{"id":6484,"date":"2023-06-08T12:04:26","date_gmt":"2023-06-08T17:04:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/?p=6484"},"modified":"2023-06-08T12:23:40","modified_gmt":"2023-06-08T17:23:40","slug":"hostile-architecture-harms-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/hostile-architecture-harms-all\/","title":{"rendered":"Hostile Architecture Harms All"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Image Credit: Indesign Live<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As of 2021, the population of New York City is 8.5 million people. The city is cramped and citizens value communal spaces. There are countless plazas, parks, and public transportation stops that should<\/em> be welcoming and comfortable for all people. Instead, urban planners have created details, invisible to the privileged eye, that make these public spaces hostile to the people who need them most.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThough it was in the works for decades, hostile architecture in NYC really got started during Mayor Giuliani\u2019s \u2018quality of life\u2019 campaign,\u201d said urbanist and Grace alumna Andrea Marpillero- Colomina<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In June 1999, New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani held a press conference announcing his intention<\/a> to crack down on panhandling, jaywalking, graffiti, public drinking, prostitution, and the homelessness crisis; or, more accurately, the homeless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Giuliani instructed the police to search parks and other public areas to detain and move homeless people to shelters, while also implementing a 90-day cap on how long someone can stay in a shelter.\u00a0 According to critics<\/a>, the goal was to hide the homeless rather than to assist them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As gentrification accelerated in the 2010s, the city found itself with a higher homeless population than ever, with a low estimate<\/a> of 58,000 homeless people in shelters as of July 2015. Around that same time, benches throughout the city have been discretely removed to stop homeless from lying on them. They are continually being replaced with seating designs that were specially created, not only to discourage people from taking a seat but to completely prevent them from lying down and likely taking much-needed rest.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Metal or stone benches with clustered armrests or no backrests are cropping up more and more often. Ms. Marpillero-Colomina uses Astor Place in the Bowery as an example of a place that \u201ctakes away the invitation to linger.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Astor Place is central to the neighborhood community and tourist experience, yet it is not only unwelcoming but uncomfortable.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is over-policed and lacks privacy,\u201d said Ms. Marpillero-Colomina. \u201cSpaces like that create the feeling that whatever you are doing is somehow \u2018bad behavior.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Central Park\u2019s sloping perimeter walls deter sitting and make lying down impossible.\u00a0 Similarly, the benches next to the walls have no backs and are just far enough from the walls that one cannot even lean on them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2017, at bus stops and Brooklyn train stations, the MTA<\/a> implemented \u201cleaning bars\u201d as part of its $72 million \u201cEnhanced Station Initiative.\u201d On February 5th, 2021, the NYC Transit sparked conflict by tweeting<\/a> that \u201cbenches were removed from stations to prevent the homeless from sleeping on them.\u201d In response, one Twitter user imitated the account,\u00a0 \u201cWe have inconvenienced you and made the station more inaccessible to the pregnant, disabled, and elderly, but you must understand that lets us inflict further misery on people without homes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u201cRemoving benches conveys that this is a place to leave quickly, so they do,\u201d said Ms. Marpillero-Colomina. \u201cMaking the space more welcoming for everyone is the best strategy to cope with \u2018undesirable\u2019 activities. The bench is kind of a pivotal point. Will the design inspire fear or communicate hospitality?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many plazas, such as East 56th Street and Third Avenue in Midtown, are left empty. Without chairs or tables, the space is uninviting and appears as though it is a private space, not a public one. Metal studs or spikes line the pavement on sidewalks and in plazas; bolts or barbs block the use of ledges, fire hydrants, and standpipes for sitting; and \u201cno loitering\u201d signs flood the city. These are barriers and their message is: \u201cDon\u2019t stick around, we don\u2019t want you in our backyard,\u201d said Ms. Marpillero-Colomina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese designs are not just hostile to people they don’t want there,\u201d she said. The pregnant, injured, disabled, elderly, and children can tire quickly and often need a place to sit and rest even for just a moment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAlthough I already had some idea as an urbanist,\u201d said Ms. Marpillero-Colomina, \u201cbeing pregnant truly opened my eyes to how cruel some parts of the city are.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2022 (fiscal year), 102,656 different<\/a> homeless adults and children slept in the NYC Department of Homeless Services shelter system, not including the many who were unable to use a shelter. Some homeless people have even agreed<\/a> that they feel safer living on the street than in a shelter. Shelters are overcrowded and understaffed, and people need a place to feel safe and comfortable in a bustling city. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The city government does not invest in its people. Hostile architecture makes the city cold and unwelcoming, for all people. To take action, start by emailing or calling your local district representative<\/a>. At Grace, our local representative is Carlina Rivera at District2@council.nyc.gov<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Veronica Hatch ’25, the author, is a staff writer for <\/em>The Grace Gazette.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Image Credit: Indesign Live As of 2021, the population of New York City is 8.5 million people. The city is cramped and citizens value communal spaces. There are countless plazas,… Continue reading “Hostile Architecture Harms All”<\/span> <\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":6495,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8,9,748,200,1],"tags":[],"appful":[],"class_list":["post-6484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-downtown-life","category-politics","category-recent","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9uEnr-1GA","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/download-161.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6484"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6504,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6484\/revisions\/6504"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6484"},{"taxonomy":"appful","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/appful?post=6484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}