Good morning. It’s Wednesday. Today we’ll look at proposed changes in rules governing a seemingly permanent part of the streetscape in New York City: sidewalk sheds around construction sites and buildings undergoing repairs. We’ll also get details on a letter that raised questions about a Justice Department official’s testimony on the corruption case against Mayor Eric Adams.
It is unattractive, uninspiring and everywhere in New York City: sidewalk-shed scaffolding in front of buildings that are supposed to be undergoing repairs. There are more than 8,400 such sheds around the city.
It’s hardly surprising that they seem to be permanent features of the landscape. The average age of a sidewalk shed is 16 months. More than 300 have been up for more than five years. One stood in front of the headquarters of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner for 15 years. It was finally taken down last August after city contractors repaired the facade of the building.
Today the City Council is set to pass several bills that would change the rules for sidewalk sheds. The changes include these:
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Shortening the length of permits for sheds to three months, from a year, with possible penalties as high as $200 per linear foot per month (but not more than $6,000 a month).
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Lengthening the time between inspections, to once every eight years, from once every five for new buildings. Some existing buildings could go as long as 12 years between inspections. “Longer inspection cycles mean fewer sheds,” a City Hall spokeswoman said.
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Allowing colors besides hunter green. Sheds could also be “metallic gray” or white, or a color matching the building they surround. “We want to make hunter green a thing of the past,” said Keith Powers, a City Council member who sponsored three of the bills on the agenda.
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Raising the height of sheds to 12 feet, from eight feet, and requiring brighter lighting.
Powers, a Democrat from Manhattan, called current scaffolding rules “archaic.” He said the changes were intended to “strike a balance” that would maintain safety for pedestrians “while recognizing that New York City is covered in scaffolding and that we can reasonably reduce the amount of it.”
The administration of Mayor Eric Adams — which is often at odds with the Council and its speaker, Adrienne Adams — supports the bills. Ya-Ting Liu, whom the mayor appointed chief public realm officer in 2023, called sidewalk sheds “one of the singular unifying issues that has transcended politics, has transcended administrations, has transcended whatever kinds of divides and boundaries we all want to set up.” (The speaker, who is not related to the mayor, is running to unseat him.)
But City Hall also sees sheds from the landlord’s perspective. The changes would reduce the number of sheds at city-run housing complexes.
Liu and Mark Levine, the Manhattan borough president, both said that sidewalk sheds set New York apart from cities in this country and in Europe. Levine said it was “hard to overstate” how sheds define the look of the city and the way the world sees New York.
“When Trump was brought into the court building on Centre Street for his trial,” he said, referring to the criminal trial involving hush-money payments to a porn actress, “every camera from every media outlet was there, and of course the building was covered by scaffolding.”
Supporters of the bills say that scaffolding that stays up for a long time creates other problems. “Any small business will tell you that foot traffic drops when scaffolding goes up because the facade is not visible anymore,” Levine said, “and there are public safety implications because bad things tend to happen under cover of scaffolding. Drug dealers in particular tend to congregate because often you’re out of camera view.” The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, and Powers wrote an Op-Ed article in The Daily News last year that said there were “numerous examples, from robberies to shootings, where the presence of sheds hindered law enforcement investigations.”
Installing scaffolding in New York is big business. Bloomberg estimated in 2022 that New York had a billion-dollar share of the scaffolding industry, which has its own trade group, the New York City Special Riggers Association. Kenneth Buettner, the president of a scaffolding company and a director of the group, said that officials had taken many of the group’s suggestions into account in drafting the bills.
But it takes issue with raising the height requirement to 12 feet. He said that scaffolding companies would have to scrap all the vertical supports — known as “legs” — that they have on hand. They would also need more time to install and dismantle the taller new sheds.
“As you put up sheds of higher leg heights,” he said, “they require labor and they require more time to install and dismantle. That’s all good for property owners who have the money to pay for it.” But he said the higher costs involved would be a burden for owners of smaller buildings.
Weather
Expect partly sunny skies with isolated showers, mild winds and a high near 51 degrees. In the evening, showers will continue, with temperatures in the mid-30s.
ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING
In effect until March 31 (Eid al-Fitr).
The latest New York news
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Road salt and the city’s drinking water: A new environmental report finds that rising salt levels in New York City’s water supply could make some of it undrinkable by the beginning of the next century.
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Columbia faculty protests concessions: At least 50 professors joined a protest against the Trump administration’s threat of federal funding cuts and what they criticized as the university’s conciliatory response. Separately, two groups representing faculty members at Columbia sued the Trump administration, arguing that the administration’s cancellation of $400 million in aid was unconstitutional.
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U.S. told to stop trying to deport a Columbia student: Judge Naomi Buchwald ordered the Trump administration to halt its efforts to arrest and deport a 21-year-old Columbia University student who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
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“Spring breakers”: Hundreds of teenagers from some of the nation’s most expensive high schools took part in what has become an unsanctioned tradition: spring break at a luxury resort in the Bahamas — trips that make school administrators cringe.
A letter raises questions about an official’s testimony
During his U.S. Senate confirmation hearing last month, the nominee for deputy attorney general testified that he had no direct knowledge of the Justice Department’s move to drop the corruption case against Mayor Eric Adams.
“I have the same information you have,” the nominee, Todd Blanche, above, told Senator Peter Welch, a Democrat from Vermont.
But in a draft letter unsealed on Tuesday, the interim U.S. attorney in Manhattan wrote that a top Justice Department official, Emil Bove III, had suggested otherwise before ordering her to seek the dismissal of the case.
The U.S. attorney, Danielle R. Sassoon, wrote that when she suggested that department officials await Blanche’s Senate confirmation so he could play a role in the decision, Bove had told her that Blanche was on the “same page” and that there was “no need to wait.” The draft letter was written by Ms. Sassoon earlier this year as she fought to keep the case going.
The document was among communications that included emails and texts submitted under seal to Judge Dale Ho by Bove and Blanche after Blanche was confirmed. The material was attached to a motion supporting their argument for dismissal of the corruption indictment against Adams. Judge Ho has yet to rule.
A Justice Department spokesman said in a statement that Blanche had played no role in decisions at the agency before he was confirmed on March 5. The spokesman did not respond to additional questions about whether Blanche had been aware of or involved in conversations about the decision to drop the Adams case.
METROPOLITAN diary
Across the Courtyard
Dear Diary:
In 1976, I moved into a place on West 12th Street and began a graduate program at the New School.
Because I was coming from suburban Boston and college in western Massachusetts, the move to New York City was terrifying and exciting. My parents were horrified.
After I moved in, I and a somewhat older man with a mustache began a flirtation from our windows across the building’s courtyard from each other.
Eventually, we met for coffee, and he took me for rides through the city on his motorcycle. He was mysterious, charming and fun. I was smitten.
Then one day I glimpsed a woman in his window, then later on the back of his bike. That was the end of that.
I never got back the frying pan I lent him. And I bought some curtains.
— Denise Miller
Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
Our item about how tariffs are hurting cannabis workers incorrectly characterized some cannabis workers at Hepworth Farms in Milton, N.Y. They all have the legal right to work; they are not undocumented. We also misspelled the location of another grower, Florist Farms. It is in Cortland, N.Y., not Cortlandt.
See you tomorrow. — J.B.
P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here.
Stefano Montali, Sarah Goodman and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at [email protected].
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The post Everyone Hates Sidewalk Sheds. Now There May Be Fewer of Them. appeared first on New York Times.
