct professor in our Masters of Real Estate program. Additionally, today, guiding our inspired thinking of two panels, we have two noted authorities to moderate these. Firstly, we have David Smiley, who I'm very proud to have as a colleague in GISA. He's the assistant director of the Urban Design program and his teaching focuses on the intersections of architecture and urban theory, design and modernization. His book, he has a book, Pedestrian Modern, Architecture and Shopping, 1925 to 1956. I don't know why you stopped there. Seems to have gotten a little more exciting even beyond, but we're waiting for the next edition, right? So anyway, this is a study of why architects interpreted shopping centers as modernist, architectural and urban projects rather than just their roles as consumption. David has provided scholarly contributions to other books on urban issues. And then our other moderator is Kate Whittles. Kate is a principal at HR&A Advisors, a consulting firm that provides real estate, economic development and services in program design and implementation. She concentrates on economic development strategy and real estate advisory practices with emphasis on public-private partnerships, portfolio repositionings and public policy to support the tech and innovation economy. Kate's work on Downtown Brooklyn, on the Downtown Brooklyn partnership, Brooklyn's tech triangle initiative and the tech ecosystem study really were instrumental in fostering the growth of the tech sector in Brooklyn and across the city. Prior to HR&A, Kate served as a director of corporate real estate for Sony and she has degrees in both real estate and urban studies. So we've got moderators who will have exciting panelists to introduce as well. So I'd like to welcome Mr. Robert Paley up to give us an introduction.