New York City announces Ya-Ting Liu as its first-ever chief public realm officer

2023-02-17T18:11:00-05:00

In the interest of providing official guardianship for its vast inventory of public spaces, New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Thursday (Feb. 16) announced former transit advocate Ya-Ting Liu will be the city's first-ever public realms officer.

According to the New York Times, her role was created to be a kind of “central point person” for various city agencies and newfound initiatives such as the Open Streets program and outside dining in line with proposals contained in the Making New York for Everyone plan that was developed by the administration and announced in late-December.

“Our city’s public spaces are too important to fall through the cracks of bureaucracy, and now they won’t," Adams said in a press release. "New Yorkers need to know there is one person at City Hall whose number one goal is to improve their quality of life by creating incredible, new public spaces and ensuring the ones we have are clean, equitable, and safe."

Earlier on Archinect: NYC's new planning director...

New York City and its unloved sidewalk sheds

2020-01-02T15:00:00-05:00

Unloved and janky, scaffolding is New York City’s other architecture, its Tinker Toy exoskeleton. It has enraged and inspired its residents, while forever altering their behavior — there are those who cleave to its shelter during bad weather, or skittishly avoid it — as they continue to rail against its persistence and ubiquity, perhaps unaware of the history behind much of it.

Penelope Green on New York's much loathed yet ubiquitous sidewalk sheds — retelling the origins of the 1980 law that mandated them for buildings with decaying facades, how they could be vastly improved, when they've already been turned into destinations in themselves, and when lack of enforcement makes their mission tragically clear.

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New York City announces Ya-Ting Liu as its first-ever chief public realm officer

New York City and its unloved sidewalk sheds