Design
A Matchmaker for New York's Privately Owned Public Spaces
A year after Occupy Wall Street, Jerold Kayden is on a mission to convince skyscraper owners that their plazas can be better.
You may not realize it, but Midtown Manhattan is full of public spaces. Every plaza and arcade you see in front of a towering office building? That belongs to you. Sort of.
In 1961, New York City made a deal with skyscraper developers that ushered in an era of sheer-walled buildings. The city agreed to relax a 1916 requirement that buildings of a certain height needed to employ staggered vertical growth (inset) to let light and air into the streets.