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ROBERT SIEGEL, host:
For 39 years, New York City has allowed developers to make their buildings taller in exchange for creating a plaza or a park or some kind of public space on the property. Other cities have done the same, but not to the degree that New York has. Until recently, though, no one knew how many of these spaces existed in the city, if they were being maintained and if the public was using them. Well, now all that information is in a book called "Privately Owned Public Space: The New York City Experience." Barbara Mantel took a walking tour with its author.
BARBARA MANTEL reporting:
Jerold Kayden teaches urban planning at Harvard, but he's spent much of his time during the past several years in New York City, digging through decades of documents, walking the streets and examining spaces like this one in front of a Manhattan apartment building.
Professor JEROLD KAYDEN (Author, "Privately Owned Public Spaces"): We have arrived at a plaza at L'Ecole(ph) on East 47th Street, east of Third Avenue.
MANTEL: Kayden and researchers from the city and the Municipal Art Society found 503 privately owned public spaces, most in Manhattan. They also found that in exchange for creating these spaces, developers were allowed to build an extra 16 million square feet of floor space. That's the equivalent of about seven Empire State Buildings. But Kayden says the public hasn't always benefited, and he points to the plaza in front of this apartment building as an example. Along one side is a narrow walkway. Next to that is a large rectangular basin filled with plants. The basin's waist-high cement walls are topped with spikes. Next to that is a driveway.
Prof. KAYDEN: Remarkably for many years driveways would also count as public space. So we are now required to step aside and let the car go through, and yet this is public space.
MANTEL: But one...