November 7, 2007
Shrinking Sidewalks Slow to a Crawl
Trying to walk in certain city neighborhoods is fast becoming an extreme sport. Between the new, bigger newsstands and bus shelters, the perpetually metastasizing newspaper boxes on every corner, the increasing popularity of alfresco dining, the delivery guys on their bikes and – let’s not forget – tourists, wending your way down the sidewalk without reaching for your Taser demands a degree of patience not often found in your average New Yorker.
A month after the Times’s chief restaurant critic bemoaned the city’s sidewalk dining experience, today’s Times real estate section tucks into the economics of the trend, which has seen the number of outdoor café licenses spike 25% in the past four years. It’s been big business for the city, which raised the rate on “consent fees” – what New York charges businesses that lease public real estate – and has raked in $10.7 million from the sidewalk tables so far this year. Restaurants between 96th Street and Canal cough up about $31 a square foot on the sidewalk, on top of $510 for a two-year license.
And since the city is starting to allow gas heaters for outdoor cafes, the alfresco fever isn’t going to break any time soon. After all, it costs a lot less to add tables outside than it does to expand a restaurant’s interior. But where does this leave the poor pedestrian struggling to navigate an ever-narrowing tightrope of sidewalk? Paul Steely White, the executive director of Transportation Alternatives, has a solution that may interest drivers desperate for parking: the city should get rid of some parking spaces, “its most undervalued real estate, costing just $1.50 an hour, and put sidewalks in their place.” Any motorists care to comment?
Photo of Big Nick's from Cresny.
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those gas heaters look dangerous, especially in cases where they are close to the table umbrellas or awnings. Does the FDNY have these on their radar? if not, they absolutely should.
Getting rid of parking spaces and expanding the sidewalks sounds like a good plan to me!
Of course, I'm one of those crazy hippies who lives in Manhattan and doesn't own a car.
I vote for eliminating parking spaces AND a traffic lane from every avenue. All the parking spaces can become wonderfully wide sidewalks, and the traffic lane can be for bicycles.
the city should charge landlords an exponentially increasing fee for the use of scaffolding. I HATE SCAFFOLDING!!!
as far as parking spaces are concerned, we should have resident parking permits, and dedicated parking areas on every block for 2 wheeled vehicles (motorcycles and scooters) the way they do in paris.
Outdoor gas heaters: New York's contribution to greenhouse gases.
Cold: It's nature's way of saying dine indoors.
As Gerald Ford once said, "DROP DEAD!"New York.
Even if you don't own a car there are a lot of taxis and delivery vehicles, not to mention buses that need a roadway to drive on. Unless of course you would want to open sidewalk access to them.
Regarding the heaters on the sidewalk I don't think they would be a problem if they are plumbed properly with automatic safety shut off valves.
The city selling/renting PUBLIC space to PRIVATE industry to make money is down right not right. These are areas that you and I pay our taxes to the city to use. Shame on them! I want a tax rebate!
Maybe imposing a congestion tax on pedestrians is the answer? Think about the revenue!
:rolleyes:
talk about selling out- how about the increased frequency of having large corporate entities (like Verizon or Amex)take booths at street fairs and in public parks? granted, street fairs are for the most part a blight on the city, but at least before they didn't cater to large corporations.Its relentless now, we're being marketed to within an inch of our lives everywhere we go.
Your accompanying pic says a lot (as does #4 above) - there's hardly a street in Manhattan that doesn't have some sort of scaffolding running along a sidewalk. And the scaffolding essentially reduces the amount of sidewalk space by 1/3.
I think the City, fearful on any kind of litigation, forces landlords to erect scaffolding for even the most minor of repairs/exterior work. And some of this scaffolding stays in place for months or years - even when a stop-worker is in place (as is currently the case for a building right next to my apartment).
I'm ok with outdoor dining. For the most part, these are on fairly wide avenue sidewalks.
I just wish the police precinct across the street from my apartment didn't insist on drawing diagonal parking lines on two-thirds of the width of the sidewalks and then using the sidewalk as a parking lot.
This is the same organization who recently started giving photographers and people just standing on corners tickets for "impeding the flow of pedestrians", right? Oh, irony, you naughty girl...
I want to puke just looking at that picture of Big Nick's on the UWS. The one time I ate there we had a table near the back looking into the rear food prep area. DISGUSTING! There was a refrigerator where they stored bulk meats and the inside looked like Jeffrey Dahmer's refrigerator in the worst psycho/serial killer movies.
Big Nick's also has their deep fryers in the window directly next to the door (exit). It looks like a huge fire hazard to me (though I would have to assume that the FDNY has seen it and approved -- who knows).
Oh yeah, the food sucked too.
yeah I like how scaffolding was omitted in the article and it is clearly the most glaring sidewalk obstruction of them all...well except for the family from Omaha walked 4 abreast through Times Square.
Hey, don't hate on sidewalk sheds. They're about as New York as you can get. At least in Manhattan.
Why does anyone eat outdoors in Manhattan? The heat. The noise. The bums. The dog shit. The noise. The noise.
I'm inside in the quiet and the air conditioning.
www.forgotten-ny.com
Yeah, the local Greek cafe runs its sidewalk tables year-round -- it gives the local yuppies a place to smoke while braying into their cell phones. Funny, too, how the tables go farther and farther out into the sidewalk...the other day, I couldn't get my (fairly small) laundry cart past without going into the gutter.
And what Kevin said.