Mapping Systems · Final Project
Public by
Requirement
A data-driven examination of legally required public amenities in fifteen outdoor plaza developments along Sixth Avenue.
15plaza developments
240kdocumented plaza sq. ft.
3with no required amenities
Krishna Goyal · Columbia GSAPP · 2026
01 · Premise
Public access is promised uniformly. Public benefit is not.
Privately owned public spaces—or POPS—are provided and maintained by private property owners in exchange for zoning benefits.
If these outdoor plazas share an obligation to provide public access, how consistent is the breadth of amenities they are required to provide?
Source: NYC Department of City Planning, Privately Owned Public Spaces
02 · Study area
One corridor makes unequal requirements easier to see.
The study follows Sixth Avenue from approximately West 42nd to West 57th Street. Holding the corridor relatively constant focuses the comparison on documented requirements rather than broad neighborhood differences.
03 · Method
A reproducible path from city data to an interactive argument.
Download NYC POPS records through the Open Data API.
Select Sixth Avenue developments with an outdoor plaza component.
Extract plaza area, access hours, and required amenities.
Compare seven equally weighted amenity groups.
Export GeoJSON and visualize the corridor with MapLibre.
Documented Provision Score
Seating · Tables · Landscape · Lighting · Public signage · Litter receptacles · Water
Each group contributes equally to a transparent 0–100 score.04 · Findings
The right to enter does not guarantee support for staying.
include a 24-hour public-access requirement.
list no required amenities in the official record.
require seating—the most direct support for occupying a plaza.
Amenity coverage
Basic occupation and maintenance are common, but not universal.
05 · Interactive map
Provision changes block by block.
Gray dots show all other Manhattan POPS. The outlined boundary marks the study corridor; within it, color and size describe the selected 15.
Documented Provision Score
Limited (0–42)
Moderate (43–70)
Extensive (71–100)
Other Manhattan POPS
Sixth Avenue study area
Circle size represents documented plaza area.
06 · Contrasts
Comparable access requirements can produce very different records.
07 · Limits
The database maps obligation, not experience.
The official record does not confirm whether amenities are currently present, maintained, welcoming, or equally accessible. Mixed developments may aggregate several public-space components.
Looking forward
The next step is verification.
A future version would compare legal records against current imagery, accessibility audits, and field observations—shifting the question from what is promised to what the public can actually use.
Sources
NYC Department of City Planning, Privately Owned Public Spaces
NYC Open Data dataset rvih-nhyn
Analysis and visualization: Krishna Goyal, 2026