NYC Public Spaces in the News

This one-acre park in the Nolita (North of Little Italy) neighborhood took on its current form—a mix of sculptures, trees, walkways, and shaded seating—in the 1990s, when the city leased the formerly vacant lot to the Elizabeth Street Gallery, which was housed in an adjacent building and provided public access to the space. As one of the few green spaces in the area, the garden was much used, but that didn't stop local politicians from targeting the site as suitable for affordable housing. For more than two decades, housing advocates and open-space advocates have battled over the site's future, with developers of the Haven Green housing project appearing to be the winner, at least as of last year. But then, earlier this week, Mayor Eric Adams announced the city would keep the Elizabeth Street Garden as a public green space and rezone a trio of nearby city-owned sites for affordable housing. His decision was applauded by friends of the garden and criticized by housing advocates, but it was also questioned by many people who see it is a tactic for improving his long shot bid for re-election in November.

In late May, “just in time for summer,” NYC opened the first section of a rebuilt East River Park in Manhattan, part of the $1.45 billion East Side Coastal Resiliency Project that began under Mayor Bill de Blasio. The large 46-acre (18.6-ha) park, built in the 1930s by Robert Moses, stretches for about twenty blocks along the Lower East Side and East Village neighborhoods, bisected by the Williamsburg Bridge. To protect the neighborhoods from Hurricane Sandy-like storm surges, the park was completely razed and then literally raised up to ten feet (3m). This engineered approach, which replaced the more natural “Big U” plan previously in place for the shoreline, was met with protests, mostly over the removal of around 1000 mature trees from the park. Construction began in late 2021 and is reopening in phases. The first phase that opened is basically the park's midsection, with basketball courts, tennis courts, picnic areas, and landscaping beneath the Williamsburg bridge, accessed via the new Delancey Street pedestrian bridge over FDR Drive. Subsequent phases of the park are expected to be completed in full by early 2027.

Previously known as the Brooklyn Banks, a newly “revitalized” The Arches opened to the public in early June, fifteen years after the leftover space used by skateboarders at the base of the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge was closed. The brick-paved space takes its current name from the distinctive stone arches supporting the bridge anchorage, while the old, informal name refers to the design of the space in the 1970s by landscape architect M. Paul Friedberg, in which sloped banks inadvertently made the space popular with skateboarders. Closed intermittently in the early 2000s, and then used as a staging area for work on restoring the Brooklyn Bridge from 2010 onwards, a group of skateboarders lobbied the city to protect the space and bring it back to its 70s-era design following the destruction of portions of the sloped banks. A section of The Arches opened in 2023, with the rest opening in early June, when Mayor Adams promised $50 Million for the further revitalization of the “forgotten spaces” beneath the Brooklyn Bridge, per a plan developed with nonprofit Gotham Park.

For decades, pedestrians and cyclists crossing the Queensboro Bridge had to jostle for space on a narrow, two-lane space on the north side of the double-decker bridge. Increases in both walking and cycling over the bridge led the city's Department of Transportation to turn a vehicle lane that was only used during only limited hours into a pedestrian path. The DOT opened the pedestrian path on the south side of the bridge in mid-May, at which time the northern section became a dedicated bike lane. Like other East River bridges, when the Queensboro Bridge opened in 1909 with generous pedestrian space: two pedestrian walkways alongside two elevated railway tracks on its upper level. But following the suspension of railway service in 1942, the entire upper roadway was given over to cars a decade later, and the bike/walking path eventually opened in the late 1970s. Before the opening of the pedestrian path last month, the Queensboro Bridge was the only East River bridge without dedicated spaces for cyclists and pedestrians.