What about the hostile architecture of scaffolding around block after block after block of Manhattan!
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Airports and bus terminals are an exercise in cruelty towards the users. The seats are disappearing for the god awful iPad terminals that BLARE advertisements at you. I even got admonished by a waiter for turning it away from me.
I now hate ipads. A small yoga mat now is packed into my carry-on that I use to sit on and lean against a wall or lie down for a quick nap.
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"Metal bolts affixed to ledges can deter skateboarders who might hurt themselves and others, crush plants, or chip marble."
It is not about skaters hurting themselves... eye roll.
Shameful architecture and shame on the New York Times for publishing this piece without a single mention of the homeless, who suffer this urban problem more than anybody else.
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Sometimes, what at first glance appears "hostile" might actually be to prevent people doing stupid things. In the photographs accompanying the article, for example, perhaps Symphony Space placed a railing along its ledge because children were walking on the ledge and risked slipping onto the sidewalk below, which slopes steeply at that location. Perhaps the building at 48th & Lex placed the metal bar above the "inviting place to sit" because that "inviting place" is, in fact, a steam vent outlet that can suddenly spew hot steam and burn someone who is sitting there.
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Spikes, which are becoming ubiquitous, pose a grave danger to toddlers and the blind.
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It is beyond shameful that people with a roof over their heads would deny those who do not the right to sleep on a cold, hard bench.
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I've seen these on purely private property, not public property managed by private owners. Fences to deter children from running into the yard and jumping over stoops. There should be more of these on private property not reserved for public access. When there are no fences and other barriers, individuals believe they have the right to access private property for their own purposes.
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Thank you for this article. Finally there’s a number for the homeless people in NY. 79,000! That’s mind-boggling. How can we have gone so wrong as a society that we don’t care when fellow humans are forced to live on the streets because of rents that are so high that only people with relatively high salaries can afford them? $2980 is the median rent for 1 bedroom apartments now, which means landlords will not rent to prospective tenant(s) making less than approx $120,000 a year. Yet we judge those who can’t make this “minimum” salary, who don’t have family to help them out with rent payments (like with a lot of young New Yorkers nowadays whose parents elsewhere subsidize their rent), who end up being homeless in this very expensive city for various reasons.
Humans have lost empathy, compassion, any sense of what’s morally right or wrong — when as architects and owners they do these things, when more importantly the tenants of the buildings condone these, and when we as the public go along with these behaviors without feeling outrage. What’s wrong with allowing homeless people to take a little bit of rest at night when most tenants would be sleeping anyway? I have about 9 homeless white males and females sleeping on my block as a group in the East Village currently. It makes me sad to see that in one of the richest cities on the planet. And how far have we sunk when we can’t allow the elderly, tired, disabled a space to sit and get a few minutes of rest in “public spaces”.
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How timely! Thank you Ms. Hu!
Just yesterday I discovered how hostile New York can be when I had to walk from 8th Avenue Penn Station down 34th Street to the Subway at Herald Square.
I can no longer walk much more than a street block without having to sit for a moment. But I can walk well enough where there is an occasional wall, planter or even fire hydrant to rest on. Recently in Baltimore and in Hamburg I found frequent wall sitting opportunities in my walks.
For me the NY Subway, if not hostile, was not helpful. With the R to Lexington, above ground then back below ground, to 42d street, nothing but steps, no escalators (at 42d Street sealed off, for replacement) and no apparent elevator even where marked. Worst of all, when I did emerge from climbing the steps (or descending them), no place to sit.
And my disabilities are trivial compared to those of others!
Benches designed to discourage sleeping are ubiquitous, but is it only in New York that people delibately take aim at other people needing restpite by making wall and hydrant sitting impossible?
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The able-bodied don’t have a clue about the need to sit down. I know because I was one of them. Then several years ago, one of my knees started to send distress signals. There is a particular kind of desperation and despair that comes with the realization that one needs to sit down before one falls down.
I am fortunate in that Canada has medicare for all and two months ago I got a new knee that works better than my other old knee. I can even walk up and down stairs reciprocally (one step, then the next, instead of one at a time always leading with the “good” knee that is strong for the job).
If we’re lucky, we live long enough to grow old. If we’re really lucky, we live in a country that has medicare for all.
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As if we were Gotham Pigeons. A distinct spiky design dominates window sills, subway beams, building ledges, roof cornices even atop outdoor television monitors and signs to keep the birds from perching. Hostile ‘architects’ ( actually I would guess it is landscape designers and building superintendents more than licensed professionals ) taking a page from biomimicry perhaps for the pleasure of their property owning patrons who loath the great unwashed circulating below. If the owners could erect walls or dig moats in the boroughs you’d see it.
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