CIVITAS In Action

Memorial Sloan-Kettering - CUNY Hunter College East 74th Street Project 

At numerous community meetings, CIVITAS has testified for open space improvements to be part of a proposed 450-foot-tall complex by the City University of New York Hunter College (CUNY) and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSK). The location is between East 73rd and East 74th Streets and York Avenue and the FDR Drive. The million square-foot project’s application has entered the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, which includes recommendations to the NYC Department of City Planning from the Community Board and the Manhattan Borough President. 

CIVITAS is strongly in favor of improvements to the nearby East River Esplanade and feels that additional open space needs to be created and improved on the development site or very close by to accommodate the thousands of daily visitors. 

The project consists of an ambulatory cancer care hospital and nursing school and is currently a city-owned site, zoned for manufacturing (M3-2). The applicant is seeking a zoning change to a commercial (C1-9) lot, which allows for a 10 Floor Area Ratio (FAR). The applicant is also requesting a zoning text amendment for additional development rights (2 FAR), which could exceed 130,000 square feet. 

CIVITAS has urged open space improvements that are immediately proximate to the development site to handle its negative impacts, high automobile and pedestrian traffic and building density. We insist on improvements that are commensurate with the extremely valuable development increases being considered. 

Expansion of City Recycling Program 

New York City recently announced the biggest expansion of its recycling program in 25 years which it states will lead to more than 50,000 tons of waste diverted from landfills. The biggest change is that New Yorkers can now recycle hard plastics, including: 

• plastic bottles, jugs & jars 

• plastic caps & lids 

• plastic food containers (yogurt, deli, hummus, dairy tubs, cookie tray inserts, “clamshell” containers, other plastic take-out containers) 

• plastic packaging (“blister-pak” and “clamshell” consumer packaging, acetate boxes) 

• plastic housewares (flower pots, mixing bowls, plastic appliances, etc.) 

• bulk plastic (crates, buckets, pails, furniture, large toys & appliances, etc.) 

You can find a full list of what you can and cannot recycle on the Department of Sanitation’s website: on.nyc.gov/16CqDQF 

Apartment Building Recycling Honor Roll 

Congratulations to the following building for their participation in the Apartment Building Recycling Initiative: 

• 1192 Park Avenue 

• 410 East 57th Street 

• 1070 Park Avenue 

Join the Honor Roll! Contact CIVITAS at 212.996.0745 or visit: bit.ly/V76M7G 

City & Suburban and First Avenue Estates Model Tenements 

CIVITAS wishes City & Suburban Houses a happy 100th anniversary. We joined many neighbors in May to commemorate this milestone and the long fight to make this historic East 79th Street complex a NYC landmark. Betty Cooper Wallerstein, Andrew Dolkart, Tony Wood and many veterans of the preservation battle gathered at Temple Sharaay Tefila to celebrate. 

At deadline, the fate of another model tenement, First Avenue Estates, remains in limbo and is up for public hearing in June at the Landmarks Preservation Commission. The owner, Stahl Development, has made a hardship claim against landmark status. CIVITAS has testified in support of keeping the historic designation and commends Friends of the UES Historic Districts for leading the charge to uphold the landmarks law. Both tenement complexes were granted landmark status for their role in the Progressive Era housing movement. 

East Harlem Rezoning Update and Park Avenue Vision Session 

In spring 2013, Community Board 11 submitted zoning recommendations to the NYC Department of City Planning (DCP) for the Madison, Park and Lexington Avenue corridors. Developed in partnership with CIVITAS and described in detail in the winter 2013 newsletter, the study included suggestions for rezoning this area between 115th and 132nd Street. The full text of the zoning study is available on civitasnyc.org. We look forward to swift action by the DCP to bring much-demanded, up-to-date zoning to East Harlem. 

As part of a focus on revitalizing and improving the Park Avenue corridor, CIVITAS joined many stakeholders at a May visioning workshop sponsored by the NYC Economic Development Corporation (EDC). Much of the discussion focused on the Harlem-125th Street Metro North Rail Station, the nearby abandoned comfort station and the open space below the viaduct. Many East Harlem neighbors who were part of CIVITAS’s rezoning meetings in 2012 consider new uses (not parking lots) and better design under the viaduct to be key changes to revitalizing this corridor. Do you have suggestions to improve the rail station, comfort station or viaduct near 125th Street? If so, pass along your ideas to CIVITAS and we will share them with EDC. The agency is working with WXY Architecture + Urban Design and Philip Habib & Associates and expects to share their plans later in 2013. 

CIVITAS Events 

In winter 2013, Syracuse University’s Lubin House exhibited Reimagining the Waterfront’s first place designs by Joseph Wood, an architecture graduate student. Syracuse Dean Randall Korman spoke at the February opening reception. Pictured: Sarah Henry (Deputy Director and Chief Curator of the Museum of the City of New York), Hunter Armstrong, CIVITAS Director Lucienne Bloch & Claude Bloch, a Syracuse alumnus.

In February, Joan K. Davidson, honorary chair of the 2013 Annual Benefit, played host to a cocktail party celebrating the August Heckscher awardees. Pictured: Honorary Chair Dan Brodsky, CIVITAS Chairman Genie Rice, Honorary Chair Joan K. Davidson, Honoree Edie Kean and CIVITAS President Felipe Ventegeat. 

In May, Hunter Armstrong and architectural historian John Kriskiewicz presented “East of Eden” at House of the Redeemer. The lecture was a detailed, illustrated history of East 96th Street and how policy, preservation and advocacy have influenced its diverse development. More than 80 guests attended the jointly-sponsored lecture and reception in the House’s historic library. Pictured: Janet Robertson, a House trustee, and John Kriskiewicz.

In April, CIVITAS was honored with the Visionary Award by Friends of the Upper East Side Historic Districts. The award was for the Reimagining the Waterfront Esplanade project and presented by Kent Barwick (pictured right) at the Park Avenue Armory. Also pictured are Bill Bateson, Neville Epstein, Hunter Armstrong and Felipe Ventegeat. Photo courtesy of Friends. 

In May, CIVITAS and Trees New York co-sponsored a tree stewardship workshop at East 120th Street and Paladino Avenue. Volunteers cleaned and planted in tree beds recently installed by Trees New York to absorb stormwater runoff. The service project also coincided with the Great Saunter, a 32 mile walk along Manhattan’s shore, and volunteers cheered on participants as they walked the Esplanade. 

 

In May, CIVITAS joined Upper Green Side, East River C.R.E.W. and Friends of the Esplanade for It’s My Park Day, a citywide park cleanup event. Volunteers planted rose and butterfly bushes in the planter at East 96th Street and the FDR Drive. The daffodils and tulips that we planted along the Esplanade during last fall’s park clean up event survived the brackish floodwaters of Superstorm Sandy and bloomed this spring.

Air Quality and Recycling Workshop 

To celebrate Earth Day, CIVITAS sponsored an Air Quality and Recycling Workshop at Lenox Hill Neighborhood House on April 22. Topics included the NYC Clean Heat Program and alternatives to the polluting No. 6 oil, as well as the NYC Department of Sanitation Apartment Building Recycling Initiative. 

Harlem Earth Day Panel Discussion 

As part of the Harlem Earth Day 2013, Executive Director Hunter Armstrong participated in a panel discussion on environmental justice at My Image Studios. The event was sponsored by Harlem Park to Park and fellow panelists included environmental activist Peggy Shepard with West Harlem Environmental Action (WE ACT), Donnel Baird with Echo Green, and Tony Hillery from Harlem Grown. 

To read the complete spring 2013 issue of CIVITAS News, visit http://civitasnyc.org/civitas-newsletters/

Notification: Rockefeller University Expansion Presentation and New York Presbyterian Medical Facility Presentation

Left: Aerial view of Rockefeller University Right:  Rockefeller University looking North from East River Esplanade

Community Board 8 Land Use Meeting

Informational Presentation: Rockefeller University proposes to build a low research building (two-stories with rooftop pavilions) and a one- story conference center in air space over the FDR Drive adjacent to its campus, plus a one-story recreation building in the NW corner of the campus. Rockefeller University currently extends from 63rd Street to 68th Street between York Avenue and the FDR Drive.

Informational Presentation: New York Presbyterian Hospital will provide an update on its new medical facility that will be constructed on York Avenue between 68th and 69th Streets. They will discuss the overall project plan, construction timeline and logistics.

Discussion of refining and/or amending language to allow funding to also apply to the creation of public open space as well as existing parks in the Community Board 8 adopted MSK/CUNY zoning text amendment.

New York Blood Center
310 East 67th Street, Auditorium
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
6:30PM

For the most up to date information check: http://www.cb8m.com/calendar-meeting_date/2013-07

Reimagining the Waterfront is a CIVITAS-sponsored initiative to improve the East River Esplanade between East 63th and 125th Streets.  For more information visit: www.reimaginethewaterfront-civitas.com Call (212) 996-0745 or email info@civitasnyc.org to get involved.

The Future of Bicycles on the Upper East Side and in East Harlem

Michael Storm 

Since the days of protests against unruly bike messengers to today’s debates about food deliverymen, bikes have remained a controversial addition to New York City’s streets. But with city government now embracing cycling in new ways and with ridership on the rise, it’s time to take a look at some of the prospects for bicycles on the Upper East Side and in East Harlem. 

One of the most visible changes to our neighborhood has been the addition of protected bicycle lanes to First and Second Avenues north of 59th Street. The lanes were proposed in 2011 with construction beginning in 2012. Currently, the lanes are about 50% complete and extend northward along First Avenue from 59th Street to 96th Street and southward along Second Avenue from 125th Street to 104th Street. The alteration of the previous design is relatively simple: instead of running between the line of parked cars on the curb and vehicular traffic, the new lanes take the curb and parking protects cyclists from traffic. 

Even when an unprotected bike lane offers space for one UPS truck to double-park, the other one chooses to double-park in the street. This causes congestion for both cyclists and vehicles. 

The new lanes offer benefits to all residents while also raising issues that deserve attention. New curb extensions included in the protected bike lane design— which include planters for additional street trees—shorten the distance from one side of the street to another and give pedestrians additional protection while crossing the street. Residents, such as the elderly and children, will have less distance to cover while crossing the street. 

The new lanes also address an oft-voiced complaint about bicyclists’ lack of attention to traffic laws. Because the new lanes concentrate cyclists in a narrow corridor between the curb and parked cars, it is much more dangerous for them to ride excessively fast. With increased numbers of cyclists using the lanes, it will also be more difficult for bicyclists to ride in the wrong direction. 

The NYC Council has also become more proactive in addressing the legal violations of bicycle deliverymen. Two recent pieces of legislation by local Council Members Melissa Mark-Viverito and Jessica Lappin increase enforcement of prohibitions against electric bicycles and raise the fine for those using them. With rules requiring helmets, vests with restaurant identification, and other related materials, the Council has also increased enforcement of regulations for bicycle deliverymen. The intent is to make restaurants more responsible for the safety and behavior of their employees. 

This delivery cyclist from Upper East Side restaurant China Fun is sporting a regulation visibility vest with restaurant identification number, license plate, and helmet.

A more pressing concern for cyclists and drivers alike is double parking, which has become more of an issue as protected bike lanes take up more road space. While delivery trucks could once park in an unprotected bike lane and allow for adequate flow of vehicular traffic at the expense of cyclists, they now sit in one of only three vehicular lanes. 

To argue against protected bike lanes because they remove space for double-parking ignores the reality that double-parking is dangerous and difficult regardless of bike lanes. As the DOT completes bike lanes along First and Second Avenues, increased awareness of double-parking should prompt us to advocate for new solutions to improve our streets. 

Sitting in the wings is the new CitiBike share program that was just launched in May. While we await an extension of the program to the Upper East Side and East Harlem, the successes and failures of the program that now covers Manhattan below 59th Street and western Brooklyn will shape when and how the program is extended north. More importantly, CitiBike marks a new era for cycling in New York City and a new look for our streets. As things continue to progress, we can look forward to new ways to improve our streets and our neighborhood. 

A CitiBike rack ready for installation on NYC streets. Photo by Daily News. 

To learn more about cycling, visit: www.nyc.gov/bikes and to learn more about the CitiBike share program visit: www.citibikenyc.com 

To read the complete spring 2013 issue of CIVITAS News, visit http://civitasnyc.org/civitas-newsletters/

Extra! Extra! City Bans Newsracks!

Vanessa Gruen 

Dream on. In cold fact, CIVITAS has struggled for years to bring violations of newsrack regulations to the attention of the Department of Transportation (DOT), our city’s protector of streets and sidewalks. But thanks to the city’s desultory enforcement, newsracks remain as great a scourge as ever. 

A Learning Annex newsrack box on 60th Street and Second Avenue. 

The fight began when Gorman Reilly of CIVITAS organized a coalition of civic groups, including the Municipal Art Society, to deal with a massive proliferation of newsracks. This began with USA TODAY’s early success in the 1980s using newsrack boxes as a primary means of distribution. In 2003 the coalition was instrumental in getting the City Council to adopt some stringent regulations governing design and permissible locations on city sidewalks. A year later, the Council weakened the regulatory regime by allowing publishers to self-certify that their newsracks were clean, free of graffiti and stocked with their publications. Today, many newsracks throughout the city are filthy, covered with graffiti, and devoid of publications. Some publishers disdain both the regulations and their obligation to self-certify, and DOT has relegated its duty of enforcement to a low level of priority. 

Streets and sidewalks occupy one quarter of all the public acreage in the City, more than all our parks put together. This public space deserves more attentive guardianship. Sidewalks should be kept free of unnecessary clutter and should allow for easy and pleasant pedestrian flow. Many essential items vie for space on our sidewalks. These public necessities are carefully regulated by DOT and other public agencies. Planters, bollards, newsstands, bus shelters, benches, trash receptacles, phone booths, etc. must all go through a permitting process or must obtain revocable consents from DOT before they can be placed on our sidewalks. Not so with newsracks. The regulations permit newsracks subject only to registration with DOT (a prerequisite that many vendors do not bother with) and compliance with certain design and location standards (which, experience shows, are honored primarily in the breach). City officials typically say that the First Amendment ties their hands. CIVITAS disagrees with this assessment, and the courts have upheld a city’s right to regulate their public sidewalks for the public’s safety and aesthetic reasons. 

DOT has adopted a passive stance towards enforcement. At best, it responds laconically to complaints from the public. CIVITAS recently sent DOT a list, compiled with the aid of CIVITAS member William Marquardt and interns, that specified 162 locations between 59th Street and 96th Street from Fifth to York Avenues where newsracks were in violation of the law. The response was disappointing. What we got back is a list of how many Notices of Correction were issued for a variety of infractions, and does not include which specific newsrack was, in their judgment, in compliance and which was not. CIVITAS was also told that complaints of underused or empty newsracks must be addressed directly to the publishers because Local Law 36 of 2004 does not provide an enforcement provision for such complaints. So is the public required to do the city’s job and call the publisher and tell him that his newsrack that is sitting on our public sidewalk is empty, full of garbage and needs to be restocked? Of the list of 162 errant newsboxes that CIVITAS forwarded to DOT they removed ONE newsrack because it lacked proper identification. According to DOT, they removed a paltry 51 newsracks in 2012 throughout the city. 

Recently several CIVITAS Streetscapes Committee members have undertaken some of their own sleuthing. Rita Hirsch brought to the Committee’s attention the fact that the Learning Annex boxes have a discontinued telephone number on their rear side. All newsracks are required to display proper identification. Learning Annex informed a Committee member that its New York City headquarters office is no longer occupied. It is clear that Learning Annex has abandoned these boxes. There are roughly 1,400 Learning Annex boxes throughout the city, and both the Learning Annex and DOT have not removed those in violation. 

The time has come to rethink whether the newsrack law should be totally revamped to ban racks altogether, or to allow only multi-racks in selected locations. DOT’s disinterest in enforcement coincides with a sharp decline in publisher interest in stocking newsracks. Publishers of newspapers and other once-print media increasingly look to the Internet as the primary vehicle for distribution outside of home deliveries and newsstand sales. As best we can determine, the New York Times no longer uses newsracks in New York City. The Learning Annex apparently now relies primarily on Internet advertising of its courses. If countless newsracks appear to be abandoned, there is good reason: time has passed them by as an effective means of distribution. 

One of hundreds of poorly maintained and 
empty newsrack boxes. 

Attorneys consulted by CIVITAS advise that it is almost certain that the courts would uphold a law banning newsracks on public sidewalks from a challenge under the First Amendment. Laws banning newsracks from Beacon Hill and Back Bay in Boston have been sustained, and courts (including the Supreme Court) have assumed that flat bans throughout a municipality would not be deemed unconstitutional. 

Alternatively, New York City could revisit the idea that newsracks be included in the coordinated street furniture franchise. Several years ago the city first proposed such a franchise that would include bus shelters, automatic pay toilets and newsstands, and a Request For Proposals was issued that included the design of a multi-newsrack. Cemusa was awarded the franchise; however the multi-rack was omitted from the franchise before a contract was signed. The city should review its thinking on whether to incorporate multi-racks into the coordinated street furniture franchise and to ban all other newsracks. Cemusa would be asked to install multi-newsracks in all city neighborhoods, to keep them clean, and to assure that they are properly stocked. 

Now is the time for mayoral candidates to commit: tighten the law and enforcement, substitute multi-racks for individual boxes, or ban all racks on our streets. 

To read the complete spring 2013 issue of CIVITAS News, visit http://civitasnyc.org/civitas-newsletters/

Meet Me in the POPS

 Lara Nahas 

“It’s finally warm out! Let’s meet for a picnic/chat/book-club meeting in the POPS!” Not a phrase that comes readily?! My guess is no. And yet, you could be doing just this. So what is a POPS, other than a great acronym? 

In 1961, the NYC Department of City Planning (DCP) started a program that offered private developers more floor area and development rights if they would set back their buildings and create a public space at street level, such as a plaza or arcade. Sometimes referred to as the “plaza bonus,” this led to the creation of hundreds of POPS, or Privately Owned Public Spaces. There are POPS throughout New York City, but most are concentrated in certain Manhattan neighborhoods. 

Community Board 8 is completing a research study, together with Hunter College Urban Planning students, on Upper East Side POPS. Characterized by diversity in the way these spaces have been interpreted and designed, it is likely that you walk by several POPS every day without realizing that these are public spaces. 

 A privately owned public space located at 211 East 70th Street. 

When the POPS program began, few guidelines were issued to regulate the quality of these spaces and the result was often banal design. Zoning amendments in 1975 contained more defined specifications on seating, landscaping, and required signage indicating that the space was open to the public. Following a study of these spaces during the Bloomberg administration, further zoning text amendments were passed in 2007 and 2009 to be applied to new POPS. Today, this incentive bonus is only available to community facilities and commercial structures, not to residential buildings. 

POPS have particular relevance to the Upper East Side. The neighborhood is especially low on open space, and high in its concentration of POPS. According to DCP’s website, there are more than 70 in this neighborhood. Unfortunately, most of them qualify as what DCP terms “bad” plazas: barren; uninviting; inaccessible; hidden; uncomfortable. The large majority of them are classified on the website as “marginal... lacking satisfactory levels of design, amenities, or aesthetic appeal, deterring members of the public from using the space for any purpose.” Martin Pederson, executive editor of Metropolis and former Yorkville resident, points out that while POPS worked pretty well in areas such as Midtown, the bonus exchange on the Upper East Side created bulk and height without providing meaningful amenities, and most of these spaces are simply “grim.” 

The POPS at 353 East 83rd Street consists of a semicircular dropoff driveway and multiple planters which make the plaza unusable for pedestrians. 

Because the POPS in this community were mostly created in the first few decades of the program, the rules governing them were vague. Many property owners are not clear on their responsibilities, and new owners may not be familiar with the program. In certain cases, these spaces were deliberately made uninviting, with s p i k e s i n s t a l l e d o n potential seating, or have become subtly privatized. Resources for monitoring and enforcement are limited, and locals are not aware that these are in fact public spaces. Community Board 8, like CIVITAS, lobbied against the “plaza bonuses” for breaking up the streetwall (see Paul Newman narrate our “No More Tall Stories” video on www.civitasnyc.org). In some cases, the interpretation of the POPS resulted in “V.I.P. driveways,” which CIVITAS also consistently advocated against as being at odds with the spirit of a program that was supposed to increase open space for public use. 

Renewed attention is now being paid to POPS. There is a broader public conversation about open spaces and urban quality of life. Ideas around “placemaking” and what contributes to creating healthy, animated places are more widely discussed. This is part of a debate about the kind of city we want to live in, and the tricky balance between beneficial growth and preserving what is valuable. When the Occupy Wall Street movement chose the POPS Zuccotti Park for its encampment it took advantage of the fact that unlike public parks, that POPS was not closed at night. This focused attention on the murkiness of the rules governing these spaces. 

The POPS at 301 East 87th Street is classified by DCP as a “marginal space.” It lacks satisfactory levels of design, amenities, or aesthetic appeal and deters people from using it. 

Like many quirks of the city we live in and live with, the POPS in our community are a legacy from a former era characterized by a different approach to the quality of neighborhoods. We badly need more open space, even if just a spot to rest and watch the world go by. So how can our area’s POPS be improved? CB8’s Zoning Committee Chairs, Teri Slater and Elaine Walsh, explained that the goals of the forthcoming report included examining and cataloguing each of the POPS, seeing how much was known about them in the community, and ultimately educating both property owners and the neighborhood public. Most of the Upper East Side POPS are connected to residential buildings, which means that security and sensitivity with respect to building tenants are of greater concern than in Midtown POPS. Another goal of the CB8 study is to clarify the rules governing POPS, the responsibilities of building owners, and to place the Community Board in a position to assist communication between owners and city agencies. Improved design can make individual POPS more inviting. Community members can also start using the good POPS, which will attract other people to them. 

There are better resources now for identifying POPS. The Municipal Art Society (MAS) has a new initiative together with the expert on the subject, Harvard professor Jerold S. Kayden. The MAS website lists POPS by neighborhood, with photographs and a catalogue of amenities. The site also provides for public posting of comments and rating of specific POPS—hopefully assisting with better community stewardship of these spaces. The DCP website also has information on its site. 

Do you visit any of the POPS near you? Let us know if you have a favorite – or a least favorite! 

Find a local POPS: 

• NYC Department of City Planning :  http://bit.ly/popsnyc Choose “Inventory” and “Upper East Side” 
• Advocates for Privately Owned Public Space at the Municipal Art Society www.apops.mas.org Choose “Find a POPS”, “Neighborhood” and “Upper East Side”  This site has more extensive “Space Details” for each space, including in many cases a “Site Plan” which clearly depicts which part of the site is public and which is private.

To read the complete spring 2013 issue of CIVITAS News, visit http://civitasnyc.org/civitas-newsletters/

NYC Benches on the Rise

Roberta Hodgson 

The elevated subway grates on East 116th Street are designed to prevent flooding and also serve as public art and a bench. 

“I came down the front steps of my house into a world that was sunny, warm and clean….

with benches, where mothers sat with their carriaged babies,” novelist E.L. Doctorow wrote recently in New York magazine, describing his Depression-era childhood in New York City.

Seventy five years later, benches still provide comfort and convenience in what serves as our common outdoor living room: the sidewalks of New York. The problem is that there are not enough benches to accommodate seniors, shoppers, and families looking for a spot to sit. Seniors often find it difficult to walk several blocks without a place to rest. And New Yorkers of any age appreciate a bench to sit on, chat with a friend or share an ice cream with a child. Interrupting the relentless pace of the city by stopping to sit and smell chestnuts roasting or to notice pear trees in bloom can only be good for everyone’s peace of mind.

Now a solution to the problem of too few benches is at hand–a new program from the NYC Department of Transportation (DOT) known as CityBench. In order to increase the amount of public seating on our streets, DOT is now installing attractive and durable benches around the city, particularly at bus stops, retail corridors, and in areas with a high concentration of senior citizens. As DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan explained in a recent interview, “New York has it all but it also needs places to take it all in.”

For Sandra Talavera, a social worker, resident of East Harlem and wife of CIVITAS President Felipe Ventegeat, this is not a new story. Over the past few years she worked with the city’s Department for the Aging, and has found that a major concern is the lack of seating in public areas. “The seniors,” she said, “actually just wanted a place they could sit down and rest close to their supermarkets and bus stops."  Working with the New York Academy of Medicine at 103rd Street, Community Board 11 and Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito, Sandra helped draw up a strategic plan to place more than 300 benches for seniors throughout the city. 

A DOT CityBench installed outside the Leonard Covello Senior Center. 

Stressing the importance of these plans, Ruth Finkelstein, senior vice president for policy and planning at the Academy explained, “For older adults, benches are exercise to get to, and they are social engagement and anti-depressants.” East Harlem was one of the first areas with a CityBench. Located outside the Leonard Covello Senior Center on 109th Street between First and Second Avenues, it is a comfortable open-sided, slatted bench with sturdy end bars in a sleek silver metal.Convinced that durable benches make streets more welcoming for everyone, encourage walking, and are a civic amenity, DOT has made CityBench available to the entire city.  

“One of the complaints about public seating was that it was too narrow,” says Ignacio Ciocchini, a bench designer with Chelsea Improvement Company. His designs for DOT have wide seats allowing for more personal space and room for a bag or pet. DOT welcomes experimentation with location and design. For example, a simple backless model bench relates well to other street furniture and costs about $1,800 to fabricate. Benches with armrests are useful both to help people to get out of the seat and to divide a bench so that more people can fit on it. Many benches are made of domestic carbon steel similar to that used on cars. This anti-rust design requires very little maintenance.

Anyone can request a bench by contacting citybench@dot.nyc.gov and filling out a form or by phoning (212) 839-6569. Priority bench locations include bus stops without shelters, senior centers, libraries, hospitals, and high-density shopping areas. Located online are detailed requirements about where benches may go for safety and engineering reasons. This program is funded by a $2.4 million grant from the federal government with the last 10 percent funded by the city. 

Private initiative can also give birth to a bench. Food Passion, Peter Walter’s store on Lexington Avenue, has a welcoming white slated bench on the sidewalk near the front door. Asked who paid for it, he replied, “we did because we enjoy seeing our customers, and for that matter anyone, enjoying the bench as they do everyday.” Asked about vandalism, he replied, “Not a problem.” DOT also states vandalism is rare and that the key to prevention is locating benches where adjacent shop owners and neighbors will assume some responsibility for their use and maintenance.  

Community Board 8’s office says that any store owner can put a bench on the sidewalk in front of their store as long as it is flush to the building, does not interfere with pedestrian traffic, and is removable. Eli’s Manhattan and other stores on Third Avenue have seen the benefit of sidewalk benches, and recently placed them in front of their shops. 

In the big picture, benches—both publicly and privately financed—fulfill some of the Mayor Bloomberg’s PlaNYC 2030 goals to prepare the city for additional walkers on the streets and a more carbon-free environment.

To learn more, visit the Department of Transportation website: www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/pedestrians/citybench.shtml

To read the complete spring 2013 issue of CIVITAS News, visit http://civitasnyc.org/civitas-newsletters/

 

Healthy and Local at NYC Greenmarkets

Willa Hutner 

St. Stephen's Greenmarket on a Saturday in May.

Too many people miss one of the finest things Manhattan has to offer—its farmers’ markets. These take place in schoolyards, parks, and parking lots, where local farmers rent stands to sell the food they have grown. Merchandise is not limited to fruits and vegetables. There are also the freshest meats, poultry, cheeses, just-laid eggs with bright-orange yolks, milk with cream on top, seafood, handmade baked goods, flowers, and artisanal goods. Some markets have other features, as shown in the chart below.  

Why should you bother, when the supermarket sells everything you need, year-round, including sodas and Swiffers? There are several reasons. The foods you buy from the source taste like what they are. In-season is not an advertising gimmick; it’s real. There is nothing like asparagus in the spring; freshly dug little fingerling potatoes in late summer; tiny, sweet carrots with the soil still clinging to the roots, sugars and minerals intact; heirloom tomatoes in September; or parsnips in winter after the cold weather has chilled the soil and sweetened the roots by converting starch to sugar. The only place you can find a tomato ripened in the field, not by gas, is at a farmers’ market. Supermarket fruits and vegetables are bred to survive global shipping; farmers grow what tastes good. The food you buy from growers is healthier, so you eat better, and you know where the food is coming from, how it has been treated, wrapped and stored. Shoppers buy 75% more fruit and vegetables at greenmarkets. Supermarkets display processed foods prominently, drawing customers to junk food. 

Shopping at a farmers’ market supports small-farm agriculture, an important and growing part of our food production system. Initially, it helps keep the farms, and basic home economy, alive. But there is a bigger picture. Farmers’ markets could be the first step in a larger program in which local produce fuels a neighborhood’s economy by drawing other businesses. These businesses, in turn, support other local purveyors. The Bi-Rite in San Francisco is a typical example of a Community Food Enterprise. It uses local printers, designers, and signmakers. 90% of its employees live within walking distance, thereby generating local jobs. It promotes interaction among locals: if a jam maker buys in volume from a farmer, the farmer has a guaranteed sale, and the transaction generates higher profits for both parties because there is no distributor. The federal government stands ready to help. Last year, Congress mandated that 5% of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Business and Industry Loan Guarantee Program go to farmers who sell their products regionally. There’s no reason it couldn’t happen here, with La Marqueta at Park Avenue and 115th Street, already in place, as an anchor. Lastly, your being part of this movement reshapes the urban area as more of a family space. You are shopping from your regional neighbors in a local urban setting. Instead of cars in a paved lot, you walk to their market, see friends, and buy delicious, healthy food. As greenmarkets proliferate, so does the opportunity to maintain a distinct boundary between country and city, with a ring of green farmland surrounding the city. 

The Greenmarket movement is fairly new. In 1976, Barry Benepe and Bob Lewis saw a huge disconnect between living in the city and having access to fresh fruits and vegetables. Barry had spent summers on his father’s farm, growing, packing, shipping, and dealing with a canning facility. In New York, supermarkets offered poor quality produce. Farmland was being lost, as farms were bought up for development. Inspired by models in Europe’s cities, Barry and Bob obtained an $800 grant from the Council on the Environment to create such a market and then set up shop with about 12 farmers. This was a small beginning to what is now a wide-spread amenity for city dwellers. 

To read the complete spring 2013 issue of CIVITAS News, visit http://civitasnyc.org/civitas-newsletters/

Markets on the Upper East Side and East Harlem: 

The initials stand for: A- Antiques, B- Recycling of rechargable batteries & cellphones, C-Cooking demonstrations, F- Flea Market, N- Nutrition education, R- Free recipes, S- Accepts food scraps for composting, T-Textiles recycling. 

East 67th Street Market at P.S. 183 

East 67th Street (between First & York Avenues) 

Open year round 

Saturdays, 6 am - 5pm A, F 

East 82nd Street, St. Stephen’s 
East 82nd Street (between First & York Avenues) 

Open year round
Saturdays, T, B, S, R, C

Winter Schedule: 9 am - 2 pm 
Summer Schedule: 9 am - 3 pm
EBT/WIC Accepted
In addition to batteries and cellphones, this market also also recycles cords, Britta filters, wine bottle corks, CD/DVDs, jewel cases and eye glasses. Summer events includes weekly cooking demos led by the market manager and occasional area chefs, and live music with the Opera Collective and Mariachi Flor from July to Labor Day.

East 92nd Street Market 

First Avenue (between 92nd & 93rd Streets) 

Open June 23 - December 24 

Sundays, 9 am to 5 pm C, N, S, R

Recyclables collected are batteries, cellphones, cords, Britta filters, wine bottle corks, CD/DVDs, jewel cases and eye glasses. Summer events include cooking demos by the market manager, and from July 8th to Thanksgiving this year the Health Department Stellar Cooks will combine nutrition education with cooking demos. Compost and clothing/fabrics/hats/shoes/belts are collected 9am-1pm.

Mt. Sinai Greenmarket 

99th Street (between Madison & Park Avenues) 

Open June 26 - November 27 

Wednesdays, 8 am - 4 pm C, R 
EBT/WIC Accepted

Harvest Home East Harlem Market 

East 104th Street at Third Avenue 

Open July 11 - November 14 

Thursdays, 8 am - 4 pm C, N 

Harvest Home Metropolitan Market 
99th Street at Third Avenue 

July 5 - November 15 

Fridays, 8 am - 4pm C, N 

* Many of the markets offer merchandise and services beyond farm-grown food.