Understanding that the streets and sidewalks of New York represent the city's single largest public space, the MAS works closely with community groups, like-minded organizations and elected officials to make the city government recognize that our streetscapes are important and valued public amenities, and that they should be approached with the same passion applied to the planning of any public space.

OUTRAGE! Nasty Newsracks Movie

March 14, 2008

Please click on the play icon above to watch OUTRAGE! the nasty newsracks movie.

Cities like Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas, San Diego, and San Francisco have all passed and are enforcing newsrack regulations that are both effective and workable. New York City is like the wild west when it comes to curtailing newsrack blight. Contact the Honorable John Liu, Chair of the Transportation Committee at the New York City Council, the Honorable Jessica Lappin, New York City Council Member, or the Honorable Janette Sadik-Kahn, New York City Transportation Commissioner, and let them know what you think.

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Winner of OUTRAGE! Nasty Newsracks Competition Announced

November 15, 2007

The Municipal Art Society Streetscapes Committee today announced the winner of its OUTRAGE! Nasty Newsracks photo contest, held during the summer and early fall. The winning photograph (above) is by Laura Dodd and depicts several newsracks near a bus-stop on the southeast corner of 4th Avenue and 9th Street. The photo was judged to be the winner because it shows multiple violations of the City's ordinances regulating newsracks: the newsracks are less than 15 feet away from a fire hydrant and all within a bus-stop zone; the bus is forced to discharge passengers outside of the bus-stop to avoid depositing them amid the racks; and the newsracks are dirty and unkempt, with one being used as a trash receptacle, and the glass door of another having been smashed in..

Ms. Dodd received a $100 gift certificate to the Urban Center Books store at 457 Madison Avenue as first prize. Continue reading...

Ten Finalists of OUTRAGE! Photo Contest Announced

November 12, 2007

The Municipal Art Society of New York announced the top ten finalists in the “OUTRAGE!!! Nasty Newsrack Photo Competition” today in advance of the selection of the winner scheduled for Tuesday, November 13, 2007 at the next Newsrack Committee meeting.

MAS launched the “OUTRAGE! Nasty Newsrack Photo Competition” to highlight the rampant legal violations of the City’s ordinance regulating newsracks in New York City, and received more than 200 submissions. The winner will receive a $100 dollar gift certificate to the Urban Center Bookstore at 457 Madison Avenue as first prize. To see all finalist photos, Continue reading...

The NYC Newsrack Committee Meets to Reveal Winner of OUTRAGE Photo Competition

October 11, 2007 The NYC Newsrack Committee is a coalition of civic organizations and BIDs concerned about the lack of enforcement of the newsrack regulations. Since the current law regulating newsracks on our public sidewalks is not being enforced, the Committee is calling for the City Council to hold an oversight hearing so that it can be determined how this law can be strengthened. Continue reading...

OUTRAGE! A Municipal Art Society Photo Competition

October 03, 2007

The streets of New York City are littered with filthy, poorly maintained and decrepit newsracks that are both eyesores and potentially hazardous to New Yorkers.

Paris, London, Berlin and Amsterdam don't tolerate this scourge on their streets, and Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami Beach, Houston and San Francisco have cracked down on the newsrack blight too. But New York City continues to tolerate it, and we think this is outrageous!

So we asked for your help in ridding our streets of these nasty newsracks.You submitted your best photographs of the dirtiest, most unkempt, most repulsive newsracks in New York City to our OUTRAGE! contest to help persuade elected officials that filthy newsracks are rotting the Big Apple and that they must commit to regulating them. To view a selection of the best entries, Continue reading...

Illegal, Obnoxious and Becoming Extinct

February 23, 2007 By Vanessa Gruen
Have you noticed that advertising on sidewalk construction sheds, hawking everything from beer to banks to cell phones, has started to disappear? Advertising signs on sidewalk sheds have always been illegal, and now the city's Department of Buildings (DOB) is cracking down on these brazen violations of the law. Continue reading...

The Battle Against Illegal Ads Continues

November 10, 2006 By Vanessa Gruen
The advertising sign pictured to the right was illegal and it was removed. After protests from concerned New Yorkers like you and from the Landmarks Preservation Commission, the Doubletree Hotel (Lexington Avenue at East 51st Street) did the right thing. This fine example of international style modernism by Morris Lapidus is now free from an inappropriate advertising blanket. Continue reading...

Chain Store Creep

October 27, 2006 By Vanessa Gruen and Jasper Goldman
Has your local deli or bodega &mdash that friendly neighborhood place where you grab your morning coffee and newspaper &mdash been replaced by a chain drug store? Or is that new building under construction down the block going to displace the small local shops you depend on with two more bank branches?

This phenomenon is not happening to you alone. It is occurring all over New York City. Continue reading...

The City in the Age of Terror

By Vanessa Gruen Is New York losing important aspects of its urbanity? Does the proliferation of security bollards impede pedestrian use of sidewalks? Have Constitutional rights to free speech and protection from searches suffered as public spaces and facilities are restricted, closed, or made accessible only on condition of acquiescence to inspections of person and belongings? Continue reading...

Shoot It Down! The Entries

August 10, 2006 Continue reading to see a selection of the 50 photographs submitted to the MAS and Curbed Shoot It Down! competition in 2006. Continue reading...

Shoot It Down!

A month-long competition sponsored by the MAS and real estate blog Curbed has come to a close, with Liberty T. Rees winning the Shoot It Down contest by finding the best example of an outrageous oversized illegal ad. Her photograph of 1496 Second Avenue shows a beer ad draped over a residential building on the Upper East Side. Continue reading...

Streetscape Clearance Sale

By Vanessa Gruen Ramshackle newsstands and unrestrained advertising spoil the city's street life. They should become distant memories when the city's coordinated street furniture contract is fully implemented, and laws governing signage are fully enforced. Continue reading...

Streetscapes: The Newsrack Nuisance

By Vanessa Gruen Far too often, the city's newsracks serve more as garbage bins and hosts for graffiti than as providers of publications. Despite the passage of a law meant to regulate the design and placement of newsracks, dilapidated models clutter our sidewalks. You can help curb this blight, and help the Municipal Art Society and its partners in the New York City Newsrack Safety Committee demonstrate to City Hall that its current regulation of newsracks isn't working. Continue reading...

You Can Help Us Stop Illegal Advertising - Call 311 Today

By Vanessa Gruen Advertising on sidewalk sheds is out of control in every borough of New York City. It's obnoxious, it's annoying, and it's illegal. Fact: all advertising on sidewalk sheds is illegal, unless the sign is for an establishment located in that building. The city's Department of Buildings needs your help in identifying illegal signs on sidewalk sheds. Continue reading...

Privately Owned Public Space: The World's Most Expensive Public Space

Privately Owned Public Space: The New York City Experience, a joint project of the MAS, the New York City Department of City Planning and Harvard land-use professor Jerold Kayden, offers the first comprehensive and fully researched examination of New York's privately owned public space bonus program. Continue reading...