New York Flooded With Fix-It Ideas

NEW YORK — Professional attempts to improve this city of chaos have had decidedly mixed results, so a civic group invited amateurs--about 7 million of them--to submit their ideas.

The dabblers have suggested apple-shaped trash bins, “kickable newsstands,” express sidewalks and monuments to Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe. They would privatize subway station restrooms, build a toll plaza under Central Park for southbound cars and coat bridges with recycled plastic.

Those ideas are from the conservatives; the firebrands would raze the city or flood it.

What brought such people out of the woodwork? The Municipal Art Society’s “Call for Ideas” went out to schools, Con Edison customers, ethnic newspapers and other media, as part of a “Design New York” competition.

Ideas were proffered by about 400 people, half of whom had no experience in urban design, but plenty of opinions about it. Winners will get no prize, just the satisfaction of seeing their ideas fleshed out by professional designers in stage two of the contest.

Respondents ranged from Tessa John-Connor, a schoolgirl who for some reason would route elevated subway trains through the fourth floor of apartment houses, to Christopher X. Brodeur, a formerly homeless man who, like most people, yearns for the return of public toilets.

Diana Friedman would require every apartment building to house one homeless person in its basement. Bill Weber proposes trailer parks for the homeless on vacant lots. Joe Raia wants to make unused rooftop water towers into “homes, offices, shops and clubs.”

Raquel Hernandez urges creation of a “New York Universal Chapel” where all could meditate. Donald Gehan favors a space for public singing to be known as “A Cappella Center.”

Many focused on transportation. If they are heeded, city buses will have shelves for shopping bags, and riders who emerge disoriented from subway stations will find compasses set into the sidewalk.

As for skyscrapers, Jason Kunz would fit them with solar panels, while Marco Giovannoli favors retractable windmills. Ari Diacon wants to mount lasers atop them for the city’s defense; unnecessary, perhaps, but Ari is 8 years old.

He’s no wackier than Kim Knowlton, who wants to create stations where people can generate power by pedaling, and get paid for it. Eric Latsky would turn congested 57th Street into a canal with “cross-town gondola service.”

A problem may have more than one solution, such as the mess created by gleaners rooting through trash cans.

Vicki Kronish thinks trash should be put out in locked bins; Amo Hamilton favors transparent cans to eliminate the need to dig down to see what’s there.

Most of the aforementioned are Band-Aids. Richard Box would declare Manhattan unfit for human habitation. After the island is evacuated and its structures demolished, a new city would be constructed on what is now Central Park.

And this suggestion came in from Lake Buena Vista, Fla.: “Creation of Disney Times Square, a theme park.” The writer? Judson C. Green, president, Walt Disney Attractions.