Workers removed the curbside dining structure outside the
A new era for the city's permanent outdoor dining program began yesterday.
And you may not noticed — yet. Yesterday marked the first day that food service establishments could start applying online to join the Dining Out NYC program. (Apply here.)
City officials released the new guidelines, "Dining Out NYC," early last month. As previously noted, the significant change is that enclosed, year-round roadway dining structures will no longer be permitted. The revised regulations stipulate that roadway cafes must now be open-air, easily portable, and simple to assemble and dismantle. Additionally, these establishments are restricted to operating only from April through November.
According to city officials, if restaurants plan to offer diners open-air options, owners will have to remove their old outdoor dining setups and replace them by the summer.
"We're getting outdoor dining right, getting sheds down, getting trash off our streets, and fundamentally changing what it feels like to be outside in New York City," Mayor Adams said in a statement yesterday announcing the new dining portal.
Per the city's release announcing "Dining Out NYC" ...
Final program rules include clear design requirements, siting criteria on where outdoor dining setups can be located in relation to other street features, like subway entrances, fire hydrants, and more, and the types of materials that can be used in outdoor setups. They also require that the setups preserve clear sidewalk paths and emergency roadway lanes — including water-filled, rat-resistant protective barriers for roadway setups — and use easily moveable furniture and coverings. Ultimately, the final rules will create a lighter-weight outdoor dining experience with lines of sight, as compared to the fully enclosed shacks of the temporary COVID-19-era program.
This link has guidelines for roadway and sidewalk dining.
Meanwhile, last week, the city unveiled a prototype for a new style of outdoor dining structure. One of the test-pilot restaurants was Sunday to Sunday on Orchard Street.
As for the existing structures that went up during the pandemic, per CBS 2: "Any restaurant participating in the temporary outdoor dining program that does not apply to join Dining Out NYC by the deadline will need to remove their structures after Aug. 3."
Nothing is going to change until August 3, huh? This whole debacle with sheds is such an indictment on our local leaders. Residents largely do no want these sheds or anything resembling them in their neighborhood but the whining by an industry (restaurants this time) was effective at extending what was a temporary accommodation. The NYC outdoor dining concept is so flawed anyway. Sidewalks were never designed here to have Paris-style seating, so you are electing to sit by a road where exhausting vehicles and trucks regularly drive well over the posted speed limit and negotiate pedestrians jaywalking and e-bikes illegally driving in the wrong direction. Frogger. Unfortunately, it will not all be over until someone is accidentally killed by a car while sitting in one of these modular "sheds".
ReplyDeleteAnyone want to lay odds on whether there will be any ongoing enforcement, or if the new structures will be allowed to deteriorate into filthy, graffiti-encrusted eyesores like the existing ones?
ReplyDeleteEasiest things for them to do is folding tables and chairs. Like what everyone does in a backyard bbq.
ReplyDelete7AM is wrong. Plenty of people want outdoor dining, including myself.
ReplyDeleteso glad to see the Huertas eye sore gone! It's astounding how ugly and decrepit all the sheds are. I have no faith our elected officials are doing anything right and for community. In total agreement with @7:00AM!
ReplyDeleteSimpler structures are good, it would clean up some of the mess. Outdoor dining is fantastic when it’s nice out, glad they will put them away in the winter.
ReplyDeleteI’m all for more structures that involve things for people to do over cars. Get rid of most street parking, add raised crosswalks and extended corners, give trees some real space to grow, add benches and more pedestrian space.
They look terrible. Besides gives restaurant owners very cheap real estate that belong to the people. Restaurants double, triple in size while residents have traffic issues on their streets. All that to have a meal next to bin bags and rats. It makes the city to look chaotic. Even more than already looks. We need a referendum.
ReplyDeleteAgree with 7am. This new plan does nothing for residents (especially for residents who live in East Village). Sure, the ugly sheds will be gone (maybe). But what will remain are the loud, drunken fools, blaring wifi speakers and loss of sidewalk space for us to actually walk! We gave restaurants a life line during the pandemic. They are now packed inside every night so obviously the fear of covid is gone. Outdoor dining should be gone too. And trust me, no one who lives above these rat infested dining sheds would want them to stay. So spare me the faux "I love them!" argument.
ReplyDeleteThis seems like a good compromise. This should cut down on the ugly graffiti-laden eye sores, while also letting people eat outside (which I'm strongly in favor of, 7AM does not speak for us all).
ReplyDeleteThis also helps alleviate complaints about trash pile up, rats, etc. Structures like these won't come cheap, so restaurant owners are more likely to take care of them. It also makes sense to take them down in the winter -- it's too cold to eat outside most days and I can imagine them being hard for snow plows to navigate around.
Everything doesn't need to be so black-and-white EVGrumps... Compromise can be a beautiful thing!
I love the sheds. But what the heck is a “water-filled, rat-resistant” barrier?
ReplyDeleteI hate the sheds and I do not do business with any restaurant that has a dining shed. These things are a boondoggle: a freebie, in essence, for restaurant owners (yeah, they pay, but FAR BELOW actual value of the space), and now we'll likely have some cool mobster activity involved in "storing" these sheds over the winter. Yeah, take them down, store them, set them up in the spring - a great piece of business for the nice people who also do their carting.
ReplyDeleteAs for the person who's in favor of RAISED sidewalk corners, you must not know anyone who is disabled or elderly.
"what the heck is a “water-filled, rat-resistant” barrier?"
ReplyDeleteI assume they mean the heavy plastic road barricades that can be filled with water. Supposedly this will absorb the impact of an out of control motor vehicle? Good luck with that.
In the model pic with the white chairs the floor boards are hinged so they can be opened like a trap door in order to evict and/or fuck up the rats. Ditto.
All of the sweet dining annoys me, but the thing I cannot comprehend is how they passed all these rules yet did not pass rule saying you can have the public street OR the public sidewalk. Instead, they said you can have both for barely any cost, so we are still walking through a tunnel, and those with cars are still losing public parking. Try walking through Lil Frances or Balthazar during service - they think they own the sidewalk now.
ReplyDeleteAnon 9:57 tunnel vision thoughts with no nuance or understanding is tiring to everyone rational. Cars are transportation, and I'm sure you are in one when you need it, so get real.
ReplyDeleteHere’s a fair compromise: get rid of all
ReplyDeletethe sheds, permanently. Enough already.
This city is too congested as it is. What
is wrong with eating inside a restaurant?
And if we should have another pandemic
then stay home.
I am a former waiter who utterly despises these sheds as I had to work in three of them since 2020. Every day, my fellow colleagues and I would assist the janitor or porter, by cleaning and scrubbing everything from top to bottom, including chairs and tables, often eliminating endless cigarette butts from the floors and corners, not to mention drug syringes, human waste, human urine, rodent droppings, used diapers, used condoms, among other nasty discoveries. The stench parlayed with the humidity was enough to make one puke regardless of wearing a mask. A majority are unsanitary, dirty, and ill equipped for rain storms and car accidents. Management often ignores protocol and city regulations in favor of packing as many customers as possible, turn after turn, neglecting responsibility in favor of profit. Many in my previous role would agree because passers by and certain clientele don't respect the spaces or staff. It becomes their personal toilet or trash can. It is astounding more have not been taken down. So, yes, I am fully on board with the elimination of these monstrosities if there is a lack of oversight and compliance, in addition to their immediate removal during the colder months. Now is the time for business owners to abide by their obligations to neighbors and residents who call these hoods home.
ReplyDeleteGetting rid of the bad actors and keeping the positives of a good outdoor dining experience has always been the obvious path forwards. I'm eager to see the unmaintained sheds gone, but it would be silly to throw away one of the only positives of the pandemic
ReplyDelete@1:47pm: Dining sheds are "one of the only positives of the pandemic"? Really? Your standards are evidently different from mine.
ReplyDeleteNYC has thrived for literally CENTURIES without ever needing any dining sheds; that is a FACT that cannot be refuted.
Dining sheds were clearly announced as a TEMPORARY measure to try to help restaurants survive in the pandemic. Well, now everyone is busy saying we're in a post-Covid, post-pandemic world, so the rationale for dining sheds is gone. GET RID OF THE DAMNED SHEDS!
Yet somehow there's suddenly so much "support" for sheds: they're the best thing since sliced bread is what we're all being told.
And it's claimed that, even better, dining sheds apparently turn NYC into Paris or some other non-NYC place.
If you want the Paris experience, then go to Paris, and stop trying to make NYC into a lower-class city (like Paris!).
I find it VERY interesting to see what boatloads of $$$$ from the restaurant industry can achieve: the restaurant owners pay prime money to their lobbyists & PR people in an attempt to make us believe their lies: to believe that up is down, that bad is good, and that "temporary" really means "permanent".
Where do you think the money they pay lobbyists & PR comes from? Straight out of YOUR pocket, when you eat at those places.
Sheds need to be gone permanently; that needs to happen ASAP, because right now, NYC does not resemble even a lower-class place like Paris at all; instead it looks like a squalid third-world slum location. It looks like the kind of place where you get various illnesses when you eat out, due to the poor hygiene/low level of sanitation.
If people would stop kowtowing to the restaurant industry PR, they'd see that NYC is *more than enough* of a world-class place (just as it has always been) without needing any sheds. With sheds, NYC lowers its image to become second-rate, imitative, and gross, truly gross.
@3:30pm - I'm actually in favor of (good) sheds because I like them, but thanks for the laugh! Hopefully you enjoy Paris more if you find yourself there again!
ReplyDeleteWho wants to bet that all these old sheds will be down in a year, two years from now. It will never happen. There's no one to enforce it. Look at the requirement that all food establishments use covered garbage containers as of last August first. How many are doing that? Very few. On my street alone ,out of more than a dozen businesses that handle food , 2 use containers. No enforcement by the city .And if they do use containers , most of them do not store them inside or in front of the building during business hours as required by law.They leave them chained up on the curb's edge. Not to mention they too are usually covered in graffiti as well. More and more rules and laws, no enforcement! Same old story.
ReplyDeleteI wish they would let them be enclosed, it muffles the noise.
ReplyDeleteParis is not a lower-class city, 3:30 pm.
ReplyDeleteONLY in NYC can you find the Metropolitan Museum, MoMA, The Museum of Natural History, Broadway theaters, Lincoln Center, the Bronx & Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, the Aquarium, Central Park, Ellis Island, etc., etc.
ReplyDeleteDining sheds add NOTHING to NYC but noise & rats & mess. They are a shabby downgrade of what NYC stands for.
You can eat in a shed in many other places, but NYC doesn't need dining sheds b/c it has EVERYTHING else.
If you think dining sheds add anything to what's essential about NYC, maybe we're actually reaching the end of civilization.
Land grab by restaurant owners and landlords. Our shared infrastructure is not for rent, or profit for the few. Citibike is not a charity yet it has confiscated public land for it's profit. Defenders of this obvious refuse to think this through before supporting this private takeover of our streets.
ReplyDelete@noble neolani: Agree with you 100%! People get so bent out of shape at the idea that private cars actually use the public *parking lane* to PARK in (oh, the horror!). Those same people almost always fail to note that when you park at a meter, you're paying dearly for the use of that space.
ReplyDeleteIMO, everyone who hates cars & parking should equally vehemently oppose the essentially literal GIVE-AWAY of our public space to both Citibike AND to private restaurants.
And that's the real story here: NYC handing over taxpayer-funded space to private corporations that then make a ton of money for themselves, while inconveniencing everyone else.
Why would fills who are interested in reducing car traffic - and the attendant pollution, congestion and danger to pedestrians and bicyclists -- in the city be opposed to the citibike docks, which have increased bike use tremendously? Even if I did not use a citibike four or five days a week, I would be in favor of the docks because they increase bike use, and that is a general good.
Deletewhat is this 'land grab' by the restaurant industry that people speak of? we should give that land back to the 'people,' i.e. car owners who think it's their god given right to park for free? maybe we should start actually charging people to park on the street so we can stop accusing greedy restaurant owners of taking public space for free?
ReplyDelete@12:20pm: Maybe once in your life you should take a LOOK at a parking meter on any avenue and see how much it COSTS to park there. It most certainly is NOT "free"!
ReplyDeleteThe term "parking lane" and the presence of parking meters should be an indicator that the city intends for that public space to be available for cars to park in temporarily.
Meanwhile, Citibike docks and restaurant sheds are taking up public-funded space for free 24 hours a day, every day of the year, and you somehow have no problem with that!
I live in alphabet city and most of it is unmetered. I’d be pro-more meters. People shouldn’t be able to store their cars for free on city streets. The only people who disagree are the ones storing their cars for free.
DeleteLook at the Brooklyn Dumpling shed which is on both 1st Avenue and St Marks Place. The only people who ever use it are the food delivery drivers.
ReplyDeleteI live on that block and you are correct. They have a shed on Saint Marks and another shed on 1st Avenue. They are never used for dining. They have become pit stops for people who need to stop and have a smoke, or a shot of booze. These should be removed.
Delete@4:22pm: You think increasing bike use is a "general good"?
ReplyDeleteDoes the "general good" include terrifying the elderly, the disabled, and those who can't move fast enough to get out of the way of bike riders? Does it include *laughing* at the elderly, the disabled, etc. when you scare the shit out of them?
Does it include bike riders who obey NO laws, who blow through red lights, who go the wrong way on streets and avenues? Does it include bike riders who are LOOKING AT their phones, and NOT at the road ahead, as they breeze past?
Bike riders are one the most lawless groups in this whole city, and it's nothing for any of them to be proud of.
I'm in favor of the REAL "general good": Make bike riders take a safety course & pay for a license, and make them carry insurance. And make them put their damned phones away when they're riding.
Yes bikes are good for people and the environment. Agree that SOME bikers don’t obey the rules. Also some drivers don’t. how many injuries/deaths per year are there by bike vs car? Cars are infinitely more dangerous. So yes more biking would definitely be for the general good. Most people who hate citi bike racks are mad they took away their parking spot.
Deletethanks I am one of those ones in my doddering old age and I hate it when some of those bikes do not have a light on them. You cannot see them at night until they are almost on top of you. And they cannot see you. Mandate bike lights!
DeleteI'd like to claim the space outside of my apartment as an extra living room. During Covid, I lost the ability to entertain and, now that the pandemic is over, I've got a bunch of friends and family I need to host and what I currently pay for is not enough.
ReplyDelete@10:36am: "Most people who hate citi bike racks are mad they took away their parking spot." Not true; you're just making shit up, like Trump does.
ReplyDeleteMost people in NYC don't own a car, but MILLIONS of New Yorkers really hate Citibike docks b/c they're in the way of even crossing the street, AND b/c Citibike is making a fortune off of taxpayer-funded public property that it gets for free.
If you don't like free parking for cars, then logically you also wouldn't like free parking for bikes that are making money for a private corporation.
At 8:03 PM, NOTORIOUS quoth:
ReplyDeleteI'd like to claim the space outside of my apartment as an extra living room. During Covid, I lost the ability to entertain and, now that the pandemic is over, I've got a bunch of friends and family I need to host and what I currently pay for is not enough.
This is essentially what the tenants one floor below me have done; they have decided they need to store their shoes outside their apartment and have even put a 3-tier shoe rack out there.
I have messaged the LL, asking if all tenants are allowed to have additional closet space in the exterior hall; I happen to know the tenant in question has a long enough hallway inside their apartment that they shouldn't have to store things in the hall—for more than to dry out after a rain. Naturally, the LL has not replied.
Admittedly, I'm unwilling to leave shoes outside my front door because years ago, I rushed home with a pair of Doc Martens; I was in a rush to go somewhere so I tied them in a bag on my doorknob. When I returned home, they were gone. (I live on the sixth floor of a walkup, so relatively few people get to see anything I have in the hallway.)
I taped a sign to the wall: "WHO TOOK MY SHOES?" The woman next door—who had taken them—left them hanging from my doorknob and wrote on the sign: "Sorry, I thought you didn't need them anymore."
I seriously should take a pair or two from the hillbillies downstairs.
@8:03pm: PERFECT! I'd also like to annex a good (shed-sized) amount of space for free, right outside my building, so that I can have friends over for a nice, relaxing outdoor experience, just steps from my apartment. Some tables & chairs, a boom box playing, pizza & beer, and NO overhead, no tipping necessary, and we can sit there as long as we want. What's not to like?!
ReplyDeleteJust put out some lawn chairs like back in the day.
DeleteAt 12:52 PM, Exterminator said...
ReplyDeleteHere’s a fair compromise: get rid of all
the sheds, permanently. Enough already.
This city is too congested as it is. What
is wrong with eating inside a restaurant?
And if we should have another pandemic
then stay home.
MTE; GMTA! There's enough turd-polishing going on here; I haven't seen a single shed I'd actually want to sit in—and I've sat in a few.
I still don't think they'll get rid of the sheds, just because of the behemoth hospitality industry. However, if NYC gets rid of them, more communities nationwide will be encouraged to get rid of them.
I don’t outdoor dine myself but I actually enjoy the character it brings to the neighborhood. I think the city is doing this right by updating the rules. Restaurants will have to make more effort to follow the new rules and if they don’t, will be easy for sanitation to give them a fine. If they don’t want to bother with outdoor dining, then they won’t have a shed because they have to be taken down annually. I think these new rules will solve 90% of complaints about outdoor dining.
ReplyDelete@1:58pm: What would solve 100% of the complaints about outdoor dining would be for the city to find its backbone and say "Hey, pandemic's over, and therefore your temporary permission to have any dining shed is also over now."
ReplyDeleteAs a taxpayer, I'd like to have the sidewalks back for all pedestrians, & the parking lane back for any & all cars that need to park temporarily.
And if you have a problem with cars, make sure you never take a taxi or an Uber or a Lyft, b/c guess what: all of those are cars!
LOL you bvike lobby people are so wild. Who "Stores" their car? It's shared public space, when you move your car, other people can park there. It's the side of the road, where else would you like vehicles to go? I ride bikes quite a lot but you all sound insane as if a car is not a different beast and much needed.
ReplyDeleteHello fellow East Villagers
ReplyDeleteLet's form a petition for restaurants and landlords to stop the sheds and sidewalk dining
The block we live on has 5 sheds back to back, the garbage, the noise, the crowding, the rats and absolutely no privacy and huge violation of Quiet Enjoyment
The sanitation dept can't street clean effectively, collect garbage efficiently
This is not enforced and restaurant owners always take advantage of the space and have no regard for tenants who live in the same building or on the same street/block.
We constantly see seniors and disabled unable to pass safely or access to the road for transport
Also citibike has half the block
Let's clean up and get our lovely EV back
Whose in?