Goodbye, sidewalk sheds. Hello, urban “umbrellas.”
In a bid to beautify city sidewalks, Mayor Bloomberg yesterday rolled out a replacement for the hideous steel and plywood sheds that have been leaking rain water or blocking sunshine for pedestrians outside construction sites since the early 1950s.
“These structures reflect the face of a city that is constantly changing, yet the sheds themselves haven’t evolved at all in the past five decades,” the mayor said. “It’s time to bring them into the 21st century.”
The shed’s replacement, dubbed the urban umbrella, was picked from among 164 designs submitted from 28 countries. The winner, Young-Hwan Choi, is a 28-year-old student at the University of Pennsylvania.
Equipped with translucent roof panels, the umbrellas are meant to leave sidewalks around construction sites feeling bright and open.
“The panel system will bring light into the street,” Choi said of the umbrella’s top.
Bloomberg told Choi, “If other cities follow this design, you’re really going to change the world.”
Buildings Commissioner Robert LiMandri said there are about 6,000 sidewalk sheds in the city, covering 1 million linear feet of sidewalk. The sheds can be found anywhere construction or building repairs are going on.
Bloomberg said the cost of the new sheds would be comparable to current ones, about $100 a square foot. Once production ramps up, he claimed, the new sheds would actually cost 30 percent less.
Bloomberg said no property owner would be forced to use the new design.
“The ways to do it is to make it in their interest, and then people will demand it,” he said.