NYC Gazette

Deputy Mayor Meera Joshi, Operations: Hello, I'm Meera Joshi, deputy mayor of Operations, and I have the pleasure of overseeing our infrastructure portfolio, including the Department of Transportation, who's integral to everything that is public space in New York City. I just want to note this has been a week of GSD. Started the week with a ribbon-cutting of the Moynihan Connector, a public space project that was completed in record time, and now we're ending the week with another great public space victory for New York City, again, completed in record time. So that is GSD.

Our DOT has laid out a bold plan for making more meeting places throughout Broadway, and today we celebrate another victory milestone in turning this from a plan to reality. Seven blocks where people are the focus, and the beautiful thing is, once New Yorkers take advantage of the views, the seats, the sights, and the sounds of sitting on Broadway, so many more join. This amazing Midtown block party is due to the exceptional leadership of our mayor. Many talked about it, but he's making it reality. He's guided us with a strong dedication to expand our public space. And with that, I'm happy to introduce our mayor, Eric Adams.

Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you. Thank you so much, deputy mayor. People often say, "Lights are on on Broadway." Bikes are on Broadway, and they're enjoying themselves, and the people in the walk. We were here, what, three months ago? Three months ago. It took 110 mayors before we opened up Broadway again, and we stated we were going to do it with the amazing Commissioner Rodriguez and your team. We just want to thank you for actualizing the vision and making sure that it happened. And we have so many surprises up our sleeve of what we're going to be doing to reshape New York in the next couple of months. And I say over and over again, we can execute it if we remove the barriers, if we remove the silos, and if we are focused on a north star. No distractions, stay focused, and grind. Those are the three things I said, right Michael, on the campaign trail? Stay focused, no distraction, and grind.

Three months ago, we promised a project that would help bring Midtown back. Today we are cutting the ribbon on major improvements on this iconic street from West 25th Street to 32nd Street, reclaiming space for people to sit, to walk, to talk, to just pollinate ourselves with who we are as New Yorkers and enjoy just the art of strolling. The art of strolling is just something that has been missed and it is universal across the globe, how people walk through their city. It's good for business. You stop, you buy something, you stop at a little cafe here, pick up something. You can't do it in a car, you can't do it in a yellow cab. You do it when you walk around and see the beauty of this city. We have reconnected Madison Square to Harold Square, added two blocks of new pedestrian plaza, widening crosswalks for pedestrian safety, added two-way bike lanes and expanded Citi Bike docks, and created more outdoor dining space.

As the deputy mayor stated, people talked about it, we did it. And we're going to continue to do a block at a time, a neighborhood at a time. We're not leaving any neighborhoods behind. That is what we call promises made, promises kept. This is how you reimagine our city, our neighborhood, and revitalize our business district. It means more room to walk, to bike, and to eat at New York City's best restaurants. And when you look at the fact that in the next few days, we're going to do outdoor dining, which I love. We can create more vibrant public spaces and more economic opportunity across the entire city. And we're starting an even bigger capital project to make these permanent changes all the way from 21st to 33rd street. 

Thousands of New Yorkers and tourists enjoyed open streets on Fifth Avenue during the holiday season. I walked there and it was unbelievable, the energy you saw as people were enjoying the open streets throughout the entire Fifth Avenue doing their shopping. We are opening up streets again this summer. The vision from our commissioner, we're going to actualize it and make it happen. 

How's your bike riding? That's a good thing. Y'all riding together? Oh, I thought that was your boo. Okay, good to see you. 

And we're building more public space in every single borough. This is not a Manhattan-centered city. We have five boroughs and every borough is going to get the benefit of open streets. We're opening spaces up, firing up our economy, and it's going to lead to a safer streets for all. With our Broadway Vision Plan, we are re-imagining Broadway from Columbus Circle to Union Square, and we are not being cheap in doing it. $375 million in capital public space enhancement that I announced in the State of the City address that was not just a speech, it was a pathway forward with a real blueprint of how we're going to get it done. And this is all part of the mission we laid out together, Governor Hochul and I, when we released the New York, New York report, which highlighted the importance of public space in our city. 

And today we fulfill another commitment by revitalizing this area with public space, because I don't know why people keep saying we're going to come back. New York is not going to come back. New York is back. 99 percent of the jobs we lost during the pandemic are back. AA bond rating by Fitch. You're seeing crime decrease. You're seeing people back on our subway station. There's a moment when you go from the way you felt to how you are feeling. We are in a how we are feeling moment. We feel good about being in the city. As New Yorkers, we should be walking differently, talking differently. We need that New York City attitude again because this is the greatest city on the globe, because we are the greatest people on the globe. And I want to just thank the entire team, our Chief Public Realm Officer, Ya-Ting Liu, you are just blowing it out of the park, making it happen.

And deputy mayor, you and your team and our commissioner, this is what we call getting it done, and all of our partners that are here today for being part of this. We were together when we made this announcement and to be able to execute with precision-like movement is how you get this city operating at the level we want. But as I stated, we have some real surprises for folks coming up out of your portfolio and I'm really excited about some of those things. We're going to give Mike Gartland some exclusives on some of those things. All right? Thank you, deputy mayor.

Deputy Mayor Joshi: Thank you very much. As the mayor noted, in three months we transformed this iconic stretch of Broadway, and that doesn't happen without a lot of individual hard work, advocacy, and determination. So I want to thank Flatiron NoMad Partnership for working with us, for all of the businesses that have the patience and the advocacy to sit through all of the work that has to be done on the street to make it what it is today. And I want to extend my deep gratitude to DOT and the DOT Commissioner Rodriguez and his unflappable staff, talented staff, Sean Quinn, Emily Weidenhof, and Kaarin Patterson and Kyle Gorman. They have all worked tirelessly to make sure that this space was open for New Yorkers to enjoy as quickly as possible. Today this section of Broadway is safer for people who want to linger. It's inviting and it's accessible.

We have two new plazas. We've redesigned the streets so that cars are not competing with people and created a new bike boulevard. We've also, if you look behind me, previewed what open restaurants will look like in the future. Inviting, easy to move when we need to, and available to all. These improvements don't just benefit our New York City Street travelers, but they help all of our surrounding local businesses. Turns out we like to spend money when we're out, and the more amazing public spaces we have in the city, the more we're out, the more we spend. That's profit. That's good. But our work doesn't stop here. As the mayor mentioned, we have a bold vision for the future of Broadway. DOT is developing plans that will make permanent these improvements west of 21st Street to West 33rd Street. And there's much, much more, creating vibrant public spaces in all five boroughs.

For example, we're unlocking underutilized space near the Broadway Junction Station in Brooklyn. A few weeks ago we had the privilege of celebrating the beginning of unlocking more under-bridge space, The Arches. More to come on that. Skateboarders' paradise and the crossroads of urban outdoor culture. We're making it easier to walk around and relax near Court Square Park in Long Island City and doing a full public space reconstruction of Jamaica Avenue from Sutphin Boulevard to Merrick Boulevard in Jamaica, Queens. We're adding permanent upgrades including a bike lane and pedestrian safety improvements and new public space on Willis Avenue in the Bronx. And we're adding permanent improvements, because you can't forget Staten Island, to Minthorne Street on Staten Island, including expanded pedestrian space at Tompkinsville Park and a new plaza at Central Avenue. This administration is dedicated to improving and growing public space in New York City because it is where the heart and soul of New York City lives. And with that, I'd like to introduce our DOT Commissioner, Ydanis Rodriguez.

Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez, Department of Transportation:  Listen, the mayor spoke already, the deputy mayor spoke already. What can I say now as a commissioner more than thank you to the men and women, especially at DOT, the Emily, the [inaudible]. They've been doing this work, Kyle, for decades already. A different level. And I was with [inaudible] recently and Jeanette [inaudible], she was there. One thing that I was say, it was like on [inaudible] with New York City has seven miles of bike lanes. Last year we got 27, but we will not be on 27 without the seventh mile. Jeanette and the Bloomberg time - the Times Square Plaza. Here we are with the vision starting in this area, but we are going north. We don't have limits. When last year, the mayor and I, we rode our bikes on Summit Street. We say, "Come on. Summit Street from Brooklyn Bridge to 79th Street."

The mayor say, "Let's take it further." We went to 109 Street, going to the working class East Harlem community. This year, we're going to Harlem. This year we go to 125th. This year we go to Grand Concourse from Mosholu Parkway to Tremont. We're going to Queens, we're going to Brooklyn, we're going to Staten Island, which is not a forgotten borough any more under the leadership of Mayor Adams, the deputy mayor, and us. So this is about building for the future. This is about climate justice. This great plaza is good not only because of the small business, they will have more pedestrian New Yorkers, billions of visitors coming here, but the quality of air will be much better. So I got to say that it's a great honor to be serving under the mayor who really supports, from deputy mayor to myself, this big agenda.

There's no more progressive measure that we have ever had in the city. If we measure by action, if we measure thinking about underserved community served the same public space that we have on the upper middle class community. So I think that for me, it's a great honor again to be serving. And this is only a beginning. Wait for more to come under the leadership of Mayor Adams, deputy mayor, and the great team that we have at DOT. One minute, because English is not my native language, so Spanish is my native language. So I got to speak to those great New Yorkers who work so hard. 

[Speaks in Spanish]. 

Thank you. Thank you.

Deputy Mayor Joshi: Thank you, Commissioner Rodriguez. And now I'd like to introduce Sam Lipp, President of Tortazo, a local restaurant.

Sam Lipp: Good morning. Thank you, deputy mayor. Thank you, Commissioner Rodriguez. Thank you, Mayor Adams. My name is Sam Lipp, and I am the president of Tortazo, a casual Mexican restaurant where we bring the joy of authentic discovery of bold flavors to New Yorkers and tourists alike. Our restaurant and our beautiful patio are located just behind all of you here in Nomad on Broadway, between 25th and 26th Street. I'm honored to be here with my friends from the Nomad Flatiron Partnership and the bid to represent this neighborhood. We signed our lease for Tortazo at 1123 Broadway just prior to Covid, back in January of 2020. The world was truly a different place back then. By the time we opened our doors and welcomed our first guest, it was September of 2021, a time of great uncertainty in our city and the restaurant industry as a whole.

With that said, there was no place that we would rather bring our restaurant to life than right here in Nomad, in the very heart of Manhattan, for this vibrant, mixed-use neighborhood has long since earned its reputation as a world-class dining destination. But resting on reputation alone is dangerous. Dare I say, it's a recipe for disaster. We are therefore grateful for the city's comprehensive support of restaurants through programs like Open Streets and Open Restaurants. Here in our neighborhood, those initiatives inspire the bid to pilot the Nomad Piazza, a visionary program that started in 2021, which sought to create a dynamic outdoor dining environment. The success of that program on Broadway between 25th and 27th Street inspired the Broadway vision that we're celebrating today, including the now permanent installation of a car-free Piazza, as well as the shared street blocks just to our north.

By creating beautiful public spaces and improving the safety and experiences of pedestrians, this re-imagining of our Broadway corridor is great for business and it's great for the community. And we know the City and the Flatiron Nomad partnership have even more transformational public realm works planned, with the upcoming redesign and reconstruction of the Flatiron public plazas in Worth Square, just to our south. I can't wait to see the dramatic upgrades to these iconic spaces brought to life. On behalf of the local business community, thank you.

Mayor Adams: Yep, yep, yep. A few on-topics.

Question: How's it going, Mayor Adams? Johnny Green from Channel Seven. I have a question. Obviously, this is something that's great for New York City, but what would you say to the people watching this, that they're not fully convinced that this would be exciting for them due to the homelessness and the drug issue that's going on that disturbs experience like this, specifically during the summertime when everyone's out where people are trying to enjoy the outdoor dining, but you have this constant issue arriving on a daily basis.

Mayor Adams: Well, it's clear, I'm going to say this over and over again and it will resonate eventually. We're going to move from the way we felt to how we feel. I know what January 1st, 2022 look like when you dealt with homelessness. Encampment, people sleeping everywhere on our streets, there's clearly a very successful initiative by this city. You don't see the encampments anymore, you don't see the tents, you don't see the cardboard boxes. When they are identified, we immediately move to rectify the situation in a very compassionate way. And so those New Yorkers who believe there's nothing dignified about people sleeping on the street in that manner, I'm asking them to join me. Let the other electors know that that that is not the city we want. Our city is not a city where people who are in need of care should be living on the streets where they don't get that care.

And I've been very clear on that, but I have not only talked about it. We executed a humane plan where we are transitioning people into proper facilities to get the support they need. So I'm with you, and I'm so happy that you agree with me that people should not be living on our streets, treated in an inhumane way, and now we need to have other electors join this crusade of humanitarian action towards though. But you don't see that anymore as we saw it in January 1st, 2022. You don't see it all the time on our subway system. You are seeing a very aggressive campaign of giving people the care they need and deserve, and we're pleased by that.

What's going on, Mike? My son always ask me, "You really like that guy Michael Gartland, don't you?" He has two beautiful children.

Question: Are you planning to veto any of these fence bills?

Mayor Adams: We sent out a statement and the statement speaks loud. If we didn't get it out, I know we're going to get it out sometime soon, and it will speak loud. Don't rain on our parade. We're trying to have fun today. You know that.

Original source can be found here.