Good morning. It's Monday. Today we'll find out why art is coming to scaffolding on buildings in New York City. We'll also get details on the fire commissioner's sudden resignation over the weekend.
They are an everyday sight on practically every block in New York City: buildings with scaffolding, surrounded by fences or sidewalk sheds at street level. Some scaffolding are swathed in netting from the top down. The look is utilitarian, uniform and uninspiring. The city wants them to look more like art galleries, with temporary visual art on the temporary protective structures — and there are a lot of them. If the construction fences and sidewalk sheds were laid end to end, the city says, they would stretch 300 miles, or roughly the driving distance from New York City to Burlington, Vt. In 2013, when the facade of the Plaza Hotel was being cleaned, an architecturally correct rendering of the famous hotel was printed on mesh that was draped around the building to hide the scaffolding. Now the city is making artwork the default look on the fencing, netting and sidewalk sheds that go up when buildings are under construction or undergoing renovation. Today the Department of Cultural Affairs is posting an online gallery of "preapproved designs" that developers and project managers can choose from. The eight designs were chosen for a program called City Canvas, from 500 submissions by artists who answered an open call for sketches. But developers and building owners don't have to use one of those designs on their sidewalk sheds or fences. They can put up their own artwork, once it has been approved by the Cultural Affairs Department, which has a list banning obscenities, hate speech, sexual content and advertising. "Sidewalk sheds and construction fences serve an important public safety purpose here in this city," James Oddo, the commissioner of the Department of Buildings, said. "But that doesn't mean we have to settle for the uninspired hunter green designs that do nothing to enhance the city's public realm." Hunter green was the color mandated by a 2013 law that standardized the appearance of sidewalk sheds and construction fences. For Laurie Cumbo, the commissioner of Cultural Affairs, turning the fixtures of construction sites into art installations is a longtime cause. She was the City Council's majority leader from 2018 to 2021 and had pushed for the legislation that authorized the City Canvas program. "Every square inch of New York City needs to have art and culture at its center, and this is a way to do it," she said. "We saw when I was in the Council that scaffolding can create blight in neighborhoods and create unsafe spaces, spaces appearing to be desolate and uncared for." Putting art on scaffolding will make people "think differently about their neighborhoods," she said. "It creates wonder. That's what we want." Every new construction project in the city will be enrolled in City Canvas when the developer or owner applies for a building permit; Cumbo's agency is overseeing the program with the Buildings Department. The city's licensing and fee guidelines suggest paying the artists as much as $7,000 for use of preapproved designs. City Canvas began last year after a pilot program in 2018, when 119 artists did 124 works at 47 locations around the city. For the open call, Cultural Affairs convened a panel of artists and arts professionals to select the eight finalists. One of the eight, Zazu Swistel, said that the design she submitted was the largest she had ever drawn — and that her training in architecture had paid off when she was working it up because she could imagine the scale of a design big enough to envelop a building. Cumbo said she hoped that artists' careers would "take off as a result of having participated in this program," but that may take a while. Swistel said she was starting a job in an architectural firm on Monday "because I'm broke." WEATHER Today is shaping up as a two-H day — hot and humid, with temperatures soaring to the mid-90s and a chance of showers and thunderstorms around sunset. The low temperature tonight will be around 80. ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING In effect until Aug. 13 (Tisha B'Av). The latest New York news
We hope you've enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible through subscriber support. Subscribe to The New York Times. The fire commissioner is stepping down
Laura Kavanagh is stepping down after 21 months as commissioner of the New York Fire Department. She did not say why. Kavanagh, the first woman commissioner in the department's nearly 160-year history, was appointed by Mayor Eric Adams in October 2022 after eight years in high-ranking civilian jobs in the department, including eight months as interim commissioner. At 40, when Adams put her in charge after a nationwide search, she was also the youngest to serve in that role in more than a century. Her tenure was tense and tumultuous and was marred by infighting. Some top officials in her department were unhappy that she had never been a rank-and-file firefighter. Last year four top chiefs filed a lawsuit that took aim at her, repeatedly using the phrase "never a day as a firefighter." The suit claimed that three of the chiefs had been unfairly demoted, creating a "grave risk" for the city. At the time, Kavanagh dismissed claims that the shake-up had compromised safety. Kavanagh said in a statement that she would stay on for several months until a new commissioner is named. She also thanked Adams for his support. But Joann Ariola, the chairwoman of the City Council committee that has jurisdiction over the Fire Department, said in a social media post that Kavanagh "should never have been in this position to begin with." "If there was one thing that needed to be fixed in the @FDNY, it was her," Ariola said. The mayor thanked Kavanagh, crediting her with "leading the department to new heights." He added that, "while we've made it clear that she could have kept this position for as long as she wanted, we respect her decision to take the next step in her career." METROPOLITAN DIARY Locked out
Dear Diary: I woke up at 9:30 on a Thursday morning to the sound of persistent knocking at the door of my Manhattan apartment. I rushed to answer and was greeted by two firefighters from the firehouse across the street. They said they had been told that someone on the rear terrace of the floor above mine was locked out and needed help. They went out to my terrace and yelled up that help was on the way. I told them that the owners of the unit were out of the country, and that I had no idea who might be stuck up there. But I had the keys to that floor, so they used them to open the door. A short time later, I met the woman whose predicament had prompted the firefighters' arrival. She was a friend of the owners who was staying in their place temporarily. It turned out that she had locked herself out on the terrace without her cellphone the previous night and had been forced to spend the whole night there. In the morning, she had fashioned an SOS sign by arranging the leaves of a mint plant on a tray on the terrace. She used this sign to gain the attention of the people living in a building facing mine. Those people called the Fire Department. Thus ended the tale of the mint-leaf rescue. — Dolph Klainberg Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here. Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B. P.S. Here's today's Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here. Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox.
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Monday, July 15, 2024
N.Y. Today: Making scaffolding artful
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