New York City's outdoor dining program thrived for nearly four years. What started off as a pandemic-era program to help keep restaurants afloat became an extremely popular fixture across the city, expanding from just tables and chairs on sidewalks to roadway "streeteries."
This April, Streetsblog's video team visited roadway eateries across four boroughs (spoiler alert: there are none on Staten Island) to see firsthand what’s changed under the new rules for outdoor dining. What we found were curbsides across the city relegated back to mere car storage when they once bustled with life.
And of the relatively few eateries that have set up on the streets, the vast majority are located in the wealthiest parts of the city, meaning that anyone in the outer boroughs (or even in parts of Upper Manhattan) has to travel far afield to enjoy something that, just last year, they had access to just down the street.
by streetsblognyc