New York City has unveiled two prototype sidewalk sheds with sleek, angular roofs meant to replace the city’s ubiquitous green pipe-and-plywood scaffolding, but the new designs are drawing online ridicule even as experts question whether anyone will actually pay to build them.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration installed the two prototypes outside Department of Buildings headquarters in Lower Manhattan. The designs, created by architecture firm Practice for Architecture and Urbanism, were originally unveiled last November under former Mayor Eric Adams as alternatives to the standard sidewalk shed.
One prototype features a slanted, transparent roof made of polycarbonate decking intended to let more light reach the sidewalk below. The other uses rockfall netting that catches falling debris while still allowing sunlight through.
The unconventional angles quickly became a target online, with critics questioning where rainwater runoff would actually go.
“Wait a second…did that stupid communist pitch the roofs to drain INTO the buildings??” reality star and Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt posted.
“They want everything slanted to the far left,” quipped former City Councilman Justin Brannan.
David Burney, an associate professor at Pratt Institute and a former city construction commissioner, dismissed the drainage complaints as overblown.
“They can easily handle the draining. I don’t think it’s a problem,” Burney said.
He was more skeptical of the rock-netting design, which would leave pedestrians exposed to rain and sun that the current plywood sheds block.
“One benefit you do get is when it’s raining or really sunny you can walk under the shed and get some protection,” Burney said. “So if they take that away that will be one more reason to hate sidewalk sheds.”
The bigger issue, according to Burney, isn’t aesthetics or drainage — it’s cost. Conventional plywood sheds run about $125 to $180 per linear foot, according to contractor Prime Scaffold. A Department of Buildings spokesperson declined to specify the price of the new models, saying only that the designs prioritize affordable, readily available materials and can be reused. The spokesperson did acknowledge, however, that the new sheds will require more upfront investment than the standard models.
Burney said the city tried something similar before and it went nowhere, because building owners were never required to pay the premium for a nicer-looking shed.
“They’re a huge improvement of the crap that we put up now, but who’s going to pay for it?” Burney said. “Unless they make it mandatory, it’s hard to see who’s going to pay for it.”
“The owners don’t want to pay for it,” he added. “The contractors don’t want to pay for it.”
