CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 4/22/2018

Get utopian Earth Day inspiration from 'Charas: The Improbable Dome Builders'

In 1970, R. Buckminster Fuller was approached by six former NYC gang members who wanted to build a geodesic dome. Their idea: to "get into the country, put up a few of these domes, and start living away from the congested streets in contact with nature," according to Fuller. Within four months, the group, which called itself CHARAS, had acquired spherical trigonometry. They worked together to construct a geodesic dome on a vacant lot below the Manhattan Bridge. "Instead of knocking other people down, with the false idea that 'somebody's got to die so that I can live,'" Fuller wrote in 1973, "the kids and the gangs in the streets of New York are coming spontaneously aware—literate and confident—that there is enough to go around for everybody—that it's got to be you and me. The movement is in the streets, and it is wonderful news for humanity. The people I see in CHARAS are beautiful people, and their work is the best news I know."