Public Space

Here's the second installment of Streetsblog's interview with Dan Biederman, head of the 34th Street Partnership and the Bryant Park Corporation. In the first part of the interview, Biederman discussed reactions to NYC DOT's recent public space projects on Broadway, and why the reality on the ground is much better for Midtown than most press accounts have let on.

Before Dan Biederman came to Bryant Park, there were no movable chairs, no free movies on summer evenings, no kiosks selling sandwiches and refreshments. No lunch time crowds and not much in the way of civic life or social activity, either. There was, basically, an open-air drug market in the New York Public Library's backyard.

Reader Ian Dutton sends these shots of the pop-up café that just went up at "local" -- a coffee shop on Sullivan Street in SoHo. Ian says owners Craig and Liz Walker worked hard to make this public space enhancement happen. Among other things, they had to bring a crew of supporters with them to Community Board 2 when their application to DOT's pop-up café program came up for a vote. Their bid was the only one of six applications to withstand the onslaught from local reactionary Sean Sweeney.

Construction is underway at the intersection of 23rd Street and Seventh Avenue in Manhattan, where DOT is building new pedestrian refuge islands and a sidewalk extension to provide some extra space around a busy subway station. The intersection, currently in the 99th percentile for severity-weighted traffic injuries in the city, will also have its signals adjusted to give pedestrians more conflict-free time to cross the street. The new plaza extends across two of Seventh Avenue's six lanes on the southern side of the intersection.

Last night's Municipal Arts Society panel, "Shared Streets: Making It Work," mainly covered familiar ground for those who have been following the city's efforts to repurpose its streets over the last four years. Participants touted the improved bus speeds along Select Bus Service routes, the safety gains where protected bike lanes have been installed, and the economic boost of pedestrian plazas in Times and Herald Square. Two things jumped out at as noteworthy, though.

Last Thursday evening, Manhattan Community Board 2 voted down five of six approved pop-up cafés in their neighborhood, choosing parking spaces over public seating.

When DOT installed its first "pop-up café" over a few parking spaces on Lower Manhattan's Pearl Street last summer, the 14-table public seating area helped increase business by 14 percent at its two sponsoring restaurants. With New York City still recovering from recession and much of the city starved for public space, DOT has moved to expand the program. Restaurants were given the option of requesting a café and DOT selected twelve locations from that pool of applicants. The selected locations are concentrated in the Village and SoHo, making tonight's Community Board 2 vote a critical moment for the program.

This morning, the Bloomberg Administration announced the developer for the first phase of Hunter's Point South, a Long Island City project the city is billing as the largest middle-class housing project since Co-Op City and Starrett City went up in the 1970s. A team led by the Related Companies will be developing the first 900 units at what will eventually be a 5,000-unit complex along the East River.

DOT presented the latest design concepts for a permanent Plaza De Las Americas to Washington Heights residents last night, showing a plan to pedestrianize the full block of 175th Street between Broadway and Wadsworth Avenue, in order to make a new space for residents and the popular market currently operating at that location. The design -- 95 feet deep and 165 feet wide, extending all the way into what are currently the parking lanes on Broadway and Wadsworth --  won plaudits from those in attendance.