Built to protect pedestrians from falling debris, the ubiquitous sidewalk shed has become an unfortunate defining feature of New York City life.
And while we can applaud the new, improved designs for these eyesores, we need to get smarter about how to keep fewer of them up and for shorter periods of time.
Simply making sidewalk sheds prettier is merely putting “lipstick on a pig” — no offense to pigs. We can do better.
As of last year, the city had more than 8,000 active sidewalk shed permits on file.
More than 400 have been up for more than half a decade; an infamous one in Harlem was up for 21 years before finally being taken down in 2023.
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This study was conducted by researchers at Cornell Tech.
