Planning seeks to enliven privately owned public spaces along the Water Street by allowing tables and seating.
On May 4, 2011, the City Council’s Land Use Committee approved the Department of City Planning’s proposal to permit public and cafe seating within arcades along the Water Street corridor in Lower Manhattan. Arcades are privately owned, publicly accessible covered areas along the perimeter of commercial buildings that were developed in exchange for a floor area bonus. The
Museum sought to have its own food kiosk; claimed it would reduce concentration of food cart vendors outside main entrance. On October 19, 2010, Landmarks rejected a proposal to build a small, curvilinear food kiosk in front of the land-marked Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The Guggenheim and Restaurant Associates, which manages the museum’s Wright Restaurant and its third-floor cafe, proposed building the free-standing kiosk along the Fifth Avenue facade underneath … <Read More>
On May 9, 2024, the Landmarks Preservation Commission approved rule amendments dealing with sidewalk and roadway cafes. The changes follow the creation of the Dining Out NYC Program, the city’s permanent outdoor dining program, which allows for permanent removable sidewalk cafes year round and removable roadway cafes from April through November. While the outdoor dining program is operated by the city’s Department of Transportation, other city agencies like the Landmarks Preservation Commission have had to … <Read More>
On August 16, 2023, Mayor Eric Adams signed Int. 31-C, establishing a permanent outdoor dining program. The permanent program, now called “Dining Out NYC,” allows for permanent sidewalk dining year-round and roadway dining seasonally from April to November.
After a year and a half since the bill was introduced, the Council finally votes to create a permanent outdoor dining program. On August 3, 2023, the City Council voted to approve Int 31-C, which establishes a permanent outdoor dining program. The program will allow sidewalk cafes to operate annually and roadway cafes to operate seasonally, with removable furniture and decor replacing solid dining shed structures. The program follows the temporary outdoor dining program that … <Read More>
On October 4, 2022, the Appellate Division, First Department ruled in favor of the City in its appeal challenging a February Supreme Court ruling that halted the City’s development of the permanent open restaurants program.