SINCE the early 20th century, New York City has taken street space away from people and devoted it to moving traffic in and out of the city. But in the 21st century, we’re beginning to remake the streets as places where people want to get out of their cars to walk and bike. Conceptually, if only rarely functionally, we have Slow Zones and Slow Streets. We need a Slow City, with more streets for people.



- Looking east towards Brooklyn Bridge from City Hall Plaza, Manhattan.
- Looking west towards Brooklyn Bridge from Downtown Brooklyn.
Editorials by John Massengale
Streetsblog NYC Op-Ed
“Whose streets? Our streets, not cars’:
A post-COVID lesson for NYC
New York Daily News Op-Ed
“‘Open Streets’ Must Lead to Permanent Changes in Our City”
Streetsblog NYC Op-Ed
“Let’s Build a Network of ‘Quiet Streets’”
Streetsblog NYC Op-Ed
“A Highway That Hurts The City”
Online Title: “Buck the BQE”
New York Daily News Op-Ed
“There Are Better Ways To Get Around Town”
New York Times Op-Ed
Queens Boulevard – Transportation Alternatives


- AFTER: Queens Boulevard, Queens, New York. Aerial view looking south from 68th Avenue. © 2014 Massengale & Co LLC and UrbanAdvantage, for Transportation Alternatives.
- BEFORE: Queens Boulevard, Queens, New York. Aerial view looking south from 68th Avenue. © 2014 Massengale & Col LLC and TransportationAlternatives.
- AFTER: Queens Boulevard, Queens, New York. Looking south from between 67th Drive and 68th Avenue. © 2014 Massengale & Co LLC and UrbanAdvantage, for Transportation Alternatives.
- BEFORE: Queens Boulevard, Queens, New York. Looking south from between 67th Drive and 68th Avenue. © 2014 Massengale & Co LLC and Transportation Alternatives.
Jane Jacobs Square


- BEFORE: An aerial view of “Jane Jacobs Square.”
- BEFORE: Looking south on Bleecker Street today.
- BEFORE: Jane Jacobs Square, New York, New York. An aerial view looking south. © Massengale & Co LLC and Dover, Kohl & Partners, Rendering by James Dougherty.
- AFTER: Jane Jacobs Square, New York, New York. An aerial view looking south. © Massengale & Co LLC and Dover, Kohl & Partners, Rendering by James Dougherty.
Yorkville Promenade




Winslow Homer Walk


- BEFORE: Aerial view looking over City Hall towards Brooklyn Bridge, with the New York Municipal Building on the left.
- BEFORE: Nassau Street, looking towards Beekman Street and the the Municipal Building.
- BEFORE: Whitehall Street, looking at the intersection with Broadway, looking south towards Bowling Green.
- AFTER: Beekman Street redesigned as a Slow Street. © 2017 Massengale & Co LLC, Rendering by Gabriele Stroik Johnson.
- AFTER: The extension of Bowling Green. © 2017 Massengale & Co LLC, Rendering by Gabriele Stroik Johnson.
Financial District Neighborhood Association Articles
Slow New York Articles
John Massengale, Buck the BQE, New York Daily News, November 25, 2019. Published in print edition on page 29 as “A Highway That Hurts The City.”
John Massengale, Opinion: Congestion Pricing is Just One Step Toward Reclaiming City Streets, City Limits, June 3, 2019.
John Massengale, There Are Better Ways to Get Around Town, New York Times, May 15, 2018.
Neil Vigdor, Street Smarts, How and why John Massengale is trying to make New York City streets safer and more enjoyable, Taft Bulletin, Fall, 2018.
John Massengale, Designing Streets for People, Vision Zero Cities, International Journal of Traffic Safety Information, 2017, pp 17–27.
John Massengale, Occupy Broad Street, There Are Two Types of Architecture, September 16, 2016.
John Massengale, To Stop Pedestrian Deaths NYC Must Change How it Builds Streets, City Limits, December 22, 2015.
Transportation Alternatives, Streets for New York’s Next Generation, Reclaim, Fall 2014, pp 12–15.
Transportation Alternatives, A New Vision for Queens Boulevard, 2014.
John Massengale, A Street Is A Terrible Thing To Waste, New York Council of Mayors Municipal Bulletin, Summer 2014, pp 6–8.John Massengale, Getting to Vision Zero, Street Design blog, July 8, 2014.
Financial District Neighborhood Association Articles
