Lounge in Them. Dash Through Them. But Don’t Call Them Parks.

According to a 1996 NYT article, "Overnight parking was legalized in Manhattan in the summer of 1950". Before that, cars could park only for a few hours a day. Thanks to Robert Moses and many others, cars came to dominate the cityscape. It's long past time that pedestrians reclaimed public spaces from these climate-change-inducing mechanical monsters.

OK, do that in Bridgeport.

What they did to Broadway below 42nd is funny. You don't even need to bother looking for cars coming. It's functionally not a street anymore. I spose that's a good thing. It's just that the minimization of streets that can handle actual traffic means other streets are taking up the "slack" and making them more congested. At some point ya gotta decide you are either gonna have cars or you're just not. And if you decide "not gonna" then ya gotta actually provide robust transportation in some other manner. Now we not neither. Which is pretty much not really logical. It actually means that there are greater risks to safety. I'd hate to be having a heart attack in the west village now that St. Vincents is high-end condos - and getting up 8th Ave, strangled to a couple workable lanes, in an ambulance you are gonna die. And it's maddening that those aves with bike lanes...and you see bikers in the car lanes all the time anyway, completely disregarding traffic laws. Usually it's the messenger types because they are exasperated by the Citibikers trying to get up to speed with those awful bikes, weaving an bobbing.

The dramatic reduction in death and injuries from vehicles in these changed places makes the whole concept a slam dunk in itself. The quality of life enhancement with the open spaces is the icing on the cake. Win win.

Be careful what you wish for NYC, as the article reports.. " in 2008, the Downtown Memphis Commission concluded that 85 percent of pedestrian malls had been reopened to traffic, at least partially." The exact thing happened here in Buffalo. It turned out to be a huge mistake.

It's a great idea, but with Al Newman, I have to laugh at commissioner Samuel Schwartz’s comment that the plazas are being copied all over the world. That's another case of not invented here. Forty-nine years ago I returned from my first overseas trip to sing the praises of the Hohestrasse and Schildegasse, pedestrian streets in Cologne. Five years later I was pleased to go to school in Ithaca, New York, where the idea also was implemented. NYC is further from Upstate and the world than I thought.

It is an outdated notion that every single street should be for cars. Pedestrian Plazas make streets for LIVING NOT for DRIVING. Who said every single street in the city is for cars and their pollution and their danger? I think the entire stretch of Fifth Avenue in Manhattan should be a pedestrian plaza with trees, a bike path and even a trolley. It would connect 110 Street to nearly Houston Street by bike and walking and trolley and would be another great attraction. You would allow truck deliveries at night. There'd be dancing in the streets.......

I call these a good start, but much more needs to happen. When it comes to pedestrian zones such as these plazas, the City is very much behind the curve. Looking at downtown Manhattan, I am continuously amazed how the needs of drivers are prioritized over the needs of the many more people who walk. In addition to more plazas such as the one described here, I love to see NYC looking at the timing of traffic signs in areas with large numbers of people moving about on foot or bike. Why does car traffic get 80-90% of the "go" signal time, while pedestrians have to break some kind of record over the 30 yard dash to make it across in the time alotted by the walk sign? Urban spaces are pedestrian by nature.

Poor drivers can't find parking spots...plazas are a necessity for the mental health of the neighborhoods. We lost parking spots in Boston when they put in dedicated bike lanes so it is harder to park now but I'd rather have lost these spots and had something positive for the community come out of it. Common good and all that jazz...

I had to laugh at commissioner Samuel Schwartz’s comment that the plazas are being copied all over the world. He obviously hasn’t seen the cobblestoned piazzas of Italy. It’s also worth noting that Americans have such a utilitarian view of life and their surroundings. God help us if the aim of the plaza program is aimed solely to improve their quality of life.

The plazas have civilized (emphasis on 'civil') rather than gentrified New York and enhanced quality of life in the city. They are consistently very much in use by the public.

The photos accompanying this article are masterpieces of street photography. Thank you, Victor Llorente!

I love walking out of the subway and into the plaza at Myrtle-Wyckoff. There’s a produce cart where I can pick up Ataúlfo mangos for a buck. And the aromas from the taco cart jazz me for the walk home for dinner. Sometimes I’ll sit down and people watch...or let my mind just wander...

I think what you are really hearing is that city dwellers will do anything for a bit of green (even in a pot) and a free chair to sit down on. So, anything that calms traffic and offers respite is welcome. But, this does not excuse the real fact that 1. these are not protected spaces for recreation and 2. they are an excuse for the city not doing what it should do and that is BUILT MORE PARKLANDS for our families! Real, protected, calm, beautiful, recreational parks is what is required. The city used to dedicate 1% of its tax revenue to parks. Last time I looked, under Bloomberg, that number sunk to .004% of the city's budget. Restore public park lands and fund them. The private enclaves run by condo developers or these traffic calming measures may be welcome but they are absolutely no excuse for not having more dedicated and protected public parks.

Call them plazas, call them parks, who cares. However, they are great gathering places that help make NYC more livable and people friendly. NYC is a walking city, it’s vibrant, and the plazas and small parks add to city life.

We’ve had plazas /pedestrian zones in the major and minor European cities since at least the 1970s Hardly a NY innovation.Glad y’all caught on.

Or take transit? Honestly if availability of (free) parking is paramount for you, maybe NYC, or any real city, isn't for you.

There's a whole lot of KoolAid being fed...including to the reporter of this story. Yes-the DOT is the agency 'overseeing' plazas...it's just not that simple however. It's a collaboration with the Business Improvement Districts aka BIDs whose sole purpose is self-interested upgrading of property development (check out BID Board Members!) & the NYCEDC. Put them in the same room along with the self-righteous Messianic bicycle lobbies & it adds up to top-down incursions into neighborhoods that may not want them. In Fort Greene (like other templated baloney 'urban planning') "Vision" sessions are purported to be for residents input-oh please! Commercial areas - Times Square or Downtown Brooklyn are distinct from residential locales. The invasion of Ft Greene Fowler Plaza is actually managed by a quasi-governmental entity -a BID. It justifies its $$$ levies on Mom & Pop shops by plaza music "events" at unregulated decibel levels pervading homes & apts. There is no recourse. Stores pay-like it or not. So-called Pedestrian Plazas are yet another appropriation of public spaces by Public/Private initiatives. The truth is-that any number of REAL parks are struggling because missing capital funding has gone the way of subsidies & grants to developers rather than investments in the urgent needs of infrastructure repairs & upgrades for public amenities. DeBlasio plans are afoot to implement what can only be surmised as social engineering-clean up the neighborhoods & rents go up!

I'm glad New York is cleaning up its act. I was there in 1976, and there was garbage all over the streets. By the way, when I was in NY I went to a Leonard Bernstein concert. The audience clapped during movements, not, as is required by etiquette, when the piece is finished. I thought only Canadians did that.

"Dr. Hourizadeh, the optometrist in Corona Plaza, said his patients still have trouble finding places to park." You mean the Corona plaza in the photos where a train station literally empties into the plaza itself?

Ignoring all of the other cities around the world that have done this decades ago was impressive, but thinking all of the cities that have done this followed in NYC's foot steps might be peak NYC parochialism.

I have always been skeptical on the recently made pedestrian plazas. Many of them feel more as if they are against urban life than with it. Some of them end up being driving forces for gentrification as luxury development seems to go near them, while others have turn into hangouts for the homeless and other scofflaws. I can understand that those who live in the city don't need a car to get around, but we don't need to take away streets from those that do need them for either driving or parking and making it harder for them. Then again, that was probably the new way for promoting congestion despite failing again. As for the Times Square, it wasn't as successful as some placed it to be. It was found out that traffic around there got a lot worse especially with a number of buses shifted to the surrounding avenues that caused the MTA to not have them run on them anymore to ease out congestion. Another one was that there were reports of people being harassed by the mascots, and that wasn't big before the plaza in place. More importantly, there were businesses along Broadway who had trouble with getting their deliveries especially for not having any alternative entrances for them, which forced some of them to either change the time or close down altogether. I could never understand the money being used to spend for this when it could have been better spent on the public, pedestrian spaces that already exists known as parks that already exist with so many in bad shape.

New York City plazas are, like parks, nonsmoking by law, yet there always seem to be enough scofflaws to make them unpleasant places to sit or walk through. There need to be signs and enforcement in order to make the plazas usable for nonsmokers.

I don't live within walking distance to any of these plazas. I think I would enjoy their ambiance, as long as I can fine a place to park.

The plaza built in my neighborhood was immediately overrun by crackheads and drug dealers. Now it is closed and circled by a chain link fence. It has been a blight on our neighborhood since the fools who first conceived it neglected to consult with the local precincts. I'm all for plazas, but not one located on a well-known crime hot spot.

“It’s now copied all over the country and all over the world,” said Samuel I. Schwartz. --well, they've had these in Europe (see the Zeil in Frankfurt) for a lot longer than NYC has, Mr. Schwartz. But I guess if you get a call from Addis Abba asking for advice, you are now "copied." Ok. But you owe some thanks to the Germans. I am happy to see these being built.

There are cars and streets in at least half of these picture. It seems like a lot of what are being called "plazas" are wide sidewalks. Sidewalks are all fine and good, but I don't see why they get their own article in the NYT.

Soil is the essential ingredient of Park. If you replace soil with concrete, stone or something else, it is a plaza. What you do in it is unto you -- you can do your park thing in a plaza but that does not make the plaza a park.

I love cars. I race them. I'm a HUGE car person, but I don't drive in the city. I drive in CT, upstate NY, and Long island. I love cars, but I'd be happy if NYC were free of cars. I see no reason to have cars in NYC. I understand that NJ and LI traffic needs to pass through NYC. I live in downtown Manhattan, and I'm happy enough to WALK to midtown or Union SQ. I cannot stress how much a car dude I am, but I don't think we need to have cars in NYC. The main culprits are high heels. Women need taxis and Uber, because they can't walk in heels. How about no cars OR heels in the city?

Michael Bloomberg deserves all of the credit he can get for adding open space to New York City. Georges-Eugène Haussmann working for Napoleon III deserves most of the credit and for originality and many of the city planners across Western Europe deserve credit for not waiting a century and a half. Because starting in 1854 the pleasure of open space became a right of the people that politicians here have pretending never happened. At that time New York City families were going on outings to cemeteries for a little green on their days off while William Cullen Bryant was trying to lobby prominent New Yorkers into embarrassing New York politicians into giving the people a park. We have a long history of open spaces and community gardens being sold to the highest bidder instead of following the example of European cities and transforming large areas into green spaces. Michael Bloomberg visited without wearing blinders and advocated for the people. We finally caught a break. Thank you Mayor Bloomberg. But these claims of "originality" make it seem like what is being done is good enough. Placing concrete barricades to divert traffic is not the open city spaces of Europe. Painting blacktop green and putting out a few planters cannot compare with decorative paving stones and well maintained gardens. People should be pointing out that there are usually clean public rest rooms to be found and demanding at least that much. Mayor Bloomberg tried that too but they shut him down.

Looks like a lot of cement or concrete, not much greenery. Doesn't that create "heat islands" that make intense heat even worse when it gets really hot, not a good thing with increasingly long and hot heat waves...?

Piazzas are one thing that make Italy so great. The sense of community is organically different than with a street.

I'm not sure I see the distinction that Mr. Bankoff is making between "patronizing food carts" and "hanging out" and why one should be good or one should be bad. Presumably people could use the plaza for different things at different times of day.

I love these plazas. They make NYC more humane. Ostensibly, we have Bloomberg to thank, and in part we do, but mostly we have to thank the brilliant urban planners who recognized that a city with good public transit can prioritize the experience of pedestrians instead of maximizing traffic flow. If traffic backs up then, which it will, people will finally get out of their cars and take the train. Auto and Oil companies recognize this too, which is why they actively seek to undermine public transit projects across the country. This is not just a matter of business, it’s a matter of how we want to live our lives.

I recognized the first picture on the headline . That’s where I get off the 7 train and my bus stop is next that plaza. It’s very beautiful and it’s an inviting place to sit a little when it’s still sunny and beautiful outside before hoping on the bus home. When I walked passed it yesterday and saw a man gathering all the chairs and cleaning the place! Good! That was my little concern that it will be dirty. Believe or not it’s many people still don’t know how to use trash cans. Love it! Thanks for this .

I vote for walking, too, but at least over here in Brooklyn the city undercuts the whole point of a pedestrian-friendly city by doing nothing about the bicycles, motor scooters, skateboards, and scooters that infest the sidewalks. Give me cars any day.

I vote for walking, not driving. People, not cars

Why don't you call them piazzas?