Where can I sit outside in Sunnyside, Queens? 

Finding a comfortable place to relax outdoors can be difficult in New York City if your building/residence doesn’t have one. For many New Yorkers who don’t have outdoor leisure areas connected to their residence, parks and public spaces become their “backyard.” In my neighborhood of Sunnyside, Queens there is very little access to public green space. It is actually home to one out of two private parks in all of New York City, Sunnyside Gardens Park. I am not a member as my apartment does not fall within the designated zone. Therefore, my local friends and I have discovered public alternatives for having a seat outdoors. Collecting data on this topic became of interest to me after discovering the Vital Parks Explorer provided by NYC Parks. The online database provides statistics related to park access in every NYC community district. Access to a park is defined as either a 10-minute walk or a 15 minute transit ride. My neighborhood falls into district Queens 02 where 0% of the population have access to nature centers, hiking trails, or wild natural areas and only 12% have access to Greenway walking areas. I wondered, what places have I found as an alternative? And are there others? Do they fall within the definition of a 10-minute walk or 1 mile radius from my home? What are other people doing? My roommate and I decided to go for a walk, 1 mile in each direction from our apartment, and record places where we could sit down, or saw others sitting. What characteristics did these spaces have and what did they provide?

Dataset and Variables

On my walk, I recorded 49 opportunities to sit down. We did not count the number of seats but rather the opportunity to sit. For example an area with a series of benches counted as 1 bench opportunity or a table with chairs counted as 1 chair opportunity. I collected this data by photographing with my phone the places I sat or saw others sitting. The photographs were not only a visual record but captured the date, time, and location. I then created a list of the locations and relevant variables such as the location type (public/semi-public), the type of property (non-profit, city, residential, or business), the distance from home, the presence of greenery, the type of seating (bench, chair, etc.), the noise pollution, and who provided the opportunity (the city, private efforts, or adaptation by user). I then drew symbols to represent each category of seating as the photographs were too small and difficult to read when in a graph.

What did we find?

There were 21 seating opportunities provided by private efforts and 17 created from adapting infrastructure. Only 11 opportunities were found provided by the city through benches and grass areas. Chairs were the most common seat provided by users and there was a wide variety including plastic chairs, folding chairs, metal chairs, and rolling chairs, demonstrating the quintessence of outdoor seating for the local street culture. Wherever there was a lack, people adapted either by bringing their own seat or adapting the space around them. Stoops were the most common adapted seating we observed although we also saw people using docked citibikes as a place to sit. Usually, customers of the laundry mat use it while waiting for their clothes or youth gather and sit on the bikes to socialize after school and on weekends. Accessibility of the seats we found was not always clear. For example, can you sit on a bench outside of a business if you are not a customer? Can we sit on the grass outside the church even though we aren’t members of the church? With our closest park being private to members only, we utilize these seats despite the ambiguity. Otherwise one of our local coffee shops have outdoor seating in the backyard, but that requires being a paying customer.

Further Data to Collect and Present

This data shows the role of outdoor seating for facilitating street culture in New York City. Whether it is provided by the city or not, people will find a way to gather outdoors as a fabric of the city landscape. It demonstrates the resiliency of city dwellers and the centrality of social connection to urban life.

The data I collected was all I could record in one day on a 3 hour walk. The instances recorded in the private effort category continues to grow organically as I encounter them each day. For example, after my initial day of collecting, I walked by a boy using his scooter as a seat. It would also be fun to illustrate the sheer variety of chairs and materials users brought for sitting outside. Just within the category of chairs there were plastic chairs, folding chairs, rolling chairs, and more. And perhaps I will continue discovering ways to adapt the public environment for increased hospitality either myself or from others.