Ya-Ting Liu

Winter wonderland in Central Park today!

Another wonderful holiday streets on 5th Avenue!

Tour of New York City Hall today after meeting with Chief Public Realm Officer @yatingliu.bsky.social and Helsinki Placemaking officer @arvindrchn.bsky.social.
And then bumped into #placemaking advocate @jacksonchabot.bsky.social of @openplans.org!

Today 34th Ave Open Street is also known officially as Paseo Park! with @yatingliu.bsky.social @kathyparkprice.bsky.social @votejgr.bsky.social & so many awesome others.

NYC's most famous open street (yeah forget about Times Square and all those others...)

Everyone Wants to Fix 14th Street Going beyond the busway, the city and BIDs are aiming to overhaul almost everything.

“Plenty of individuals in plenty of neighborhoods would like this stuff to happen to their streets. Here, critically, most of the groups with power are lined up together, approximately in unison or at least in harmony, and that makes a big difference.” www.curbed.com/article/14th...

Fifth Ave.: From boulevard to driveway and back On the very first Earth Day, April 22, 1970, Mayor John Lindsay took the bold step of closing New York’s grand boulevard — Fifth Ave. An estimated one million people flocked to the street and The N…

“New York’s Fifth Ave. could be the grandest most-futuristic boulevard of world cities by returning it to the pedestrian.” www.nydailynews.com/2025/07/22/f...

Editorial: Sidewalk sheds are green and ugly and decreasing next year These ubiquitous hunter-green sheds are an object lesson in good intentions gone wrong, writes the Crain's editorial board.

“All we can say is hallelujah.”
www.crainsnewyork.com/editorials/e...

Everyone Hates Sidewalk Sheds. Now There May Be Fewer of Them. Several bills to be passed in the City Council today are expected to change the height, the color and the ubiquity of the construction sheds.

Big city council vote today on a package of bills that will transform the streetscape by tackling the ubiquitous sidewalk shed. #GetShedsDown www.nytimes.com/2025/03/26/n...

Seeing the light on scaffolding: Council Speaker Adrienne Adams finally allows a vote to clear city sidewalks New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams is running for mayor along with a whole bunch of other candidates, but run or not she is still leader of the local legislature and we applaud her for fi…

“Let every Council member speak out about the need to get rid of the scaffolding and then ask for a roll call. We’d be surprised if there are any votes in the negative.” www.nydailynews.com/2025/03/06/s...

Congrats Gotham Park x Welcome To Chinatown on a great Lunar New Year Festival at the Arches. What a great way to showcase and support local small businesses and vendors!

Looking forward to this @benmax.bsky.social and NY Law School!

My first job in nyc policy, advocacy, and organizing was on a campaign to get council home rule and Albany approval for congestion pricing. The year was 2007 and Mayor Bloomberg announced the idea as part of PlaNYC2030. 17yrs later it’s finally in effect! Congrats to all who made today possible!

Travel to any other city and you’ll notice the scourge of scaffolding (the type that goes up and stays up forever without any facade repair activity) is a uniquely NYC problem. A package of bills in @council.nyc.gov could bring big changes. Time to #GetShedsDown!

NYCHA has its own scaffold problems New Yorkers hate sidewalk scaffolding, the omnipresent structures that seemingly spring up overnight and obstruct pedestrian traffic for years at a time. New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) res…

“The Council has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to change Gotham’s landscape and improve the quality of life for public housing residents. By passing this legislation, they are heading in the right direction.” #GetShedsDown

www.nydailynews.com/2024/12/10/n...

Walk this way: Fifth Avenue to become a pedestrian paradise in $150 million+ redesign plan | amNewYork Mayor Eric Adams announced in Midtown on Sunday that NYC will be investing at least $150 million to help change the look of Fifth Avenue and make it a

Happy 200th birthday gift to Fifth Avenue! 🎂 This investment will enable design completion and the first phase of construction to transform 20 blocks into a 🌳 lined pedestrian boulevard. Let’s go! www.amny.com/new-york/man...

2024 Fifth Avenue Holiday Streets!

Weather forecast looks great for today’s Fifth Avenue holiday streets! 12-6PM between 48 to 55th streets.

See you there! 😎

City of Yes zoning is a big win: NYC needs housing and Council vote helps get us there Thursday, the City Council exercised wisdom and vision as it overhauled an arcane, restrictive zoning code to allow more housing in neighborhoods all throughout New York. A few shrill voices are cr…

“it is the biggest, broadest pro-housing step forward in memory. Kudos to Mayor Eric Adams and City Planning Chair Dan Garodnick for identifying a crucial priority, developing a solid plan and following through with a powerful persuasion campaign.” www.nydailynews.com/2024/12/05/c...

Know when to (scaf)fold ’em: Pass Council bills to remove NYC’s scaffolding You’ve seen it with your own eyes in three dimensions all over the city’s too-often-cast-into-shadow sidewalks, but it pays to hop online and look at the city’s official map ( showing active sidewa…

“Built environment has the capacity to inspire natives and visitors alike — or, when wrapped up uglier than Christo’s Reichstag, to drag us all down together.” @council.nyc.gov has the opportunity to enact scaffolding reforms now. www.nydailynews.com/2024/12/01/k...

Broadway Vision has become a real model of how a transform a commercial corridor into a vibrant pedestrian oasis. Just visit this stretch of Broadway and see what it has done for storefronts in the area!

Removing street scaffolding helps fight crime Across New York City, miles of sidewalk sheds and scaffolding have been up for so long that they are making their surrounding communities unsafe.

Must read op-ed from @manhattanda.bsky.social @keithpowersnyc.bsky.social @marklevinenyc.bsky.social on the need and opportunity for City Council to tackle scaffolding once and for all! www.nydailynews.com/2024/11/26/r...

Govt’s ability to deliver critical projects (parks, libraries, streetscapes, water/sewer upgrades) rests on web of complex and wonky processes. Yesterday marked a big milestone to give city agencies tools needed to build faster and better. www.nyc.gov/office-of-th...

New park opens in Manhattan by Brooklyn Bridge MANHATTAN (PIX11) — Get ready to meet down under the Brooklyn Bridge.  Some new arches are getting attention in the city as a new park opened this week at the base of the bridge on the Manhat…

New public space immediately enjoyed by New Yorkers. What a delight! pix11.com/news/local-n...

Op-ed: It’s time to remove sidewalk sheds in New York City Sidewalk sheds, the ubiquitous green or gray metal and wood structures may serve a safety purpose, but they have come to symbolize neglect and long-term disrepair covering our streets, neighborhoods a...

Spot on op-ed from Dan Biederman, president of the 34th Street Partnership. City Council has a once in a generation opportunity to dramatically improve the pedestrian experience by reshaping the way sidewalk sheds are used and managed in the city. #GetShedsDown www.crainsnewyork.com/op-ed/sidewa...

Nearing the finish line: Council should let City of Yes succeed After months of maneuvering, the City of Yes housing plan is at the stage of last-mile negotiations between City Hall and the City Council. What emerges from this process should look substantively …

“An issue like lack of housing will eventually come to affect everyone, and that means everyone has to do their part. More suburban areas don’t get a pass and they don’t get to offload their own responsibilities out onto already denser parts of the city.” www.nydailynews.com/2024/11/20/n...

How Parking Will Drive the Coming Adams-Council Housing Development Deal Eliminating mandates to create spots for cars is key to creating more apartments in the mayor’s sweeping City of Yes proposal heading to a crucial vote Thursday — but a compromise that could halve new...

Mandating parking = less housing. “Developers say parking requirements add unnecessary costs to their projects and result in more expensive apartments — or fewer apartments outright. They say they’d add parking based on market needs, just as like any other amenity.” www.thecity.nyc/2024/11/19/p...

NYC holiday season is not official till a visit to @nybg.bsky.social holiday train show. 🚂🌿🚂

Public space under the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge (aka The Ardhes) will soon become its own iconic destination. gothamist.com/news/public-...

New storefront vacancy analysis from @nycplanning.bsky.social shows:
✅ storefront vacancy rate citywide is trending down
🍽️ surge of restaurants is filling empty storefronts across NYC
🚶🏻‍♀️‍➡️open streets and efforts to improve pedestrian experience help storefront biz

www.nyc.gov/assets/plann...

Vital City | Why New Yorkers in Poverty Need City of Yes The benefits of the Adams administration’s zoning reform plan are especially big for those on the bottom rungs of the income ladder.

“Councilmembers face a critical choice: either pass a strong version of City of Yes that would add as many as 109,000 new homes over the next decade across New York City, or approve a diluted plan that would do little to address our housing crisis.” www.vitalcitynyc.org/articles/why...