MAS is pleased at the City’s announcement today that the two portions of Broadway around Herald and Times squares closed to vehicular traffic since June of last year are to be made into permanent pedestrian plazas.

The goal of the Department of Transportation (DOT) pilot program was to reduce travel times around Times Square and Herald Square by eliminating the congestion where Broadway meets Sixth and Seventh avenues. This goal was achieved in part, but other direct consequences of reclaiming these streets for pedestrians, including a 35 percent reduction in pedestrian injuries, and the creation of 2.5 acres of new public space in one of the city’s densest neighborhoods, are the most exciting outcomes.

MAS welcomed the experiment when it was first announced last March as a great step towards creating improved, pedestrian-friendly streetscapes, and we congratulate Mayor Bloomberg and Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan today on having taken this bold step.

MAS President Vin Cipolla said, “Making these two new public plazas permanent fixtures of our streets is a fantastic achievement that promotes what Jane Jacobs called the ballet of the sidewalk — the unrehearsed choreography of people moving through the city. It will be of enormous lasting benefit to New Yorkers and the vitality of our city’s street life.”

Originally, the City had discussed extending the closures of Broadway further to the south, but there seem to be no plans at the moment to do so.

To read more about MAS’ advocacy on New York City streetscape issues click here.

Sidewalk sheds are required whenever renovation or new construction takes place on a building, or a Department of Buildings inspector suspects an unsafe condition exists. These sidewalks sheds are erected in order to protect pedestrians and typically remain in place for nearly a year, sometimes even longer. Currently there are more than 6,000 sidewalk sheds standing in New York City, spanning more than a million linear feet. 

The Department of Buildings and AIA New York Chapter have teamed up with an array of other civic organizations to organize an international design competition called UrbanShed that seeks a brighter future for this unique New York City structure. Contestants had been asked to design a sidewalk shed that is sustainable, economical and attractive.  Continue Reading>>

It is forecast that by 2030, there will be one million additional people living in the City of New York. However, our transit systems – our roads, our subways, our buses – are already at or near capacity. How will all these people get around? Will the city they inhabit have a people-friendly, walkable cityscape, or will they inhabit a warren of automobile corridors?

On June 16th, the MAS Urbanists participated in a walking tour of some of the areas of Manhattan in which the Department of Transportation (DOT) is testing how street capacity can be increased. Led by Ed Janoff, DOT Senior Project Manager for Streetscapes and Public Spaces, urbanists observed how the agency, with a small budget, cooperation from other city departments, and a very limited design vocabulary, is creating new public spaces. While these spaces will have more permanent design elements added over the next three years, part of the beauty of these new spaces derives from the ingenuity with which they were arranged. Continue Reading>>

This piece was first published on March 11 of this year, shortly after the City announced its proposal to pedestrianize portions of Broadway as of this past weekend.

When Washington Square Park was closed to traffic in 1959, prominent residents of Greenwich Village, including Jane Jacobs and Eleanor Roosevelt, celebrated with a ribbon-cutting and by burning a car in effigy. Their ceremony marked the conclusion of a decade-long fight with Robert Moses, who had insisted that the park must be traversed by cars in order to ease the city’s traffic congestion. New Yorkers today are reaping the rewards of Jacobs’ victory. Moses’ predictions of traffic coming to a halt proved false, and Washington Square Park is one of the city’s best-known and best-loved public places.

Today, we are on the precipice of a historic moment in reclaiming our streets for people instead of cars. Mayor Bloomberg and the Department of Transportation have announced an ingenious plan to reclaim part of Broadway — at both Times Square and Herald Squares — for pedestrians. Like the closing of Washington Square Park in 1959, their common-sense plan is also one of those rare instances when what is best for the pedestrian is also best for the driver. Continue Reading>>

 

 City of Art: New York's Hidden Treasures Revealed: Play Now | Play in Popup

Ahead of the panel discussion City of Art: New York’s Hidden Treasures Revealed which MAS is hosting on Thursday, April 16, at 6:30 pm., leading environmental artist George Trakas talked to Elizabeth Werbe of MAS about his recent public art work in New York City.

Widely acclaimed for numerous projects in North America and Western Europe over the past thirty years, Trakas has recently completed a major piece of work for the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant in Brooklyn. Commissioned by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs Percent for Art program, his creation makes approximately 1,000 feet of shoreline accessible to the public. Continue Reading>>

The glow of outdoor lighting that has followed urban growth has overwhelmed our view of the stars.  This light pollution does not provide any useful light, wastes significant amounts of energy, harms surrounding ecosystems and contributes to carbon dioxide emissions.

The problems of this light pollution can be mitigated by using outdoor lighting that is efficient and designed to illuminate the ground and not the night sky.  It is probably impossible to create a fully dark sky here in NYC, but we can help the situation by simply installing lighting only when and where needed and by always directing it down towards the ground. Billboards can be lit from the top down rather than by shining a light on them from the bottom up.  Parking lots and ball parks can use fully shielded fixtures that shine the light on the playing field rather then the sky above. Continue Reading>>

New York City has one of the highest volumes of pedestrians in the world, and despite generous-width sidewalks in some parts of the city, sidewalks become crowded and the quality of the pedestrian experience is hurt.

New York City’s Department of Transportation (DOT), under its new Commissioner, Jeanette Sadik-Khan, has launched an ambitious plan to remake New York City’s public realm. DOT’s new, multi-facted streets initiative will consist of the following elements: public plaza programs; Broadway boulevard projects; complete street projects and design standards; safe streets for seniors and student; public art programs; coordinated street furniture; and weekend pedestrian and cycling streets. All the these areas are of interest to MAS, but we are primarily concerned about pedestrian/sidewalk issues.  Continue Reading>>

MAS Director of Special projects Vanessa Gruen, commented in an article last week on an illegal billboard advertisement for Chanel’s Mobile Art Pavilion designed by architect Zaha Hadid.  Today, New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff comments on the Pavilion itself, which as essentially a corporate advertisement, he states, has no more place in a public park than on the public street.

In other news, the MTA is now considering puting digital advertisments on the sides of buses, says the New York Post. Advertisements can then change during the bus’ route to target specific communities, their primary languages, and consumer preferences.  MTA will test the ads on the M23 bus line. Continue Reading>>

MillionTreesNYC was launched last year by the Parks Department and New York Restoration Project as a PlaNYC initiative.  This citywide, public-private program has an ambitious goal: to plant and care for one million new trees across the City’s five boroughs over the next decade. By planting one million trees, New York City can increase its urban forest by 20%, offering considerable environmental benefits to New Yorkers. The City of New York plans to plant 60% of these trees in parks and other public spaces. The remaining 40% will come from private organizations, homeowners, and community organizations. MAS is one of many non-profit groups that have agreed to help achieve this lofty goal.

MAS became involved because of our concern that the average street tree has a ten-year life cycle, and we believe it is as important to keep the million trees alive, as it is to plant them. So we are encouraged by the news that the MillionTreesNYC is seriously addressing the maintenance issue and has already put in place tree stewards at all New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) projects, where a large number of the new trees have been planted. Continue Reading>>

On Monday, September 22, MAS policy staff will host an informal discussion about current projects and programs taking place throughout New York City. Jasper Goldman, senior policy analyst, will provide an update on the East Side Waterfront Park, and MAS Planning Center staff members Eve Baron, Juan Camilo Osorio, and Sideya Sherman will review tools for grassroots planning, including the Livable Neighborhoods program, technology aimed at increasing public participation, and CITI Youth training and resources.

Inside View: MAS Work in Progress, Monday, September 22, 6:00 – 7:15 p.m., at the Municipal Art Society, 457 Madison Avenue at East 51st Street. FREE, but reservations are strongly recommended.  Call 212 935 2075 to RSVP.

For details of other upcoming MAS programs, visit www.mas.org/programs, and to download the full schedule of MAS fall programs in PDF form, click here.