Third wave Open Streets: Open for whom?

According to New York Times restaurant critic, Pete Wells, who “loves outdoor dining,” the Big Apple is in the process of another makeover with a “third wave” of Open Restaurants being added to the city’s already bustling streets.  Nevertheless, as more parking spaces are given over to myriad semi-permanent structure, how this program is enacted will determine who is able to enjoy the public realm. Are restaurant-going people the only New Yorkers that should stand to benefit from this significant shift in urban design? Open Restaurants and Open Streets were conceived in 2020, during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, in which indoor dining was prohibited, allowing restaurants to move their tables outside. The latter was designed to provide additional public space for New Yorkers to socially distance outdoors. Restaurant-going locals have enjoyed the redesign of city streets—however provisional the structures—and now, through regulation, the city has the opportunity to make this a ...