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Current Initiative:
Newsrack Enforcement

CIVITAS is a vocal advocate for regulating the proliferating nuisance of abandoned, vandalized, and poorly maintained newsracks on sidewalks and busy street corners. We are working closely with many other civic organizations throughout New York City to ensure compliance with the newsrack law of 2002, which was amended in 2004 to eliminate the requirement to maintain dirt and graffiti free newsracks.

We encourage you to write NYC Council Member James Vacca (The Bronx, District 13), chair of the NYC Council Transportation Committee, to schedule an oversight hearing to address the burgeoning problem of increased numbers and poor maintenance of newsracks.

Click here for a sample letter. Be sure to carbon copy Upper East Side and East Harlem council members:

James Vacca
250 Broadway
Suite 1749
New York, NY 10007
jvacca@council.nyc.ny.us

Daniel R. Garodnick
250 Broadway
Suite 1880
New York, NY 10007
garodnick@council.nyc.ny.us

Jessica S. Lappin
250 Broadway
Suite 1762
New York, NY 10007
lappin@council.nyc.gov

Christine C. Quinn
250 Broadway
Suite 1856
New York, New York 10007
quinn@council.nyc.gov

Melissa Mark-Viverito
250 Broadway
Suite 1882
New York, NY 10007
mviverito@council.nyc.gov

Click here to report newsrack violations to 311

Read more about our Newsrack Enforcement Initiatives in the Spring 2008 newsletter issue: Taming the Newsrack Monster

"Madison Avenue’s Business Improvement District is the latest BID to have demonstrated what a dramatic improvement can be made when the hodgepodge of filthy, dilapidated single newsracks is replaced by well-designed multiracks.

In addition, the Madison Avenue BID has joined with CIVITAS and others to form the New York City Newsrack Committee. Its members include the Fashion Center, Grand Central, 34th Street, Brooklyn Heights, Carroll Gardens, Columbus Avenue and Union Square BIDs, neighborhood groups in Queens, the Municipal Art Society, Transportation Alternatives, Landmark West, Murray Hill Neighborhood Association, East 86th Street Merchants & Residents Association, and Carnegie Hill Neighbors.

Across the country the newsrack problem is being successfully solved via legislation. Stronger newsrack laws and enforcement provisions are now in place in Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami Beach, San Francisco, Dallas, Houston, San Diego, Boston, Pasadena and Denver, among others. Each city has defined the sidewalk as a “Public Right of Way” with safety, function and aesthetics taken into consideration.

The Municipal Art Society’s “Nasty Newsrack Photo Contest” in 2007 gleaned hundreds of entries that clearly demonstrated how severe the newsrack problem is and how most newsrack owners in New York cannot be counted on to comply with ordinances about the placement and condition of their property. Some of the worst examples can be viewed on their website www.mas.org.

As the ever-increasing number of newsracks on New York’s sidewalks continues to clog corners, impede access to bus stops and fire-hydrants, and collectively lend an unkempt look to our sidewalks, we are urging the City Council to crack down on the rack problem.

The New York City Newsrack Committee has suggested a newsrack legislation package that covers an application/registration process, fees to help finance enforcement, standardization, permanent placement, limits as to numbers/locations of newsracks, elimination of redundancy and provisions for abandonment, appearance/cleanliness, advertising parameters, streamlined enforcement procedures as well as the promotion of multiracks.

With other cities having paved the way, New Yorkers should have a good shot at taming the newsrack monster here, but Council Member Jessica Lappin (D-Upper East Side) has been asked by the Transportation Committee Chair, Council Member John Liu (Flushing), to work on a provision that would limit the scope of newsrack action to merely prohibiting single newsracks within 300 feet of a multirack.

Most areas of the city do not have BIDs or multiracks, and the areas without them, in fact, have a noticeably worse problem with single newsracks. When a BID manages to rid itself of single newsracks, the publishers simply move their newsracks to the closest non-multirack area. As a result, more avenues and residential side streets in non-BID areas have been plagued with a larger influx of newsracks. In an area like 125th Street where residents and business leaders have been making such great strides to rejuvenate the district, it adds insult to injury when newsrack owners target the neighborhood as a convenient dumping ground for their excess newsracks and politicianlook the other way.

All of New Yorkers should be able to enjoy attractive streetscapes and meaningful, citywide newsrack legislation is long overdue. If other cities have effectively dealt with the newsrack blight, there is no reason why we should not be able to do the same."

Rita Hirsch and Liberty Rees