Standing in the skinny strip between the northbound and southbound lanes of Park Avenue, surrounded by honking horns and whizzing or crawling traffic, it is a little hard to picture it as a place to sit and relax.
“Right here in the middle of the road?” Pooja Ranganathan asked as she was passing by on Tuesday afternoon.
But that is what New York City is planning: On Wednesday, it will unveil two possible redesigns for an 11-block stretch of the boulevard, from East 46th Street to East 57th Street, both aimed at transforming one of the city’s least inviting green spaces into, at the very least, a decent place to eat a sandwich. Two traffic lanes, one in each direction, will be sacrificed to make the median about twice as wide.
Renderings of the plan show broad, sweeping walkways; rows of trees; benches; and, in one of the two versions, bicycle lanes. The city is also promising “innovative streetscape amenities,” which the Transportation Department said included creating “sort of an urban forest on the median.”
Looking at the plans, Ms. Ranganathan, 31, who works in advertising nearby, started to warm to the idea.
“It would be interesting to see it come to life, if the honking and the noise pollution were a little bit softer,” she said. “I want to be cautiously optimistic.”
The plan to remake the strip is a byproduct of another infrastructure project: the rehabilitation of the Grand Central Terminal train shed beneath Park Avenue, which requires the removal of the existing median. The median project will take at least five years, the Transportation Department said.
As urban oases go, perhaps the nicest thing you can say about the 20-foot-wide Park Avenue median is that it is an OK place to pause for a few seconds while crossing the street. Most of the island is planted with flowers and trees and grass but is designed to discourage pedestrians. To get to where the nature actually is, you would have to hop up onto the border of a raised bed and either walk along the narrow parapet — one false step and you’d be run down by a cab — or wade through tulips or hedges.
On Tuesday afternoon, the only living beings visible along the median were a flock of pigeons absently pecking at the grass and a lone starling. A dead pigeon lay on its back beneath a yew bush.
While the plan may seem revolutionary, it is the opposite: The city’s proposed designs are throwbacks to what Park Avenue looked like a century ago, when New York’s boulevards had much more space for pedestrians and much less for automobiles. The original park along the median gave the avenue its name.
“With this new redesign, we are putting the ‘Park’ back into Park Avenue and upgrading Midtown Manhattan by providing residents and visitors alike with more usable public space,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani said in a statement.
The city is seeking public feedback about the designs. It will have information tables set up on the avenue at lunchtime and during the evening rush on Wednesday and on Saturday morning, and is conducting an online survey.
An informal poll of people who were crossing the street on Tuesday afternoon found most of them in favor of the city’s vision.
“I would love that to happen,” said Mustafa Ecer, 29, an interior designer. “Trees, greenery, benches, nothing I have to pay for, a green ‘third space’ — the less cars, the better.”
Janald Dufont, 33, a video production assistant whose job often involves driving around the city, was less certain.
“I feel conflicted,” said Mr. Dufont, who goes by Jay D, while he was on his way to pick up a camera on Fifth Avenue. “I’m all for green and serene, but a lot of people around here rely on cars. If they cut the traffic lanes, it’s going to cause more congestion. It’s getting to the point where walking will be faster.”
Two women who work at a bank nearby had no problem envisioning themselves enjoying the new park.
“I’d stop for coffee,” said Mallika Velamuri, 26.
“What about a picnic table?” said her friend, Carolyn Cassell, 24. “That would be really nice.”
Andy Newman has reported from the New York region for The Times for more than 30 years.
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