Recent Streetsblog NYC posts about Plazas

Take a Look at What’s on the Table for Long Island City Streets

By David Meyer | Feb 19, 2016 | 34 Comments

Every street in Long Island City is in line for a top-to-bottom reconstruction, and as part of the project DOT and the Department of Design and Construction are proposing several improvements for walking and biking. Here’s the presentation the agencies gave to Queens Community Board 2 earlier this month, showing the preliminary redesigns. The project covers several streets and […]

The Problem With Designing a Public Space in a Sea of Traffic

By David Meyer | Jan 28, 2016 | 14 Comments

Designing a successful public space surrounded by wide streets and a sea of traffic may sound like an exercise in futility, but that is what Forest City Ratner and DOT are trying to pull off at Brooklyn’s Times Plaza. Forest City unveiled its design for Times Plaza — the triangle formed by Fourth Avenue, Atlantic Avenue, and Flatbush Avenue — […]

Four More Street Redesigns That Are Taking Forever to Build

By David Meyer | Jan 6, 2016 | 2 Comments

On Monday, we posted a list of seven street redesign projects that remain unfinished years after they went through the city’s public planning process, with the Department of Design and Construction far behind schedule. DDC gave varying reasons for the delays, citing subsurface infrastructure work that precedes above-ground construction, as well as “changes and updates during the design phase of the project,” and “additional work […]

Merchants: DDC Taking Forever to Finish Plaza at Bronx Hub [Updated]

By David Meyer | Dec 22, 2015 | 15 Comments

In 2008, DOT repurposed street space at the Hub in Mott Haven to greatly expand and improve Roberto Clemente Plaza. The first version of the project was made with low-cost materials — paint, planters, and gravel. Afterward, the city committed to building out the project in concrete. But the agency in charge of delivering capital projects, […]

Trottenberg Announces Plaza Equity Program at Plaza de Las Americas Reveal

By Brad Aaron | Nov 23, 2015 | 13 Comments

Just eight months after the groundbreaking ceremony, officials held a ribbon-cutting this morning at Plaza de Las Americas, an impressive new public space in Washington Heights. Also today, Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg announced a City Hall initiative to assist plazas in neighborhoods without the resources of a major business improvement district. Plaza de Las Americas reclaims one block of […]

Empire Boulevard Reconstruction Will Create Two Plazas

By Stephen Miller | Sep 18, 2015 | 1 Comment

Dangerous intersections at each end of Empire Boulevard, which stretches east-west across the southern edge of Crown Heights, are set for some major new pedestrian space. A street reconstruction project will reconfigure the area where Empire Boulevard, East New York Avenue, Remsen Avenue, and Utica Avenue converge. There, DOT will reroute traffic, creating a new pedestrian plaza. Similar changes […]

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