"The story begins in 1966 with Joan Ganz Cooney, a media executive fresh off an Emmy win for her documentary on the War on Poverty. Cooney saw television not as the "vast wasteland" critics described, but as a powerful educational tool. Her research revealed that more households had televisions than bathtubs, telephones, or daily newspapers. If TV was already capturing children's attention nationwide, why not harness that power for good?"
"Working alongside producer Jon Stone, Cooney developed what would become Sesame Street. But Stone's vision for the show's setting surprised everyone. In 1968, while watching a public service campaign called "Give a Damn" that showed children playing in Harlem's gutters, Stone had an epiphany: the show needed to be set on a city street. "When he had the idea to set the show on a street, the color from Joan's face just drained," Kodé recounts. "She was like, wait, what? How are we going to do that?""
Joan Ganz Cooney created Sesame Street in 1966 to harness television's wide reach for preschool education, noting more households had TVs than bathtubs, telephones, or daily newspapers. Producer Jon Stone insisted on an urban street setting after seeing children play in Harlem, aiming to connect with inner-city children and close achievement gaps. The show's set modeled walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods with visible diversity, everyday public life, and accessible spaces. Those design choices presented a blueprint of neighborhood qualities that normalized lively, communal streets and influenced viewers' preferences toward more walkable, connected communities.
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