If you build it, how will you pay for it? (Maya Palmer)

In his first dispatch in almost a month, Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman heads (back) overseas, where he tours a new riverfront park in Madrid. Like the story of Hudson River Park and the West Side Highway before it, or Boston's Big Dig, Madrid decided almost a decade ago to bury a major highway that flanked the Manzanares River in the heart of the city. Naturally, there has been a return to the bucolic, Mr. Kimmelman writes: "All around the world, highways are being torn down and waterfronts reclaimed; decades of thinking about cars and cities reversed; new public spaces created."

Mr. Kimmelman has proven himself, even after an exile in Berlin, intimately concerned with the goings on in New York, and he finds them yet again halfway around the globe:

Of course Madrid is now just about broke, and Mr. Gallardón’s opponents point to his civic improvements as one cause. They were indeed expensive, albeit a fraction of what the costs would have been in America. Pilar Martínez, who oversaw the park project in the mayor’s office, told me that the official price tag of Madrid Río hovers near $5 billion, all but $500 million of it spent to bury the highway.Twenty-seven miles of new tunnels were dug; countless tons of granite installed to make paths and fountains; some 8,000 pine trees planted. A new, elegantly simple boathouse has been designed, and a 19th-century complex of brick and glass buildings, including a derelict slaughterhouse and greenhouse, are now being renovated to house art studios and a dance theater.

Add to this wading pools for toddlers that landlocked Madrid parents already fondly call “the beach,” and a paved plaza, in patterned tiles, large enough to fit a few hundred thousand people.

New York has recently benefited from the growth and upgrading of its own parks, but much of the city’s expanding public realm is now dependent on private investment. At the epicenter of laissez-faire capitalism, a skepticism about big government, a web of well-meaning regulations and opposition groups empowered by easy access to the courts combine to create barriers to the investment of public money in major infrastructural improvements. Change happens slowly and incrementally, certainly compared with what Madrid has accomplished.

So we confront the problem yet again of how and even why to invest in public infrastructure and space. The Observer has been suspicious of Libertarian Parks for some time now, a fact only underscored by the Occupy Wall Street movement and the lack of quality public space created in the past few generations. Madrid Rio proves that the public sector can still build public space, but it is not any easier to pay for. There is no clear answer to our skyrocketing everything.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

Shoulder to shoulder on Fifth. (Getty)

The other day, The Observer quoted a message frequently delivered by N.Y.U. streets guru Mitchell Moss, that instead of roads or bike lanes, the Department of Transportation should focus on wider sidewalks. It turns out the department, or at least the numbers it has compiled, agree.

New York City sidewalks have grown more crowded in the past few years, according to DOT surveys reviewed by The Times. The pedestrian volume index, which is measured twice a year at the 50 of the city’s busiest intersections, has risen 13 percent since the city began tracking these statistics in 2007. That’s an extra 30,000 people in Times Square every day, or the total undergraduate enrollment of N.Y.U.

About 350,000 a day in Times Square, 97,000 on Main Street in Flushing, Queens, and 80,000 on East Fordham Road in the Bronx, according to a 2007 study.

Surveyors wielding hand-held counters found 31,701 people on West 34th Street between Broadway and Seventh Avenue from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. on May 10 and 26,106 on Fifth Avenue between East 54th and 55th Streets during the same time period two days later. On West 14th between Hudson and Eighth, the volume was 11,166 in September, according to preliminary figures, compared with 8,911 in May and 7,0555 the previous September.

The busiest intersection, year over year? That would be 14th Street between Hudson Street and 8th Avenue. We’ll attribute that to lines to get into LeBain and out front of the Apple store for a new iPhone.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

This'll do. (City Review)

Michael Kimmelman returned to the public realm for this week's column, where he all but declared what appears to be his raison d'etre going forward: "We’ve been so fixated on fancy new buildings that we’ve lost sight of the spaces they occupy and we share," he wrote in the Sunday Times. But instead of Zuccotti Park and protest spaces, this time Mr. Kimmelman turns his attention on Midtown, where he ambles about with the esteemed planner (and mayoral soothsayer) Alexander Garvin.

Together, they argue that the city needs to do more to plan these spaces, which are largely designed ad hoc, if at all, by the developers who own the properties. They point to Holland, that godhead of urban enlightenment, as a prime example from which to learn:

The Dutch today put together what they call “structure plans” when they undertake big new public projects, like their high-speed rail station in Rotterdam: before celebrity architects show up, urban designers are called in to work out how best to organize the sites for the public good. It’s a formalized, fine-grained approach to the public realm. By contrast, big urban projects on the drawing board in New York still tend to be the products of negotiations between government agencies anxious for economic improvement and private developers angling for zoning exemptions. As with the ill-conceived Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, the streets, subway entrances and plazas around Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues, where millions of New Yorkers will actually feel the development’s effects, seem like they’ve hardly been taken into account.

It is a very good point, one the developers would no doubt argue against, even if it is for their own good. Look no further than the High Line, which has been a boon to development in Chelsea, even if the landlords betwixt the elevated park fought for its demolition for years. Messrs. Kimmelman and Garvin raise the potential of closing 33rd Street between Seventh and Eighth avenues, a measure that would no doubt be fought just as hard as the proposal to close 34th Street, which was defeated earlier this year.

And yet consider the success of Times Square and Broadway, which have seen retail rents rise and public satisfaction grow. Like a temperamental child, builders and landlords do not always know what is best for them. By making the space surrounding their buildings more appealing, the buildings themselves will rise in value. The rise of quality architecture and sustainable design only underscore this fact. People will pay for quality, especially in a city with such high demand for property like New York.

Far superior—and developer-built in Williamsburg, no less. (WaterfrontCondo.wordpress.com)

The Observer is reminded of something Mitchell Moss, the N.Y.U. open space guru, has told us on more than one occasion, that the city should be building neither roads nor bike lanes but instead expanding the sidewalks. This is our front yard, he likes to say. (Again, cf. Times Square.) But it is also important that these lawns on not weedy and full of crab grass.

Given the right constraints, however, the city's developers can actually do good. Even if Atlantic Yards will be a public space disaster as Mr. Kimmelman seems to suggest, Bruce Ratner has pushed his architects at SHoP to create the best space around his arena possible, even if it is not nearly enough space.

Things have been getting better, too. Messrs. Kimmelman and Garvin point to the Citicorp plaza, built in the late 1970s as a decent model, while the one across the street, is not, but keep in mind that the new public plazas tend to outshine the old, which were first inaugurated in the 1960s. Then again, august examples exist as well, such as Rockefeller Center or the Seagram Building, so developers do not always follow the best leads.

That is where the city comes in.  The Williamsburg waterfront, derided in an aside by Mr. Kimmelman, has actually shown a great deal of promise. The waterfront esplanades and open space surrounding the buildings there have become popular destinations, jam packed with fisherman, flea markets and, most recently ferry goers. The problems actually lie with the spaces the city has tried to create, such as Bushwick Inlet Park, a sizable waterfront complex that has languished due to budget constraints. Is privatization of the public realm good? Rarely, though it does have its merits.

At the Edge, Northside Piers and 184 Kent Street, a genuine waterfront is blossoming. It may lack the grandeur of the centrally planned Brooklyn Bridge Park, and the lampposts and benches might not match, but it still follows strict guidelines set up by the city that have created an inviting public realm. It is a hodgepodge, but so is New York.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

Protest art!

Robert Lederman, a crusading artist and a bit of crank who was a frequent antagonist of Mayor Giuliani, thinks the Bloomberg administration is being two-faced in expelling the Occupy Wall Street protestors tents from Zuccotti Park. He points to tents set up for holiday markets as the unjust, commercial expropriation of public space.

The holiday vendors have permits, of course, and a portion of their proceeds goes to the parks they occupy, so there appears to be a public good here, whatever your opinion of overpriced tchokes. Mr. Lederman has his own agenda, as he has run afoul of the city for trying to sell art in parks without permits. Still, his thoughts, which he just emailed around, are intriguing in light of last night's events.

Mayor Bloomberg claims that tents are not allowed in NYC parks. Ask him to explain the giant tents being set up right now in Union Sq Park and in Central Park at Columbus Circle for the corporate run Holiday vending Markets. These tents are set up for more than a month straight, 24 hours a day. They completely displace pedestrians, residents and park visitors for a fee of millions of dollars.

Mayor Bloomberg says generators are not allowed in NYC parks, yet the Holiday Markets operate huge generators as do most of the Greenmarket vending stands in Union Sq Park. There is even a weekly Greenmarket set up right outside the Mayor’s office with huge tents and generators.

Mayor Bloomberg says protestors cannot sleep in parks, yet he allows more than 100 homeless people to sleep in Union Sq Park every night. Instead of pretending that the Mayor is a defender of free speech, perhaps the media can ask him to explain these totally inconsistent policies.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

1. Waste reduction.
2. Better waste transport.
3. Better waste disposal.
4. Increased recycling.

A small, but symbolically important part of the recycling puzzle is recycling waste in public spaces. Have you ever wondered why New York City's streets don't feature the same recycling receptacles alongside the waste bins that you find in Toronto, London, Portland, Seattle, and other cities? Well, this is starting to change. Thanks to a public space recycling program piloted in New York City last year, we now have recycling bins in a small number of parks and other public spaces, and legislation has been proposed to expand the program.

New York City first experimented with public recycling containers in the early 1990's, when recycling became mandatory in the city, but discontinued the practice after finding contamination of recycling bins too high to justify the added expense of separate recycling collection. However, through an agreement between the Bloomberg Administration and the City Council as part of the October 2006 Solid Waste Management Plan, New York City is making another attempt to recycle waste in public spaces.

The pilot program that started in 2007 yielded much better results than in the old days, especially with paper recycling bins, which had an average contamination rate of 5%. Bottle and can recycling was not as successful, yielding both less waste (measured in tonnage) and having a much higher contamination rate of 37%. The program has now moved out of the pilot phase, and been expanded to thirteen sites throughout the city, with at least two in each borough.

According to Kathy Dawkins, Director of Public Information at the NYC Department of Sanitation, "Public Space Recycling works in some public spaces but not universally. The two main ingredients for success are heavy foot traffic and additional local control like a BID or [a] well maintained...heavily used park such as Union Square and Battery Park."

Might this program expand to become the rule, rather than the exception, in public spaces in NYC? Earlier this year, Council Member Jessica Lappin introduced legislation to expand the public recycling program to parks throughout the City. According to her office, at a hearing of the City Council in February, "the Department of Sanitation testified to the success of the program and suggested that the Council Member's legislation be amended to include more sites in heavily trafficked areas." The Sanitation Commissioner has agreed to 22 sites, "and the program is rolling out this summer. After these sites are tested we will be amending the legislation to include even more sites for public recycling."

As the Department of Sanitation points out, "all plans are subject to available funding." They are considering selling advertising on recycle bins as one way to fund their cost.

According to Kate Krebs, Executive Director of the National Recycling Coalition, recycling bins are now found in many cities in the United States, as well as sporting venues, parks, and institutions. However, Krebs notes that, "They are not everywhere-they are not standard yet."

One factor which may prove a challenge in promoting public space recycling is that although in New York the amount of waste-and therefore recyclables-tossed into street corner garbage cans appears tremendous, waste from public spaces only represents a small fraction of the City's total waste stream.

Even so, it makes sense to do what we can to make it easy for people to keep recyclables out of landfills. Also, expanding public space recycling would reinforce NYC's image as an environmentally forward-thinking city, and it could help other cities to establish the practice.

As Krebs says, "If we could get a toehold in a city like New York...then I think it would be standard."

In addition to increased recycling in public spaces, Krebs dreams of having a uniform receptacle to be used nationally. "I want a standard recycling bin for the U.S. that would be as easily recognizable as a blue mailbox." And, this is something the National Recycling Coalition has been advocating for. Says Krebs, "We run a bin grant program where we give away bins for public spaces, and we are working with bin designers to develop a standard look and feel for public spaces."

Even if you haven't seen any of the recycling bins in NYC's streets and parks, you may have noticed that trash cans in subway stations now bear signs saying, "Can it for a greener planet!" According to these signs, recyclables are sorted from the trash after collection. This system was implemented after recycling containers put on platforms on a trial basis yielded high contamination rates, questioning the value of the work of maintaining recycling bins and the security risk. The MTA's current system of sorting out recyclables after waste collection means that 40% of that waste is diverted from a landfill.

New Yorkers seem to think they don't have the time to dispose of paper in a paper bin and bottles in a bottle bin. We also thought we'd never learn how to replace subway tokens with swipe cards. Somehow we managed to cope. It may take a while, but we can learn how to sort public garbage. You know, every litter bit helps....