Good morning. It’s Monday. Today we’ll talk to a reporter who unpacked the evolution of the New York City bench.
Many city benches have gradually changed over the years, trading delicate design for rigid features like iron arm rests that are also meant to curb loitering and vagrancy. Some public seating has disappeared altogether.
New York City and state officials, from parks commissioners to the leaders of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which oversees the subway system, have long manipulated the city’s built environment to shape public behavior by using hostile or defensive architecture.
The changes to benches have posed a challenge for members of a growing homeless population — now the largest since the Great Depression — who often use these structures as beds. But there have also been broader social consequences for New Yorkers who see the bench as a symbol of connectedness.
My colleague Anna Kodé had been thinking about seating in public spaces for a while before she recently started reporting on homelessness in the city. She turned her thoughts into an article, and I talked to her about the evolution of the New York City bench.
You open your story with examples of memorable moments that take place on New York City benches. What’s your favorite memory?
I sit on the benches in Washington Square Park a lot. There’s so much going on, so you don’t even need a book or any sort of entertainment with you. You can just sit and watch the craziness of the city kind of unfold right there.
In general, areas with seating options of any kind tend to be livelier than areas that lack seating. Some people will be eating, others will be hanging out, or people will be talking and reading. There are just way more things happening when there’s a place for people to sit down.
While reporting, did you notice people being inventive with creating a place to sit where there was no seating?
I don’t know if inventive is the right word — I’d say resilient. I spoke to a homeless man who told me he slept on benches with bars that gave him back and neck pain. One of the homeless men I spoke with said that he slept beneath the bench pretty often, that it was more comfortable than sleeping on a bench that had armrests kind of dividing it.
That was something I noticed walking around the city while I was reporting this story: People were doing that or sleeping on the spikes that are on windowsills, and it looked really uncomfortable and painful. But, at the same time, they had no other choice. I think I would call that resilient or, you know, people just doing the best with what they have.
The design changes that you wrote about coincide with some pretty big policy changes. Can you talk about them?
Over the years we see the bench getting more uncomfortable, we see bars being put up. We see it being made in uncomfortable shapes. We see it become this object that you can’t even sit on, as is the case with the leaning bench.
Throughout that whole time, there have been several policy changes, most notably under Rudy Giuliani. When he was mayor, he criminalized sleeping on the streets. And he was known for lots of policies that restricted the behaviors of homeless people in public.
Robert Moses, the former parks commissioner, was also known for this. Which policymakers and agencies have the biggest influence on these decisions today?
The M.T.A. has a lot of control over what benches are in its subway stations. In recent years, there has been a series of high-profile violent attacks on the subway, though crime overall is down. And I think there’s a lot of fear around the subway as a place to be in terms of safety. We’re seeing this come up in the mayoral election. Some of the candidates have framed it as a public safety issue; some view it as a homelessness issue.
There are a lot of privately owned public spaces in New York. These are typically owned by corporations or companies, and they have a say over what benches they include in their lobbies or plazas — sometimes none at all. And there are privately owned public parks as well. So it’s pretty much anyone with control over a parcel of space.
You described people having awkward interactions with the leaning bench. How did working on this story change, if at all, the way that you use this type of bench?
I knew what to do with the leaning bench because I was working on the story. But it just looks like bars. It’s really unclear what the purpose is unless you know that you’re supposed to lean on it. I saw people pass by them or look at them, or choose to lean on a wall nearby instead.
Do you notice what has been called hostile architecture more after writing this article?
I notice seating, or the lack of it, more, for sure. I’ll walk around and I’ll just be more aware of spaces that have benches versus no benches. And I’m also more aware now of when people sit on something that’s not a bench, like when they’re sitting on a planter or the ledge of a fountain or a staircase and all the makeshift ways in which people will turn an unsocial space into a social one.
Weather
Expect showers and a possible thunderstorm, with temperatures reaching the low 60s. At night, temperatures will drop to the low 50s.
ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING
Canceled today (Diwali).
The latest New York news
-
How a community is affected by the war in Gaza: Fifteen miles west of Manhattan, in Paterson, N.J., a community is often painfully connected to a conflict half a world away.
-
Gold prices soar: Gold prices are hitting record levels, drawing newcomers and regulars alike to the diamond district.
-
A mental health leader, dead at 80: As Bellevue Hospital’s director of psychiatry, Manuel Trujillo guided rescue workers and grieving families through trauma when terrorists attacked in 2001.
-
Broadway actors reach deal: The Actors’ Equity Association reached a tentative agreement with the Broadway League. Union members must decide whether to ratify it.
METROPOLITAN diary
Elizabeth
Dear Diary:
I work the closing shift at a bar in SoHo. To begin my trip home to East Williamsburg in Brooklyn, I can take either the 6 at Spring Street or the R/W at Prince before changing at 14th Street for the L.
Almost every night, I take the 6 so that I can see Elizabeth, a fourth-generation New Yorker and subway attendant who always steps out of her booth so we can catch up.
Elizabeth works at stations along the 6, L and Eighth Avenue lines, among others. She has blue and purple hair, and she loves the designer Patricia Field.
Recently, a guy I had been seeing visited me at the bar. On our way back to my apartment, I introduced him to Elizabeth. He loved her, and I loved watching them talk.
A few weeks later, Elizabeth and I chatted as I waited for the train. I mentioned that I had arranged an outing the next night for my friends to meet the guy she had met.
After a hung-over Sunday shift, I walked to the Spring Street stop, and there was Elizabeth, wearing a Patricia Field hat.
“How’d last night go meeting the friends?”
My eyes watered. After two days, two shifts at different stations and hundreds of people passing her by, she had remembered.
“It went great,” I said. “He asked me to be his boyfriend.”
— Stephen Bradley
Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
Glad we could get together here. M.W.
P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here.
Hannah Fidelman and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at [email protected].
Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox.
The post The Politics Behind the Redesign of New York’s Benches appeared first on New York Times.
