Walking Tour: Keeping Off Midtown Streets

In the "post-modern era," New York City planning principles encouraged innovative public spaces to be maintained by private entities. These spaces typically offer shelter and shortcuts. We’ll beat winter by touring public atriums, passageways, lobbies and underground walkways, a more intimate side of Midtown. Leader: Jack Eichenbaum, urban geographer.

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Great Public Spaces for Midtown

By Ben Fried |
The new Times Square versus the old Times Square — worth a few seconds of motorist inconvenience on a few streets. Photos: berk2804 and midweekpost via Flickr Mayor Bloomberg has seen some of the data from the city’s trial of car-free, pedestrian-priority spaces in Midtown, and it looks like the changes in traffic speeds are […]

Bloomberg, Sadik-Khan Commit to a World-Class, 21st Century Broadway

By Ben Fried |
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, and leaders from the Midtown business community announced this morning that the new public spaces along Broadway will become permanent features of the city’s landscape now that an eight-month trial period has ended. The city will seek to build on the trial project’s success by […]

Putting the Public Back in Midtown’s Privately Owned Public Spaces

By Jake Schabas |
“It’s a private property with public access,” a security guard explained after stopping me from taking photos of a mid-block passageway through the Metropolitan Tower on 56th Street. The space in question, which connects 56th to 57th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues, is one of more than 150 privately owned public spaces in central Midtown, many of which […]

What Protected Bike Lanes on Midtown Cross Streets Might Look Like

By David Meyer |
We reported yesterday that DOT is exploring the potential for crosstown protected bike lanes in Midtown. Currently, the painted crosstown bike lanes on Midtown cross streets tend to get blocked by cars. Here’s how one reader put it: My main complaint as a crosstown cyclist in midtown during the workday are streets that are so calm that nothing […]