By Gus Saltonstall
In recent days, you might have noticed restaurants once again erecting outdoor dining cafes on the Upper West Side.
The official outdoor dining season in New York City began on Wednesday, April 1. The “Dining Out NYC” program runs until November 29, and restaurants can once again offer seating on both the sidewalk and the roadbeds outside of their storefronts.
Restaurants can provide sidewalk cafes all year long, while the outdoor dining set-ups on the street can only be operated from April through November.
Below is a list of the 101 Upper West Side restaurants that have at least received conditional approval for outdoor dining in 2026.
As of April 1, more than 1,600 restaurants in the five boroughs were eligible to operate a roadway or sidewalk dining option.
Since we are still just a handful of days into the outdoor dining season, there is a good chance that some of these restaurants have not yet fully set up their operation.
10023 ZIP Code (33 restaurants approved or conditionally approved for outdoor dining)
- Arte Cafe: 104 West 73rd Street
- Asset: 329 Columbus Avenue
- Black Press Coffee: 274 Columbus Avenue
- Cafe Luxembourg: 200 West 70th Street
- Dive 75: 101 West 75th Street
- Ella Kitchen & Bar: 249 Columbus Avenue
- El Mitote: 208 Columbus Avenue
- Empire Szechuan Kyoto: 193 Columbus Avenue
- Felice: 240 Columbus Avenue
- Joe Coffee: 187 Columbus Avenue
- Le Botaniste: 156 Columbus Avenue
- Le Pain Quotidien: 60 West 65th Street
- Leyla: 108 West 74th Street
- Made in New York Pizza: 271 Amsterdam Avenue
- Maman: 152 Columbus Avenue
- Manny’s Bistro: 225 Columbus Avenue
- The Migrant Kitchen: 157 Columbus Avenue
- Miriam: 300 Amsterdam Avenue
- The Mermaid Inn: 335 Columbus Avenue
- The Owl’s Tail: 212 West 75th Street
- Pappardella: 316 Columbus Avenue
- Parla: 320 Columbus Avenue
- Playa Betty’s: 320 Amsterdam Avenue
- Pomodoro Ristorante: 229 Columbus Avenue
- P.J. Clarke’s: 44 West 63rd Street
- Sala Thai: 307 Amsterdam Avenue
- Salumeria Rosi: 283 Amsterdam Avenue
- Santa Fe: 73 West 71st Street
- SweetGreen: 159 Columbus Avenue
- The Smith: 1900 Broadway
- Viand Cafe: 2130 Broadway
- Wonder: 2030 Broadway
- Zucker’s: 273 Columbus Avenue
10024 ZIP Code (45 restaurants approved or conditionally approved for outdoor dining)
- 5 Napkin Burger: 2315 Broadway
- Barney Greengrass: 541 Amsterdam Avenue
- Beer Run Columbus: 547 Columbus Avenue
- Bodega 88: 573 Columbus Avenue
- Bodrum: 584 Amsterdam Avenue
- Bella Luna: 574 Columbus Avenue
- Caledonia: 424 Amsterdam Avenue
- Cafe Eighty Two: 2282 Broadway
- Carmine’s: 2450 Broadway
- Chama Mama: 373 Amsterdam Avenue
- Chirping Chicken: 355 Amsterdam Avenue
- Cotta: 513 Columbus Avenue
- Dagon: 2454 Broadway
- Daily Provisions: 375 Amsterdam Avenue
- The Dead Poet: 450 Amsterdam Avenue
- Elea: 217 West 85th Street
- French Roast: 2340 Broadway
- Gari Columbus: 370 Columbus Avenue
- The Gin Mill: 442 Amsterdam Avenue
- Hi Life Bar & Grill: 477 Amsterdam Avenue
- The Hoptimist: 422 Amsterdam Avenue
- Jake’s Dilemma: 430 Amsterdam Avenue
- Joe’s Coffee: 514 Columbus Avenue
- La Sirene: 416 Amsterdam Avenue
- Lokal: 473 Columbus Avenue
- La Pecora Bianca: 359 Columbus Avenue
- Made in New York Pizza: 421 Amsterdam Avenue
- Maman: 429 Amsterdam Avenue
- Mido Sushi: 612 Amsterdam Avenue
- Momoya: 427 Amsterdam Avenue
- Motorino: 510 Columbus Avenue
- Nice Matin: 201 West 79th Street
- Noi Due Cafe: 491 Columbus Avenue
- Sarabeth’s: 423 Amsterdam Avenue
- Song E’Napule: 464 Amsterdam Avenue
- Spice: 435 Amsterdam Avenue
- Tarallucci E Vino: 475 Columbus Avenue
- Tessa: 349 Amsterdam Avenue
- Tiki Chick: 517 Amsterdam Avenue
- The Viand Diner: 517 Columbus Avenue
- Wafels & Dinges: 392 Columbus Avenue
- Water & Wheat: 2418 Broadway
- Westville: 2290 Broadway
- The Wolfe: 425 Amsterdam Avenue
10025 ZIP Code (23 restaurants approved or conditionally approved for outdoor dining)
- Afternoon: 2785 Broadway
- Arco Cafe: 886 Amsterdam Avenue
- Birch Coffee: 750 Columbus Avenue
- Blank Street Coffee: 2461 Broadway
- Bosinio: 203 West 103rd Street
- Broadway Dive: 2662 Broadway
- Cafe Du Soleil: 245 West 104th Street
- The Calaveras: 949 Columbus Avenue
- Dive 106: 939 Amsterdam Avenue
- Dive Bar: 732 Amsterdam Avenue
- Effy’s Cafe: 104 West 96th Street
- The Ellington: 2745 Broadway
- Just Salad: 670 Columbus Avenue
- Kouzan: 685 Amsterdam Avenue
- Little Italy Pizza: 214 West 92nd Street
- Marlow Bistro: 1018 Amsterdam Avenue
- Osteria Accademia: 646 Amsterdam Avenue
- Picky Barista: 667 Columbus Avenue
- Rincon Mexicano: 768 Amsterdam Avenue
- Sapps UWS: 2888 Broadway
- Smoke: 2751 Broadway
- Tom’s Restaurant: 2880 Broadway
- V&T Pizza: 1024 Amsterdam Avenue
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is this really a good thing?
Yes. If outdoor dining bothers you, perhaps city life is not for you.
Curmudgeon
Street shed dining is actually a new city life feature – NYC implemented in 2020 to save restaurants during Covid. It was supposed to be temporary.
However there has traditionally been sidewalk cafe seating.
BTW no such support was given to retail or other businesses – which continue to struggle with high rent, ecommerce, theft etc.
Strange that only restaurants get out-sized preferential support from NYC?
NO
NO
For sure it is! Why wouldn’t it be? Great way to hang out, watch the street scene, run into people you know, and generally enjoy New York. You don’t really think the rats hanging out inside trash bags on the streets need those restaurants for crumbs, do you?
Definitely
1600 permits citywide and over 100 are on the UWS? This is why some people are frustrated by the congestion these sheds create.
Yes, let’s make the roads narrower with bus and bike lanes. Then, implement congestion pricing so that everyone pays. We can even make it even narrower and add restaurant sheds. Now, where will deliveries be done – on both side of the streets? No wonder emergency vehicles have to even turn the sirens up because we now have only one lane open. Witness this on the restaurant row on the 77 – 86 and Amsterdam.
Right On
What congestion? If they were on side streets with narrower sidewalks, they would create congestion, but on the avenues they don’t!
That’s funny.
Have you been on an avenue like Columbus or Amsterda that already is narrowed by a bike lane and buffer. And has buses . And then a shed. And maybe one on the opposite side of the avenue?
And having to dodge servers to walk or roll past. Parking spaces gone.
Love sitting outside. Even in narrower streets, easy to pass by on sidewalks. Reminds me of wonderful Europe. Worked beautifully last year.
This is not Europe!
Awesome! We’re truly spoiled in the UWS. As for the congestion, I love having access to the 1, 2, 3, C, & B trains. Driving should absolutely not be prioritized in one of the most transit rich neighborhoods not just in the city, but the entire country.
HEAR HEAR!!
Driving absolutely should be prioritized as there’s limits to public transportation. There’s a reason why people desire one seat rides, resources are always limited even if transit is “fully funded”. I doubt UWS residents would be very happy if NJ Transit buses directly served the UWS and had stops here. B and C trains? Try taking them on the weekend when the B doesn’t run and the C runs less service or there’s construction that indirectly impacts service. The end game here is weaponizing our streets to make it difficult for people to move around so much so that they barely venture far from their homes just like the 19th century.
‘Driving should be prioritized’ in the Upper West Side is honestly a wild take.
You’re arguing that the least space-efficient, most congesting, and least-used mode of transportation in the neighborhood deserves priority over the ones that move the vast majority of people. That’s not a serious mobility argument, it’s just personal preference dressed up as policy.
The ‘one-seat ride’ point is doing a lot of work here. Yes, everyone would love a private door-to-door trip. That doesn’t mean a dense Manhattan neighborhood should be designed around that fantasy. If everyone got their ‘one-seat ride,’ the entire area would be permanently gridlocked, which is exactly what happens when you prioritize cars.
You also bring up weekend subway service like it proves your point. It doesn’t. Imperfect transit is still moving exponentially more people than cars ever could in the same space. The solution to transit gaps is better transit, not handing more street space to the least efficient option available.
And the idea that streets are being ‘weaponized’ is backwards. Streets have already been engineered for decades to favor cars at the expense of everyone else. Rebalancing that isn’t oppression, it’s basic urban functionality.
If your argument boils down to ‘sometimes the subway is annoying, so cars should come first,’ that’s not a systems-level view. That’s just you wanting your preferred mode to win regardless of how inefficient it is for everyone else.
I couldn’t agree more! Strap on a pair and ride the subway.
Then live your values and get off Citibike and onto the subway!
YES YES YES!! The future is clean energy. These puercos need to get with the earth program and get off the entitlement of oil addiction.
Most bike riders are cannibalized from transit. You want to force people onto unreliable or inconvenient or cumbersome transit because YOU, the YIMBY doesn’t want to be on subways unless they have to!
To where and who that imperfect transit moves is also a very important part of the equation. Using transit is a sacrifice and there are limits to how much sacrifice people are willing to accept. Maybe urbanists care less about people but “efficiency” so that they can prioritize what they see as better and what people connected to them can make money off of.
We’ve spent so much time and effort on better transit, which is not a bad thing, but the bottom line is when you have leaders who prefer to delegate difficult decisions on transit policy rather than take direct accountability on transit service, you need to be able to meet people where they are and driving is the better option in some cases. Also you need to have redundancy and a safety valve so the transit system is run well. People driving and parking on the street provides this safety valve. If people leave the transit system to their cars, that’s something that creates political pressure for better transit. Not a captive audience that has Riders Alliance and Mark Gorton’s money pretend to speak for them since they cannot independently organize.
Using public transit is a sacrifice?? I actively began selecting public transit ever since 9/11… and I was in LA at the time! Move to the suburbs with your consumptive, anti-humanist mentality.
Now THAT is a well-reasoned, compelling, and coherently stated argument.
Hi UWSYIMBY, you seem new here, welcome! Your points are all spot on.
Eugene lives in Long Island and loves to gripe about how the UWS should prioritize his convenience to drive here instead of the wellbeing of those that actual live on the UWS, so while its absolutely a wild take it is pretty standard fare from him.
UWSYIMBY,
Actually quite a lot of the vehicles on the street are E-commerce/delivery and Uber.
How should that be addressed?
Go buy your stuff, don’t get it delivered.
Exactly. A huge share of street traffic is deliveries and Uber. That’s not an argument for prioritizing cars, it’s an argument for managing them better.
E-commerce deliveries are necessary, but private car use is not. If anything, that makes it more important not to waste limited street space on low-occupancy personal vehicles. Why should one person in a private car get the same priority as a delivery vehicle serving dozens of households?
Same with Uber. A lot of that traffic exists because we’ve made it easy to flood streets with for-hire vehicles. Other cities have capped or priced that. It’s a policy choice, not some unavoidable force of nature.
If streets are congested, the answer isn’t ‘give cars more priority,’ it’s to be more selective about which vehicles we prioritize. Deliveries, buses, and emergency vehicles actually move goods and people efficiently. Single-occupancy cars do not.
So you’re right about what’s on the road. You’re just drawing the exact wrong conclusion from it.
So Amazon is necessary but someone making a trip that is hard to do by transit (and you don’t know their life situation and it is none of your business either) is not?
E commerce deliveries would not be necessary if we supported our neighborhood stores instead of buying everything off Amazon and having it delivered.
Who’s talking about driving? They also create crowding on the sidewalks as servers come in and out of the shed. Bike lanes are effectively blocked sometimes and people entering and exiting the sheds risk getting hit by ebikes.
The rats will still enjoy their hiding spots under these new sheds.
And about driving and parking? It’s not suddenly going to be diminished because of fewer parking spaces. It just creates more double parking.
I like that there are now fewer obstacles to seasonal sidewalk cafes. Those get pulled in at night, don’t create many of the shed problems and are generally more pleasant in my observations.
Dining sheds don’t have to move for alternate side, vehicles do.
“ Bike lanes are effectively blocked sometimes”
I’m really tired of these bikes barreling down down no regard for anyone. Sheds might have their downside but this is not one of them.
It is if they then ride on the sidewalk or weave in and out of traffic making them even harder for pedestrians to avoid.
Bad behavior by some or many ebike riders doesn’t justify blocking bike lanes. If you want fewer bike lanes, petition for it.
Great to see these come back, but hopefully the city council revises the onerous requirements implemented under the Adams administration. For example, Felice used to have a large and very nice outdoor dining area that fit ~12 people comfortably, now under the new guidelines they have a much smaller and shabbier area that fits maybe 8 people.
UWS Dad:
Good to see your opinion.
Actually was wondering – did not see your weigh-in on the West Side schools issue?
Thanks Sam, I know my opinion is highly valued around here.
I don’t have a strong point of view or special knowledge around the recent school closure discussions so I’m content to read what other folks are saying about it.
Thank you so much. Now if the weather will cooperate…….
We try hard to make and keep The UWS beautiful then allow these eyesores to be erected. Doesn’t make any sense.
I don’t understand the appeal. They make me feel like I’m eating in a tool shed. Even if I take an altogether nicer traditional outdoor table under an umbrella, I still have to look at the tool shed. So I opt for inside, no matter how beautiful the weather (or go elsewhere).
That’s fine, others prefer sitting outside and this way diners have the freedom to choose! The extra restaurant seats help support local restaurants and allow for employees to pick up more shifts so there are plenty of reasons this makes sense
How many residents are getting compensated for the lost space that belonged to everyone? Are the restaurants paying extra taxes for this privilege?
Yes the restaurants are paying for the space.
And the usual counter argument is why should restaurants get preferences over other types of businesses that could benefit from basically free extra square footage? They could also hire more people or offer more shifts. There’s nothing sacred about restaurants or their employees. They are as important as all other local businesses.
Many prefer not sitting inside 4 walls. Restaurants do have a special place here and overseas, with tables, sheds, whatever outside, a lovely way to eat out.
The famous New Yorker caption: “Hurry, Harry, your soup is getting dirty.”
It’s not free.
As far as I understand it’s a one time (or once per year) application fee to the city. And the cost of the shed but that’s the restaurants decision just like they might spend in upgraded interior furniture or dishes and they can use it the following year. They are not paying rent to use the curb space like they are for the storefront.
They could also be using that money to open up a new store elsewhere with lower rent so that more people can enjoy their food. I would love to see some UWS restaurants in College Point or Throgs Neck!
Sure but how is that an argument against doing something that is good for restaurants and the neighborhood? The benefit to restaurants is also more clear and direct vs say allowing a clothing store to do the same but in principal it seems fine to extend it to other businesses. As a foodie I’m sure you appreciate how important local restaurants are to the UWS.
“As a foodie I’m sure you appreciate how important local restaurants are to the UWS.”
Of course, but no more or less than other businesses.
As a foodie I enjoy dining out and at home. It doesn’t mean that I think restaurants can get anything they want in order to stay in business or increase their profits. The public good counts too. We don’t allow them shortcuts with food safety, employee rights and other things that would surely help their bottom line.
The UWS has two parks! At some point you have an oversaturation in certain neighborhoods and we have gotten to that point. If people want to eat at a restaurant, outdoor dining is NOT the dispositive reason why someone would choose to eat at a restaurant or not. If restaurants really want more volume and to serve more people, there’s plenty of vacant retail space, open up a new location. Queens would love to have the same options the UWS does without traveling here! Outdoor dining had its purpose and it should be over!
But lack of parking and having to instead deal with cumbersome transit options including transferring at least once, but often twice or thrice IS the dispositive reason someone would decide not to visit or work on the UWS!
I find my area on 86th and Bway rather vacant. The mom and pop places gone. Sitting outdoors adds back a warmth and charm- often decorated sheds, dogs! neighbors both old and new suddenly talking- that makes it feel more of a neighborhood. It’s not like that inside.
Oversaturation of parks? I’m not convinced there is such a thing.
Plus, it’s not like central park and riverside park have great options for sit down sushi or Thai or delicious tiki drinks + surprisingly affordable chicken sandwiches (shout out Tiki Chick!)
You can always bring your food to the parks! Plenty of people do that! I’ve seen people bring L’Industrie pizza from the West Village all the way up to Central Park!
Actually in good weather some people definitely do go to restaurants because they enjoy the outdoor eating! Queens can set up outdoor dining too, nothing wrong with that.
Lack of parking is a good thing, we don’t want people driving to the UWS. You want to park, pay for it in a garage, don’t clutter our streets with private vehicles that take space that could be used for much better space to benefit far more people. (Like for clean well-sealed trash bins, so we have way fewer rats.)
We should allow people to drive and park on the UWS and spend precious transit resources elsewhere such as with NICE bus or Westchester Bee Line which serve the poorest residents there who absolutely cannot drive or afford a car.
How many outdoor dining spaces are in “deep” Queens? It is mainly certain in demand neighborhoods with a certain culture where there is consistent demand for this stuff. Just like the US is not red America or blue America, NYC is a city with different needs and different cultures and different ways of life. But NYC has gentrified so much, they believe that they can throw people who don’t fit a certain mold in the proverbial garbage.
The “livable streets advocates” can be so condescending that Manhattan can have only people like myself or them, there is no co-existing with urbanists who think that people like me are beneath them!
How self centered do you have to be to see people enjoying brunch at an outdoor cafe and your only thought is “they must be having coffee outside because they think people like me are garbage and I’m beneath them!”
Not everything everyone does is about you. You don’t have to oppose everything that makes the neighborhood a slightly nicer place because you think it’s all an Urbanist Plot to eliminate the car owners once and for all.
Coexist with us! Have some pancakes outside on a nice Saturday morning in June.
Guy’s comment is not self centered at all. What is actually self centered is how desperately you want cultural change in a city as diverse as ours. You want “efficiency” for everyone else so that you can ride your bikes and use Uber at your pleasure! Let’s face it, Citibike takes away from public transit usage more than it does car usage and Lyft wants Citibike customers switching to their rideshare.
Making it nice? For who? A type of person who comes here from out of state to build their career at our expense and only care to be around other people who are like them? Advocate for making it nice for themselves and then move to the same suburbs or same red states they resented after a few years, while the next crop of people similar to them move to NYC as if it is a high school or college for those 21+?
Happy to have some pancakes outside in a sidewalk cafe or Central Park, which I have no issue with!
I guess you don’t want outsiders in your community unless they can afford $4000 for a 1 bedroom or $2900 for a studio. Garages are closing as well.
One appeal is that the restaurants can seat many more diners than they can accommodate indoors, giving them a chance to increase profitability in this time of ridiculously rising costs.
Also, quieter. Inside it’s often so loud when people talk we can’t hear ourselves.
Constant street noise doesn’t bother you? I’ll take loud conversation over honking horns and ambulance sirens any day.
So I have to fight my way along Amsterdam so the restaurant can increase their revenue. They survived without these eyesores for decades – why should I and others have to weave through these eyesores so they can increase their revenue
Your premise that they are “eyesores” is an opinion. And if you don’t see the benefit of small businesses increasing revenue, there really is no point to this discussion.
I absolutely love the dining sheds. They’re such an improvement from car storage (which absolutely should not be free), and help bring our neighborhood together, outside in the beautiful warm weather.
Many, if not most of the dining sheds listed above are on the Avenues – which, if am not mistaken, have meters for parking. So not sure your free car storage argument is effective.
Restaurants pay for the sheds and generate much more revenue for the city than metered parking. Cars get heavily subsidized storage. Your ‘free car storage vs free dining sheds’ argument is already dead on arrival.
I’m not making an argument one way or another. I actually don’t mind the dining sheds. I just think the free car storage argument is a weak one. Better arguments, including some by you, have been made on this post and others.
I do think we all need to stop demonizing people on either side of the “car” versus “no car” argument. Sometimes a middle group is ok.
Other than Cafe Lux, most of these outdoor dining options are dirty, sidewalk-clogging eyesores.
Hi Cranky. Not up here in the 80’s. They are clean and often spacious and decorated.
Most? Not by a mile. Some? Perhaps. Call 911 for the minority that are dirty.
What world do you live in?
Oh, I see, you are Crankypants!
Y-e-sssss! SO TRUE!
What about Morningside Heights?
I don’t think that’s within the WRG area.
I have nothing against outdoor cafes – as long as they remain on the sidewalk, and within DCA guidelines.
But this “on-street” madness has to stop. Didn’t we learn ANYTHING from the first go-round during the pandemic? That owners do NOT maintain these structures or the space around them properly, leading them to become magnets for rats, roaches and general garbage? That they led to over a dozen injuries when vehicles collided with them. (Thankfully, and miraculously, there were no deaths.) That because they are often built right next to bike lanes, it becomes dangerous for bikers, diners and staff because people forget and rarely look to see whether bikes are coming, leading to additional injuries to all three? And that BIKERS are the ones who are constantly being told (by the City) to be careful?
And that, once again, many owners are NOT building them according to the new guidelines? In fact, one owner spent $10,000 building one, only to have the City force him to remove it because it was out of compliance – leading to his spending another $10,000 to remove it and rebuild it. And guess who pays for that? Customers, when prices have to be raised to make that money back.
And I have not gotten to the issues they present for emergency vehicles; every first responder agency and organization – FDNY, NYPD, EMT, etc. – is vehemently against these structures, since it makes it difficult to impossible to reach buildings behind them in a timely manner. And with fires or medical emergencies, even a few extra seconds can be the difference between life and death.
If dining outside is the point, why can’t people be satisfied with outdoor dining on the sidewalks? Why do we also have to take up street space, put bikers, diners and staff at risk, impede first responders, and generally create potential havoc where it is entirely unnecessary?
Are people just stupid and selfish? Or am I missing something else?
How is it that diners make it hard to access buildings but parked cars and double-parked trucks don’t?
As for the vermin, the problem is that garbage is put out in plastic bags, not the restaurants. Get rid of the parking and put in closed trash bins instead and we will have far fewer rats. Which will make it even more enjoyable to dine outside.
Vehicles have to move for alternate side, dining sheds and containerized bins don’t!
Look at the first photo accompanying the article which shows how much space is taken up. It’s not ‘just’ the shack, it’s the sidewalk, bike lane, I have no idea what the 3rd space is for…and then the shack. I had 3 shacks on my block during Covid, as well as 2 fires and a transformer explosion next to/and in front of my building. It did make a difference when the firetrucks showed up as they were parked in the middle of the street and hence blocking all traffic.
I agree its nice to eat outside sometimes, but I like how the Ellington does it, a proper sidewalk cafe. The sheds are dirty, ugly and make the neighborhood feel like a shantytown. I’m all for limiting them if it helps keep rats at bay
If you want the rats kept at bay, support putting big sealed trash bins where we now have mostly-free parking. Also make sure that you and your neighbors NEVER put any food waste in the trash, it all goes in the compost bins. That will do far more to address the rat problem than shutting down outdoor dining. It will also make outdoor dining much more pleasant!
I am unclear about Le Pain Quotidien (60 West 65th Street)?
This is street dining?
Or is it sidewalk cafe?
The M66 bus stop in front of Le Pain Quotidien has been temporarily closed due to construction on 65th.
If it is street dining, how can that be possible if the bus stop had to be closed due to construction?
How can there be a street impediment (street dining) on a critical crosstown street – which is already impacted by construction?
There has never been what is referred to as a ‘sidewalk shed’ at that location, it’s always been chairs and tables just placed on the sidewalk, no shed, not sure what your question is?
Wonder – which is basically a delivery service – gets to have outdoor dining space?
Oh great, the shacks are back.
Hate these horrible eyesores
I’m officially tired of the cranky, entitled boomers in these comments who treat streets, sidewalks, and public space like their private playground. Newsflash: living in one of the most transit-rich, densely populated neighborhoods in the country means your car, your personal convenience, and your nostalgia do not come first. Full stop. Complaining about bikes, pedestrians, dining sheds, or delivery vans while ignoring that you’re part of a tiny minority that actually drives everywhere isn’t wisdom, it’s whining dressed up as concern. The world doesn’t revolve around your habits, and it’s past time you accepted that.
You can divine someone’s age by reading typed comments?
Right on! Such choruses of kvetches and wails of woe I have never heard! We live in a giant, hyperactive, vibrant city. This can be GOOD or BAD. You could go live in Nebraska. It’s vast, beautiful, 50 miles to the closest convenience store. GOOD or BAD. Please just get a life.
I’m glad that you and those who like your post are so openly ageist. I’d bet good money that you pretend to be a progressive who is outraged at misogyny, racism, homophobia, and Islamophobia.
They don’t care much about that either. If you see TransAlt reviews on Glassdoor, they are far from perfect.
https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Transportation-Alternatives-Reviews-E683984.htm
and here is a perfect example of what I have commented on before. So you don’t like the opinions that other people have, so resort to name calling. Is civil discourse that hard? I guess it is when we can hide behind of the cover of anonymity.
Yes, we live in a transit rich neighborhood and for some people their car may be more important than the subway or bus. I don’t know everyone’s personal circumstances nor do you. I’ve also said that maybe we need residential parking permits.
It’s also fair that the city has allowed way too many Ubers and Lyfts to be registered which have flooded our streets. In 2015, there were roughly 13,000 taxis and 12,500 Ubers and Lyfts. Now, there are over 90,000 Ubers and Lyfts. At the same time the City has done next to nothing to regulate e-Bikes and scooters.
So, when people raise valid concerns and complaints, I wish people would say “stop complaining” or worse, “stop complaining, you boomer.” It shows how little tolerance you have for any one else’s point of view and how you have no interest in finding a solution.
Mike Bloomberg whose Bloomberg Philanthropies fund TransAlt also had him and his allies fund Uber and Lyft (https://nypost.com/2014/07/20/bloomberg-allies-pouring-money-into-lyft-and-uber/). Uber and Lyft have also donated to TransAlt.
The reality is that urbanists have no tolerance for people who don’t agree with them. Look at how they treat other transit advocacy groups like Passengers United who are critical of urbanist aligned groups. Look at how Riders Alliance banned a disabled man who everyone who knows him loves him (NYT piece of him here https://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/25/nyregion/he-loves-new-york-and-it-loves-him-right-back.html), because he dared not toe the line completely. Look at how the spokesperson of Riders Alliance, calls commuter rail a luxury service on social media.
If that is how people are treated by the people who have an outsized influence on our policy, then myself and others have every right to use our cars and park on the street here.
Your evidence for this is a single incident from 21 years ago & a tweet from one person no one knows? That’s pretty weak.
The post in question is from Danny Pearlstein, the policy and communications director from Riders Alliance.
My point in sharing the NY Times article from 2005 is to establish that Yuki Endo is a well liked person with a disability. The incident occurred a few years ago.
You’ve set up a false dichotomy, like you either love the sheds or you don’t because you’re a boomer who drives everywhere. It’s very possible to not be a boomer and not drive at all and still dislike these clunky eyesores that take up a lot of space from sidewalks and outdoor space.
If anyone is treating sidewalks and public space like their private playground, it’s the restaurants that spill out in o our collective public space.
Cranky, entitled boomers? Do you have to go full-out ageist here? Are you so incapable of civil discourse? This boomer loves the European cafes that have come to New York as a by-product of the pandemic, oddly. This boomer doesn’t drive in the city, or anywhere anymore, supports congestion pricing and wishes people would leave their cars in the suburbs. Dunno what generation you are in but you are one helluva long-winded whiner yourself. That “full stop” must have been just to catch your breath and rail on.
First those with second homes who live on the UWS should leave their cars in their second homes. Also those who reverse commute to the UWS from the suburbs should leave their cars there too.
UWSYIMBY,
It is remarkable that one is able to know the age and other info of complete strangers and to confer monolith labels about strangers as fact.
BTW for what is worth, most of the people we know who have cars in Manhattan are under age 50. And for other “demographic” categories of interest they are parents, are pretty affluent, eat out/get food delivery and are “suburban transplants”
I agree with you. I happen to love dining out of doors, and not every sidewalk is large enough for a European style cafe. I have no interest in cars, or bike lanes, or any other vehicle accommodations, as our City was actually designed for walking, carriages, and horses. I mostly take the subway, but do take an occasional cab, which drops me off and leaves. While all priority should be given to ambulance traffic, fire and police vehicles, and buses, large deliveries are rare and temporary, and don’t occur at night, and are mostly in the very early morning and don’ last very long, unless someone is moving in or out all day. The bottom line is no one would want a dining shed if there was no demand, but there is. I much rather see hundreds of people over the course of an evening enjoying themselves out of doors than two or three lucky car owners get a free parking spot. One brings revenue into the City and the other does not.
Horses? So you want streets covered with horse manure?
No one really wants dining sheds outside of gentrified NYC. They mostly serve a certain kind of people who want a certain kind of lifestyle or tourists.
Parking spaces do provide value. Parking spots are paid for through taxes. Parking spots facilitate activity that would be more difficult to do so otherwise. Parking spots allow for less money to be spent on transit that would cost more to subsidize.
The “hundreds of people over the course of an evening” will manage a way to enjoy their evening regardless of whether there is outdoor dining.
Our streets are not designed to be restaurants. They attract vermin, and detract from the streetscape. One cannot see across the street. They create more traffic, double parking, less room for buses. and I do not think most will be built to code, nor will code be enforced. I enjoyed the winter without these eyesores.
I have never seen a rat or roaches eating outside. I have seen them inside. I’ve also seen very clean spaces. Restaurants want you coming back.
My only opinion on the dining sheds has to do with the rats, and although I literally shared a meal with my kid and a rat during Covid (and disturbingly the waiter didn’t seem that surprised when I pointed the rat out to him), rats are mostly nocturnal and are indeed in many of the sheds when the people are not, ie very early mornings. If you’ve ever had to take a kid to school early in the morning you’d be well-advised to give the sheds a wide berth. Ask any sanitation worker. Love love love the new closed trash bins!
I’m sure you enjoyed the mounds and mounds of greasy, trash ridden, black snow and ice. Sure. Very attractive sites.
But snow is a natural phenomenon, and there is only so much that can be done about it. We don’t “choose” it,. And the City can only act just so quickly, and do just so much in so much time, about huge snowfalls and snow/ice.
We “choose” to build huge structures in the roadway, which collect wind-blown garbage that owners rarely if ever remove, thus attracting rats and other vermin, and simply becoming an eyesore. And every first responder agency – NYPD, FDNY, EMT – is vehemently against these structures due to the added hindrance of accessing buildings and hydrants.
Nice try.
The first responder access would be a good point if we mandated a stretcher sized gap in the parking wall every 10 or 20 yards. We don’t, but maybe we should. Emergency services need access.
They’re SO ugly.. Both outside and especially if you’re sitting in one outside!! Most are barely used… They’re total dumps!
“Most are barely used…” Document that.
Y’all complain about literally everything. Comment section of the Rag is hilariously embarrassing as a UWSider.
Can you say I-R-O-N-Y? You’re complaining that other people…complain!
Theya re dirty and gross and just bring rats. They also make the sidewalks impossible to walk around, especially if you are old.
I’m old. I love them. Maybe ‘old’ isn’t the appropriate word….
Love love love the outdoor dining sheds! Welcome back!
I love them too!
Simply a bad idea on so many levels to use the streets for dining . Dirty, poor visibility, makes autos and bikers and pedestrians more dangerous and susceptible to accidents>. I cannot support any restaurant going this route. Leave the streets to transportation which every viable city needs. A mall like atmosphere belongs elsewhere.
Universal daylighting except that dining sheds are allowed!
Perhaps is not “A mall like atmosphere belongs elsewhere”, but you?
Urbanists want a “suburban like atmosphere” in cities! Yes there are Manhattan civic leaders who have said this!
Why anyone would eat where the rats eat at night is beyond me. You all are true New Yorkers I guess. Bon apetite!
Rats eat everywhere. If that’s your concern, why do you want to live in such a large urban environment?
Along with forever sidewalk sheds, there goes the neighborhood.
Please make these just for the summer. I once got chased by a very large rat out of the shed at Mamoun’s. The shed at Barney Greengrass got torched one night. And there was a shed on Amsterdam that stayed up for a year after the restaurant closed, until it finally just collapsed on the street.
Everything loves outdoor restaurants unless they live above one.Some restaurants are very noisy with no respect for tenants.
Urbanists don’t care. Car noise is bad but people partying at 2 am is a sign of life in a big city!
Maybe decide if you want to eat out or have your restaurant meals delivered to you — instead of having both options — sheds in the streets vs. delivery lanes. If you must have both — and more and more and more of everything — please put another fork in your mouth instead of complaining about the workers who ride by watching you while you dine. In other words please don’t dine AND whine.
UWSYIMBY I’m officially tired and disgusted with ageist attacks against “boomers”. Everyone, regardless of age, is entitled to their opinion and not everyone in the same age-range shares the same opinion. Calling out people because of their age is the same as inappropriate discriminating on the basis of race, gender, religion, etc.
And dogs are welcome!! Supreme beings c/w humans!
Yay can’t wait! It’s nice we can help restaurants expand their footprint (while costs to remain open consistently rise) and those of us who love al fresco dining can enjoy our city this way .(prepped for many grumpy comments to follow but your negativity won’t erase our joy!)
Out door dining with a bike lane between your table and the food. What can go wrong.
An outrageous intrusion into public space by for-profit businesses. It’s corporate welfare at its most intrusive. And these are eyesores. Who wants to eat in traffic, and risk getting hit? Then again, survival of the fittest.
I’m just waiting for a new restaurant to open in the now closed Leopard, former Cafe Des Artistes
Serafina’s, SW corner 105/B’way
Thank you for this exhaustive listing! I was so happy when outdoor dining became a thing during the pandemic. Maybe it’s because I don’t have a car but as a lifelong city dweller I enjoy sitting outdoors.
sidewalk seating is great but these shacks have got to go
Gennaro isn’t on the list this year in 10025?