Recent Streetsblog NYC posts about Plazas

Brooklyn Pop-Up Café Wins Community Board 2 Endorsement

By Noah Kazis | Apr 14, 2011 | 6 Comments

Brooklyn’s only proposed pop-up café won the approval of Community Board 2 last night in an 18-10-1 vote, allowing the city to replace on-street parking with public seating. This pop-up is sponsored by the Ecopolis Café on Smith Street, which will pay the cost of building the temporary public space. The Ecopolis pop-up had received […]

Eyes on the Street: Two Lanes of Ped Space Coming to Chelsea Subway Stop

By Noah Kazis | Apr 12, 2011 | 13 Comments

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 […]

JSK: Plaza Program Will Expand; Gridlock Sam: Backlash Nothing New

By Noah Kazis | Apr 5, 2011 | 2 Comments

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 […]

SoHo’s Rejected Pop-Up Cafés Won’t Appear Elsewhere

By Noah Kazis | Mar 29, 2011 | 3 Comments

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. In the wake of that defeat, we were hoping that, as with Midwestern governors sending their high speed rail dollars to California, their loss would be someone else’s gain. Would those […]

Pop-Up Café Expansion Faces Critical Community Board Vote Tonight

By Noah Kazis | Mar 24, 2011 | 18 Comments

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 […]

At Wash Heights Workshop, Support For Ped-Friendly Plaza De Las Americas

By Noah Kazis | Feb 1, 2011 | 2 Comments

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 […]

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