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The Sidewalks of New York


New York City's sidewalks are its best public spaces, the heart of the city's bustling street life. Sidewalks are everywhere, 12,000 miles of them, enough to stretch half way around the world. Everyone uses them. They move more people daily than cars and subways, and play host to more people than the city's parks. They take the place of the grand plazas and public squares that are prominent in many European cities.

Yet the city does not take responsibility for its sidewalks. Instead, they are treated as places to issue tickets and put advertising, as potential lawsuits, or as by-products of new development. Instead of a positive approach that celebrates sidewalks, the city spends most of its efforts trying to punish people who use them.

Recent actions by the City Council give the city new authority to control newsstands, newspaper boxes and anything else that obstructs sidewalks. In fact, the city controls just about everything that goes on sidewalks, and everything people do on sidewalks. The city has the power to give out a franchise for all "street furniture," including bus shelters, information kiosks, and public toilets, and to allow advertising on it all. There reportedlyis even talk in City Hall about pasting ads on garbage cans. And the city is just waiting for Albany to renew a law that will let it repeat more of its periodic blitzes to remove street vendors.

But with all of its powers and ability to enforce them with fines, the city has no overall policy or plan for the use and enjoyment of public sidewalks. Its street furniture deals are mired in negotiations that are anything but public. It is time to put the public back in public space.

CONTROLLLING THE SIDEWALKS

Half a dozen agencies have their hands in the mix, but none are in charge. The Department of Transportation (DOT) and Police Department are mainly responsible for keeping sidewalks clear for pedestrian traffic. Transportation regulates the placement of newsstands, newspaper boxes, bus shelters, and bicycle racks. The Department of Sanitation is responsible for trash. The Parks Department plants and maintains street trees. And the Department of Consumer Affairs controls sidewalk cafes. The City Planning and Buildings Departments regulate the size of front yards mandated by the zoning code. (The city's Zoning Resolution, written in 1961, gave incentives to big downtown developers to build and maintain street-level public spaces, but the result has been mixed, and the rules are optional and only affect new buildings.)

All of these agencies are concerned with regulating how sidewalks are built and maintained. They can slap fines on violators. But none of them looks at how sidewalks are used and designed, how they can be more attractive public places, or how they fit in with, meet the needs of, and improve local neighborhoods.

NEED FOR SIDEWALK POLICY

New York City does not maintain the sidewalks that it owns, unlike many other large cities around the world. Instead, property owners are responsible for repairing concrete, sweeping and clearing trash, and shoveling snow. In September, revisions to the city's Administrative Code explicitly required property owners, except in areas with 1-3 family homes, to maintain and repair sidewalks and to carry liability insurance covering any mishaps. In designated areas, Business Improvement Districts maintain sidewalks, but in a way that serves the interests of merchants and not necessarily shoppers or passersby.

While the city's parks are planned, no one in government is responsible for figuring out the best way to design and use sidewalks. The agency with the most responsibility is the Department of Transportation, but their approach is to move pedestrian traffic just like they move vehicular traffic, by removing as many obstacles as possible. What is great about the city's street life is not only what moves on the sidewalks but what is stationary. That includes the gaggle of seniors sitting on folding chairs, the kids playing hopscotch, the double-Dutchers and, yes, the street vendors and homeless people that some people do not like to look at. In the city's effort to banish some people who it finds objectionable, we are all mugged of our public space, the great diversity of street life, and our civil liberties. We reduce the value of the democratic, civic life which, after all, brings together people who are very different from each other. New York can learn a lesson from Barcelona in Spain, a city with intensely utilized and popular public spaces. Planning and design plus social tolerance can make for exciting streets and sidewalks.

Not only are New York's sidewalks neglected, they are shrinking, especially in areas where they are needed the most, such as midtown Manhattan. Every time a new building goes up it increases pedestrian traffic, but sidewalk space does not expand. Instead of widening sidewalks and reducing the roadway, and thus cutting congestion and pollution, the city is putting up metal barriers to squeeze more pedestrians onto the existing sidewalks.

A POLICY FOR SIDEWALKS

What would a sensible sidewalk policy look like?

The first goal should be to improve the sidewalk experience for all New Yorkers and visitors. Both groups spend a good deal of their time walking, sometimes hours daily. Noise and air pollution are not only a nuisance, they are damaging to our health. Vehicular traffic is the main source of pollution, and it should be severely reduced, especially in densely developed downtown areas.

Secondly, strip our streets of advertising, the biggest source of visual pollution. Do not give this great public resource away to the highest bidders. We can have newsstands, garbage cans, public toilets, benches and green space without ads.

Third, improve pedestrian safety in congested areas by widening sidewalks, particularly at intersections, bus stops, and at wide crossings. Sidewalks do not always have to be linear. Creatively designed sidewalks can slow traffic, establish nodes for social activity, and accommodate a variety of street furniture without blocking pedestrian flow.

Fourth, stop trying to find the generic design for sidewalk amenities in this city of eight million people because it always turns out to be the easiest solution for the corporate contractor or city agency. It has produced dull design solutions that are just plain inadequate. Our bus shelters are great examples of this inadequacy. Empower community boards to develop their own plans and set up local design review procedures so that street life can reflect the particular conditions and history of the city's diverse neighborhoods. Of course, to do the job right community boards need some of the resources and professional help that are now squandered on schemes to wheel and deal generic contracts. Their mandate should be to make sidewalks inclusive public spaces open to all.

Finally, drop the ticket blitzing. Put community boards in charge of enforcement and have them work with property owners and local civic organizations. Ticketing may raise some dough for the city, but the revenue it produces, some millions a year, is a laughable fraction of the city's overall budget. Besides, enforcement costs millions and has proven to be largely ineffective except where there are active civic groups and property owners nagging the city to do something in the first place. Put the power in the hands of people who have a stake in preserving the city's vital public spaces.

The Project for Public Spaces celebrates great public spaces around the world and helps cities upgrade them (and they have some good and bad examples from Barcelona on their website). For some out-of-the-box opinions on the city¡|s street furniture, see their site www.localexpressions.com.

Tom Angotti is Professor of Urban Affairs and Planning at Hunter College, City University of NY, editor of Planners Network Magazine, and a member of the Task Force on Community-based Planning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Bridge Back Home


I was a foster parent in The Bronx before the city began trying to keep foster children in their communities. When I first heard about the change I thought it would be a great idea for the children, because pulling children out of their home is traumatizing enough. It wouldn’t be as traumatizing if you keep the children in their community.

But now I believe that, in some ways, the change is harmful. Some birth parents are angry that they have lost their child and they take their anger out on the foster parent. If the foster parents and the biological parents do not see eye-to-eye, it can be very confrontational when they are living near each other.

I also know that this is for a good cause. The city wants foster parents and birth parents to work together to get the kids back home. I think this is very important, but I don’t think they have to live near each other to do that. Where the children live matters less than changing the foster parents’ outlook so that they see themselves as helpers to the biological parent.

Some foster parents don’t want to bond with the birth parent. They find it unnecessary or think it’s a burden. And they may not want the children to go back home. I don’t care what the age of the child is, if you are human you will get attached to them. Some foster parents find it very hard to accept that they are only a temporary part of the child’s life, that they must help the child move on. It’s a hard job. You bond with this child and when they move out of your home you have lost a very important part of your life.

When I became a foster parent, I had a child who was two years old when he came to me. I became very attached to him and his sister. We just clicked. When they left to live with their aunt I thought somebody died. I decided right then and there I couldn’t be a foster parent because of the grief I was going through.

When I finally decided to take in another child I did it with a different outlook -- the same outlook the city is trying to get foster parents to adopt. I told myself that I was trained as a foster parent to open my home to a child but at the same time I have to let the child know that they are going to move on. I am that bridge they have to cross before they walk back to their own home.

Now I try to think from the birth parent’s point of view. I call the birth parent up every time I am about to make a decision about the child. If the child acted up in school, I call the birth parent. The kid is floored when I do that, thinking, “Damn, I thought I had to just deal with this lady.” But it helps them do well academically. They know their mom will be on them and I will be on them and they can’t play us against each other.

Also, I avoid agency visits, because if you had a child in foster care, would you like to see the child for only two hours with someone looking at you? So I might have a visit once or twice with a parent at the agency, then I will get permission to bring the child to meet with their parent in restaurants or to go to a show. Once I asked the parent to meet me and her child at 42nd street at the Olive Garden and we went to the wax museum and made a big day of it. Another time she had a family reunion with fried chicken, collard greens, potato salad, you name it.

Now when I work with other foster parents, I tell them our homes are only a temporary situation for the children. We have to keep in the forefront of our brains that most of the kids will be going back home to their birth moms. We need to reach out to the birth mom. We need to understand her initial anger and try to connect with her anyway. Our support can help her do what she needs to do to get her child home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Illegal Threes


On a recent sunny fall day, Robin Demmo was at Queens Borough Hall looking at a faded copy of the Certificate of Occupancy for the two-family house she was living in on 55th Road in Elmhurst.

She was confirming her suspicions about the apartment she rented for $900 including gas and electricity about six months ago: the apartment was illegal.

Like the proverbial crazy aunt in the basement, the problem of "illegal threes" - the name given to two-family houses that have an illegal third apartment - is one housing issue that causes dilemmas and resists any easy resolution. Many people simply want to pretend they don't exist. A recent ruling by an appeals court on an "illegal three" case has not helped to clarify things.

According to 2000 Census Bureau statistics, there are about 400,000 two-family houses in New York City, mostly in Brooklyn and Queens. Many of the owners of these houses, looking for an extra dollar, convert the basement into an apartment and voila, they create an illegal apartment.

But it's a problem that many people are willing to overlook in the city, mainly because illegal apartments satisfy a variety of interests.

"They've always been around and they probably always will be around," said Carl Peterson, the senior borough coordinator for the organization I work for. "They're a significant amount of the housing in Queens.

"What an illegal three does is that it provides much-needed money for that homeowner and affordable housing for tenants," Peterson explained. "All these people need a place to live and so all these landlords do the same thing - they chop their houses up."

Illegal apartments are so common in Queens, many people simply do not realize that where they live is illegal, Peterson said.

"Unless it's definitely seen as hazardous or dangerous, not many people notice," Peterson said. "Because I've talked to people, housing advocates even, and they say, 'I live in a basement apartment and it's nice!'"

Robin Demmo said her apartment was a comfortable one-bedroom with a living room- kitchen combination that is "perfectly safe." Not everyone, consequently, wants to see the zoning laws strictly applied.

Politicians have launched occasional efforts over the years to crack down on illegal apartments and one Queens newspaper even asked readers to send in their landlords' names if they lived in illegal apartments. But everyone knows the apartments have not been eliminated - not even close.

A lot of people are looking the other way when they think an apartment is illegal - and not just complicit landlords and tenants. Demmo said when she called police to have her landlord put her electricity back on, they told her they wouldn't file a police report because doing so would reveal that the apartment was illegal - and lead a housing inspector to issue a vacate order.

The threat of a vacate order effectively discourages tenants from reporting problems in the apartments to housing authorities. If a tenant wants the heat on or a leak fixed, he has to weigh his desire against the likelihood that a housing inspector would order his apartment vacated because it was illegal.

The illegality of the apartment also prevents landlords from filing cases against tenants in illegal apartments in Housing Court. For years, Housing Court judges have simply dismissed any cases involving illegal apartments because the court lacks jurisdiction.

This meant that if a landlord wanted to get a tenant in an illegal apartment out, she had to file an "ejectment action" in Civil Court or Supreme Court, depending upon the value of the house.

A recent appeals court ruling has changed that. The court ruled that a landlord's failure to register a two-family house as a multiple dwelling, which is what it becomes when a third dwelling unit is added, does not mean Housing Court cannot hear the case - if the tenant waives this defect and accepts the jurisdiction of the court.

If the tenant does not waive the defect and makes a timely motion to dismiss the case, however, the judge can and should dismiss the case. Then, the landlord will have to file an ejectment action at Civil Court or Supreme Court, just like old times.

But having the case heard in Housing Court may serve some tenants' interests. Generally, Housing Court judges afford tenants more time to move than Civil Court or Supreme Court judges.

Robin Demmo was weighing exactly those types of options with Carl Peterson recently. The Certificate of Occupancy for her house was clear: the first floor walk-in apartment she occupied was illegal. According to the certificate, the building's first floor was meant to house the boiler and provide space for storage - not a tenant.

The landlord can still get her out, but Demmo needs time to find a new place. She said she would ask the Housing Court judge to adjourn the case in order to get legal advice. That has the benefit, too, of buying her some time.

Because the apartment is illegal, she could possibly buy more time when the court does hear the case by asking the judge to dismiss the case altogether. The landlord would have to file an ejectment action and that would give her more time again.

"I'm looking at an apartment today," she said of her efforts to avoid eviction or ejectment. "I don't want to go through the tears and the crying that I don't have a roof over my head."

Joe Lamport is the assistant director of the City-Wide Task Force on Housing Court, a coalition of community housing organizations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



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