Volunteers Are Funding Open Streets. Why Isn't the City?

A daily mix of stories about cities, city life, and our always evolving neighborhoods and skylines. [Curbed]( thursday, april 8 streets [Volunteers Are Actually the Ones Funding Open Streets Programs. Why Isn’t the City?]( Locals and donors are doing the day-to-day work of making it happen. Photo: Jim Burke Each morning at 8 a.m., about a dozen volunteers in orange safety vests drag barricades to close off a 26-block stretch of 34th Avenue in Jackson Heights. Soon, residents trickle onto the mile of road. Instead of cars, strollers and wheelchairs and cyclists roll in. A group of seniors unfurls chairs and gathers for daily bingo. Neighbors lay yoga mats on the asphalt for weekly classes and, a few yards away, sit in a circle for English-language lessons. Children at crafts tables fashion dream catchers out of paper plates, string, and beads; others scrawl flowers in chalk on the concrete medians. This is the scene that has unfolded on the Queens corridor almost every day since May — rain or shine — as part of the city’s Open Streets program. [Continue reading »]( Never miss a story from Curbed: [Subscribe now.]( [Learn more about RevenueStripe...]( The Latest [Barbara Kavovit’s Plan for Rikers Sounds Uncomfortably Like an Internment Camp A colony for the homeless, isolated on an island in the East River.]( By Caroline Spivack [The Bronx Bodega Founded by a Former Music Executive “You have to support the people who support you.”]( [Introducing Wyldlands: Surrealist Bunkers to Survive the Apocalypse Doug Meyer’s show imagines a fantastical escape from future pandemics and other threats.]( [Learn more about RevenueStripe...]( [Read More From Curbed]( [Subscribe to New York]( [Subscribe to New York]( Getunlimited access]( more great stories from New York, home of Intelligencer, the Cut, Vulture, Curbed, Grub Street, and the Strategist. [SUBSCRIBE NOW]( [logo]( [facebook logo]( [instagram logo]( [twitter logo]( [unsubscribe](param=curbed) | [privacy notice]( | [update preferences]( This email was sent to {EMAIL}. Was this email forwarded to you? [Sign up now]( to get this newsletter in your inbox. [View this email in your browser.]( You received this email because you have a subscription to New York. Reach the right online audience with us For advertising information on e-mail newsletters please contact AdOps@nymag.com Vox Media, LLC 1201 Connecticut Ave. NW, 11th Floor Washington, DC 20036 Copyright © 2021, All rights reserved