Privately Owned Public Space

Three awardees and the City’s choice for a new NYC POPS logo were ANNOUNCED on May 20, 2019.

“Have a Seat” – Submitted by Emma Reed

The Department of City Planning Director’s Choice for the Official POPS Logo

“More Than a Tree” – Submitted by Gensler NYC Brand Design Studio

“Constellation” – Submitted by John Schettino

Advocates for Privately Owned Public Space, the New York City Department of City Planning, and The Municipal Art Society of New York joined forces to sponsor a design competition for a new POPS logo to be utilized on POPS signage throughout the city and to represent the face of New York City’s POPS program, with funding provided in part by Knoll.

Submissions were invited from anyone or any entity worldwide. Submissions were posted online and displayed at a public exhibition during the Competition. A seven-person panel, along with a public vote that  counted in the panel evaluations as the equivalent of an additional eighth panel member, selected three Awardees.

The Director of the Department of City Planning chose one of the three selected logos to become the official New York City POPS logo. Awardees received $2,000 and were honored at an event. The Awardee of the logo Submission chosen by the Director of the City Planning Department as the official New York City POPS logo received an additional $2,000.

New York City’s 1961 Zoning Resolution introduced the concept of Privately Owned Public Space (POPS), allowing developers bonus floor area in exchange for providing spaces for the public within or outside their buildings. There are more than 80 acres of POPS in 520 locations throughout Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens that have enormous potential as vibrant public gathering places, but their success relies on the public’s ability to locate these spaces and to know the rules governing their use. Soon, using a web and mobile mapping interface, the public will be able to explore New York City’s POPS and comment on these spaces through the creative use of crowdsourcing techniques. This citizen-centric approach spearheaded by a partnership between MAS and Harvard professor Jerold Kayden will allow for better oversight of these spaces, while ensuring that they are true public amenities. Professor Kayden will present a talk and share his vision for the future of POPS in New York.

On October 18 and 19 at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall, more than 1,100 innovative city shapers and thought leaders gathered as the Municipal Art Society presented the third annual MAS Summit for New York City. This forum of ideas surrounding planning, design and infrastructure; preservation and sustainability; arts and cultural development, and community engagement featured more than 90 speakers over the two days and highlighted trailblazing initiatives in New York and other cities across the globe.

To maintain its stature as one of the world’s great global cities, New York City must continue to cultivate opportunity and nurture innovation in all spheres. This year’s Summit themes—Development, Density and Diversity—explored the balancing act of users and uses and the challenge of building a globally competitive city that is socially, economically and environmentally resilient—and livable—for all New Yorkers.

In an interview conducted by Lara Belkind for FunctionLab, the research arm of Farshid Moussavi Architecture (FMA), entitled “Privately Owned Public Space—For Whom, By Whom,” APOPS founder and Harvard Professor Jerold Kayden discusses the functional uses of privately owned public space in New York City, particularly since the publication of his book Privately Owned Public Space: The New York City Experience in 2000. Citing Zuccotti Park as a site of political protest during Occupy Wall Street, he describes how the occupation challenged everyone’s conception about how POPS may be used. He notes that the Zoning Resolution is silent with regard to what user conduct POPS owners may prohibit. What’s interesting, Kayden suggests, is that many of the POPS from the 1960s and early 1970s, bereft of public amenities such as seating or landscaping, present an opportunity to be defined by use rather than design. You can read the full interview here.

Advocates for Privately Owned Public Space and The Municipal Art Society of New York believe that a city’s greatness is enhanced by an attractive, usable, and egalitarian public realm. Part of New York City’s public realm includes privately owned public spaces (POPS), spaces that by law must be open to the public for public use. The city has more than 550 of them, in the form of plazas, arcades, and other outdoor and indoor spaces located at street level of many office and residential towers. Together, the spaces total over 80 acres or roughly 10 percent of Central Park. Private real estate developers voluntarily provided POPS after receiving zoning permission to add close to four million square feet of rentable and saleable floor area in their buildings, floor area that they would not have otherwise been able to build.

Now here’s the interesting proposition. Imagine you were able to assume some form of stewardship over these spaces. That’s the imagination underlying a joint venture between Harvard Professor Jerold S. Kayden, his organization Advocates for Privately Owned Public Space, and the Municipal Art Society of New York. The three parties have joined forces to guide public stewardship of POPS by sparking constructive action-producing conversations among residents and employees, POPS owners, public officials, community board members, civic activists, and anyone else hoping to realize the promise of privately owned public spaces. Through creative ideas and hard work, all parties can make POPS contribute to a better city.

The APOPS|MAS work program consists of six elements: (1) Public Information; (2) Programs; (3) Upgrading; (4) Monitoring; (5) Special Projects; and (6) Public Policy. Some activities have commenced, others remain dependent on funding availability. Read more about these six elements here. You are invited to join in this effort by contacting APOPS|MAS through this website.Contact us if you are interested.

David Greenfield, former Chair of New York City Council’s Land Use Committee. Image courtesy of council.nyc.gov.

In 2017, the New York City Council passed a new law about privately owned public space (POPS) requiring (1) annual reporting by the Department of City Planning to the Mayor and Speaker about all POPS, the posting of POPS information on the Department’s website including an interactive map and a mechanism for electronically filing complaints, (2) proactive inspections of all POPS every three years and an annual report to the mayor and speaker about POPS complaints and enforcement actions by a city department (presumably the Department of Buildings), and (3) the posting of signs with information about POPS at every POPS in the city. The City Council passed the bill on June 21, 2017, following a June 29, 2016 public hearing held by the Council’s Land Use Committee, chaired by Council Member David Greenfield, to examine City oversight of POPS.  Sixteen members of the Council, including Barron, Chin, Cohen, Dickens, Garodnick, Gentile, Kallos, Koo, Lander, Levin, Mendez, Reynoso, Rose, Torres, and Williams attended the hearing. Witnesses who testified included Edith Hsu-Chen, Director of the Manhattan Office in the Department of City Planning, Anita Laremont, General Counsel of the City Planning Commission, Patrick Wehle, Assistant Commissioner for External Affairs in the Department of Buildings, Joseph Ventour, Chief of Special Operations in the Buildings Department, Harvard professor and Advocates for Privately Owned Public Space founder Jerold S. Kayden, and representatives of various civic groups interested in POPS. Information about the hearing, including a video of the hearing and a transcript, can be found at the City Council’s website here..