As New York City braces for a pandemic winter, many parks, plazas and open spaces that are so vital to its public life in warmer months have been transformed into cold-weather playgrounds.
Outdoor space has become essential for a crowded city with the virus surging and new restrictions on indoor gatherings.
As a result, the outdoor offerings go beyond the usual ice rinks and winter festivities to make way for a far more robust outdoor culture.
There is a new iceless curling cafe in Bryant Park in Manhattan, where players slide stones across five slippery synthetic lanes. Outdoor movies play in a nearby plaza in Hudson Yards. An “outdoor living room” with timber benches beckons in the Prospect Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn. And an empty lot in the Astoria section of Queens has turned into a drive-in theater.
Heated igloos and cabins dot the city, and at the base of a skyscraper on Madison Avenue, a glass canopy being built over part of a public garden will shield visitors from rain and snow.
Just as the pandemic has transformed New York’s car-dominated streets with outdoor dining and shopping, the threat of the virus has spurred a broad reimagining of public spaces that normally sit empty during cold-weather months.
Even before the virus, there have been efforts to create more year-round outdoor public spaces. The design for a glass-and-steel canopy at 550 Madison Avenue — a city landmark that was once the home of AT&T and the Sony Corporation — was revealed in 2019.
But the pandemic has brought plenty of new and expanded outdoor options across the city, though many are in well-off neighborhoods and priced beyond the reach of many New Yorkers.
“They serve people who can afford it,” said Claudia Coger, 85, a retired city transit worker who has been treated to shows at the Astoria drive-in theater and would like to see more outdoor options around the city for everyone. “The rest of the people get left out. They need to go back to the drawing board at a time like this.”
Some groups have organized free and low-cost outdoor activities, like a new audio guide to Belvedere Castle, a fairy-tale lookout point in Central Park.
Source: Read Full Article