Lower Broadway Streetscape
The Alliance for Downtown New York commissioned QRP and architects Cooper Roberson & Partners to develop a master plan for Lower Manhattan’s Business Improvement District. The team developed a plan for the district’s streets that proposed a hierarchy of improvements including area-wide street lighting, signage, and sidewalks.
The Broadway Streetscape Improvement Program emerged from this Master Plan. A new and sophisticated look was created for Lower Manhattan’s “main street” with new 12” wide granite curbs, grey tinted sidewalks, custom-designed trash baskets and bollards, and new streetlights and pedestrian lights. A signage system was developed to improve wayfinding with new street name signs, wayfinding plaques and orientation columns. 200 black granite plaques with stainless steel letters, commemorating every ticker-tape parade that has marched up Broadway, were set into the “Canyon of Heroes” sidewalk.
A complex array of underground utilities, subway lines and building vaults proved to be a technical challenge. To maintain a progression of paired light poles marching up Broadway, at 50’ on center, foundations were built into building vaults, subway structures, and squeezed between utilities with many field decisions made due to a lack of mapped information. To incorporate the new streetscape elements, the design team collaborated with DOT and the Transit Authority to adjust construction schedules allowing for simultaneous reconstruction of a subway station roof.
Location
Manhattan, NY
Client
Alliance for Downtown New York
Role
Landscape Architect
Team
Cooper Robertson + Partners
Pentagram
