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“With this partnership and funding, we are eager to support the school by making permanent infrastructure improvements that allow for a safer street and reduce the burden on administrators."— Sabina Sethi Unni, Schools Planner at Open Plans
Through Project for Public Spaces’ Community Placemaking Grants: Streets as Places & Destinations Stations with General Motors, New York-based advocacy nonprofit Open Plans received $100,000, along with planning, implementation, and capacity building assistance from PPS, to turn Clarkson Street in Manhattan into a safe third place for the middle and high school students of City-As-School (where schools M560 and P.S. M721, the Manhattan Occupational Training Center, are co-located), who share a building that has no gym and is currently under construction. For these students, the street outside—which is often treated as a through-way for cars to get to the Holland Tunnel—is the only open space for recreational activities.
Expanding upon the ongoing success of NYC Department of Transportation’s Open Streets for Schools program, the placemaking project resulted in a transformation that was shaped by the students themselves. The visioning sessions and more than a year of conversations with students, administrators, and neighbors gave young people a voice to identify the elements they wanted to see and weigh in on how their street would work for them, resulting in the design and installation of New York City's first permanent swing gate for a school, a communal gardening space, attractive planters, and soon, street seating for a place to hangout. At one of the schools, P.S. M721, a specialized public school for students with diverse learning needs and disabilities, their Special Olympics basketball team used to roll out hoops into the lobby in order to practice. Now with expanded access onto the street, school staff are able to maintain visibility of the students, which had not been possible at the nearby park. The inclusion of teen input in the placemaking process was a game changer, making more space safe and accessible.
“You don’t want to be stuck in a classroom for eight hours a day,” said Alex Rodriguez, a high school senior and an Open Plans intern who helped host school block parties and conducted surveys and research in 2025. “You want to go outside. You want to breathe air. I think the most important part is connecting with your classmates.”
The streets outside schools are among the most overlooked opportunities to give teens the welcoming, flexible third places many have lost. NYC DOT will evaluate how well the swing-gate model performs before deciding whether to expand it to other School Streets and Open Streets. NYC DOT Commissioner Flynn has said he sees “a ton of potential across the city” for a lower-maintenance approach. The need is large. A 2026 report from the NYC Comptroller found 371 public schools without dedicated outdoor physical education space, yet only 48 public schools participated in School Streets in the 2025–2026 school year.
Video Above: City-As-School students and staff, Opens Plans, Project for Public Spaces, and the NYC Department of Transportation come together to test out the newly installed permanent swing gate for a school street, the first of its kind for NYC. Credit: Streetfilms on YouTube
Thanks to funding from General Motors, the partnership between Project for Public Spaces and Open Plans, and the input of young people to help shape the street outside their school, the Community Placemaking Grant helped turn a through-way for cars to a place to play, gather, and connect. As the first permanent swing gate for a school street in the city, the installation at Clarkson Street serves as a pilot. If successful, Clarkson Street shows that the next great public space for New York City’s students may already be right outside their doors.
Project for Public Spaces’ Community Placemaking Grants enable US-based nonprofits and government agencies to address inequality of access to public places that serve community needs by working directly with local stakeholders to transform spaces or co-create new ones. We do this by providing direct funding, technical assistance, and capacity building facilitated by Project for Public Spaces.
Learn more about how to become a Social Impact Partner today. You can also support our work by making a donation. Every bit helps to bring public spaces to life!
PPS is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit organization.
