{"id":121,"date":"2021-04-22T18:37:02","date_gmt":"2021-04-22T22:37:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/thebrink\/?p=121"},"modified":"2021-05-06T18:35:36","modified_gmt":"2021-05-06T22:35:36","slug":"rethinking-public-space-in-new-york-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/thebrink\/2021\/04\/22\/rethinking-public-space-in-new-york-city\/","title":{"rendered":"Rethinking Public Space in New York City"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Crosswalk

Crosswalk Sign on Avenue B, 20 April 2021. Credit: Ari Adams<\/p><\/div>\n

To walk down a New York City street in the late 19th century was to experience the full breadth of public and private life. Families, looking to escape cramped living quarters, spent their time outside, along with horse-drawn carriages, merchants, peddlers, and all the vile refuse this humming activity produced. Over decades, paved roads, necessary health ordinances, and the proliferation of personal transportation turned the streets into what they are now \u2014 or were, prior to the pandemic.<\/span><\/p>\n

When it\u2019s finally behind us, the COVID era will have left its stamp everywhere, like an infant left alone with an ink blotter. Of these changes, one of the most subtle \u2014 but potentially impactful \u2014 is the way it has reconfigured our understanding of public spaces, particularly in New York City. In the early months of the pandemic, justified fear turned the city into a ghost town: parked cars collected dust, pedestrians vanished from sidewalks, and shops, unpatroned, boarded up. The cacophony of city sounds was replaced by an unceasing wail of ambulance sirens. But as our understanding of the virus grew, and PPE became commonplace, New York began to return \u2014 and with it, a newfound appreciation for our shared public spaces.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cCOVID made clear that in a city this dense, the streets have to be part of the community, and not just used for mobility,\u201d said Mitchel L. Moss, a professor of Urban Policy and Planning at New York University. \u201cThe streets are no longer just used for vehicles; they\u2019re used for the neighborhood and for life.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Two major ordinances, passed this last year, codified these new needs. The first came last March, when the city piloted the \u201cOpen Streets\u201d program, creating pedestrian plazas from city avenues. After a<\/span> fumbling start<\/span><\/a>, in which 1.5 miles of collective roads were converted into walkways, the program blossomed, and by the summer 67 miles had been allocated for pedestrian use. The most successful iteration was on Vanderbilt Avenue in Brooklyn, which became a destination for New Yorkers from across the city.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Street Barricade on Avenue B, 20 April 2021. Credit: Ari Adams<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cThe community embraced it with an enthusiasm that allowed it to take on a life of its own,\u201d said Gib Veconi, chair of the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council, in an interview with New York Magazine. \u201cEventually people from other neighborhoods all over the city started to come to Vanderbilt Avenue on weekends. We had musicians that came. People would picnic on the street medians. One weekend, a couple got married on the street.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Not wanting to let a good thing go, Mayor Bill de Blasio, this past March, made the Open Streets program a permanent fixture. Beyond any tangible effects \u2014 home-bound residents now had new spaces to commune \u2014 the move also implied a philosophical shift, prioritizing the needs of the community at large over its subset of motorists, for whom the streets had been allocated. Whether intentional or not, de Blasio had also directed the city, in a strange way, back to the dynamics of the 19<\/span>th<\/span> century.<\/span><\/p>\n

The city\u2019s \u201cOpen Restaurants\u201d program, introduced last June as a lifeline to the struggling restaurant industry, is also poised to have a lasting impact. The program allowed establishments to erect curbside structures \u2014 extensions of their indoor spaces \u2014 where diners could convene, with some protection from passing traffic, in a breezy, COVID-safe outdoor area. Like \u201cOpen Streets,\u201d the program experienced a bumpy start, marred by a maze of conflicting regulations from the city, detailing the ways in which the structures could be situated and used. But by the time the program was set to expire in October, it had become so popular that the Mayor decided to make it permanent: \u201cAs we begin a long-term recovery, we\u2019re proud to extend and expand this effort to keep New York City the most vibrant city in the world. It\u2019s time for a new tradition,\u201d said de Blasio, in a statement given at the time.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Seating for Outdoor Dining, 20 April 2021. Credit: Ari Adams<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cThis has been a fabulous thing,\u201d said Moss, reflecting on the development. \u201cA fabulous way in which New York has become livelier outdoors.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Moss\u2019 view is not shared by all \u2014 a number of community groups, namely in the West Village, have objected to these structures, arguing that the noise is disruptive \u2014 but, judging by their daily overflow of patrons, it seems that New York City residents have largely embraced this \u201cnew tradition.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

While it may sound trite, the COVID era has reminded us, like a family made closer by tragedy, how important community is to our collective and individual wellbeing. Our newfound appreciation for public space is significant, and potentially enduring, manifestation of this feeling.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The pandemic has changed the way New Yorkers move about the city, influencing their sense of community<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":214,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/thebrink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/thebrink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/thebrink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/thebrink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/thebrink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/thebrink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":428,"href":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/thebrink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121\/revisions\/428"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/thebrink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/thebrink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/thebrink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/thebrink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}