Comments on: Coming Soon: Ped-Friendly “Urban Umbrellas” for NYC Sidewalks

By: Kenny

Kenny — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 22:02:29 +0000

I built a lot of sidewalk sheds over the last 15yrs all over the city. They range from decrepit, dirty ,weak and dangerous to fantasticly designed heavy duty bridges that look like they are part of the building!!
This new design looks great and has protential but any thing that light can shine through is NOT goin to stop a brick falling from 15 floors above!
Sidewalk sheds save lives and I’ve seen it for my self!! Don’t risk saggy for bueaty!!!

By: sikiş

sikiş — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 20:58:40 +0000

Liz, it’s 21st-century scaffolding, meant to keep building debris from falling on sidewalk users. IMO it would take too long for trees to grow sufficiently thick and leafy to protect passersby from falling concrete blocks.

By: umbrellas

umbrellas — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 08:15:47 +0000

thanks for your share “ There is no way that the tops of these will have glass on them too!! very good that i like it!
i love umbrellas very much

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 18:36:25 +0000

By: Liz Ellis

Liz Ellis — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 18:07:29 +0000

Are these urban umbrellas being installed where sidewalk conditions don’t support street trees or was a choice made for a built solution over a living umbrella that also pumps out O2 and sequesters CO2?

By: Emily Litella

Emily Litella — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 14:47:28 +0000

What pretty things. The future is bright indeed!

By: Amit

Amit — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 09:22:14 +0000

hey nice clicks..liked the 1ast pic a lot..the pics came out so good becz of the diffrnt perspective…

By: Noah

Noah — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 22:02:54 +0000

Great concept, but those renderings are very deceiving, is the top now going to be transparent?

By: Kaja

Kaja — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 20:51:11 +0000

I didn’t call that a libertarian solution!

The libertarian bit, I suppose, is that I think it won’t work, because governments are typically at-least as corrupt as the entities they attempt to regulate.

(Or am I missing your point?)

By: J:Lai

J:Lai — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 19:33:23 +0000

Kaja:
“Hold building management criminally responsible for deaths and injuries caused by falling debris. More people will die at first; then, management companies will start going out of business; then, they will beautifully self-regulate.”

Come on dude, you want a market-based, libertarian solution that pre-supposes an external authority which will “hold building management . . . responsible”?
I agree with a lot of your posts here, but that is question-begging logical fallacy at its worst.

By: Kaja

Kaja — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 14:33:58 +0000

Hold building management criminally responsible for deaths and injuries caused by falling debris. More people will die at first; then, management companies will start going out of business; then, they will beautifully self-regulate.

(I’m half-serious: I think this would work, except that the city would rarely actually prosecute, due to a mix of the usual factors: Albany stops them, payoffs made, prosecutors failing to give a rat’s ass.)

That is a really nice design.

By: Jeremy Zilar

Jeremy Zilar — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 14:17:49 +0000

There is no way that the tops of these will have glass on them.

By: curtiss

curtiss — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 14:05:40 +0000

i like flowers.

By: Mark Walker

Mark Walker — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 03:18:08 +0000

BicyclesOnly, actually the scaffolding law followed the death of a Barnard student in 1979. It was enacted in 1980:

http://www.nytimes.com/1989/11/19/realestate/those-stay-forever-sidewalk-bridges.html?pagewanted=1

By: BicyclesOnly

BicyclesOnly — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 03:00:18 +0000

The prevalence of scaffolding dates from injuries caused by falling debris from a poorly-maintained building facade about 6 years ago. The city council passed a law requiring periodic exterior inspections of virtually all buildings. It is very expensive and almost always some needed repair is identified. The building owners are not necessarily in a financial situation or otherwise prepared to perform the repairs immediately upon learning of them, so the scaffolding stays up while management or the board figures out what to do. The conrtactors charged with the repairs play the same game all contractors do–start the job, realize the maximum ratio of payment-to-work-performed, then move on the next job. Repairs often need to be suspended in the cold winter months. Buildings leave the scaffolding up for six or more months even though no work is anticipated becuase it costs less than removing and reinstalling the scaffolding.

These are some of the reasons for all the scaffolding. I want to be as free as anyone from falling debris, but I do wonder whether the mandatory inspection regime is an unecessary boondoggle.

By: Mike Lydon

Mike Lydon — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 02:59:45 +0000

Ha, look at the first image. Apparently, the designer also wants to introduce contra-flow bicycle lanes!

By: Ray

Ray — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 02:40:15 +0000

Sorry – it was Gehl Architects assisted the DOT (not Gensler).

By: Ray

Ray — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 02:38:30 +0000

Nice design. Yet we must get rid of the scaffolding that’s idle.

NYT: 11/24/08 Gensler Architects: “And across the city, unregulated vendors, multiple trash cans and excessive scaffolding were also found to contribute to sidewalk congestion. Thirty percent of buildings on Broadway between Columbus Circle and Houston Street, for example, are covered with scaffolding.”"

This is UNACCEPTABLE.

By: Eric McClure

Eric McClure — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 02:31:51 +0000

That’s an elegant design.

By: herenthere

herenthere — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 00:24:54 +0000

Lower maintenance costs would be incentivizing, but it looks more expensive to manufacture and install, or at least the ones with colored clear ceilings and the clear parapet.