Year after year we find ourselves retreating to our homes as soon as winter sets in. The cold brings us indoors, often with friends and family close together, and we hear constant complaints about the weather. This year, in 2020, we need to fight this urge to do the same. This year we need to reacquaint ourselves with winter and embrace it in order to protect ourselves and to help our communities thrive.
Syracuse, like many cities in the Northeast and Midwest, is looking to embrace outdoor dining and activities in winter like never before. Recently the Onondaga County Executive stated his intent in helping restaurants maintain their outdoor spaces to help reduce the transmission of Covid-19 throughout the community. While this pandemic has increased the importance of this move, we shouldn’t be looking at this as a one-off experience this winter. Instead we should look at this winter as a chance to experiment and build a new relationship with the season that defines Syracuse.
Let’s take a look at Armory Square where the city has successfully implemented an open streets program on the weekends for the last few months. Shutting down these streets have helped restaurants expand their seating to more than make up for the reduced indoor capacity caused by state health mandates. Weekends on these blocks have become more lively than normal and have the atmosphere of a festival at times, showcasing the demand for new open spaces in our urban core. There’s little reason that this program should not be continued throughout the winter with some modifications to help keep people warm.
Heat lamps and coverings can go a long way in creating comfortable spaces for diners to enjoy. Simple barriers, perhaps tents with a couple walls down to block the wind, can create intimate spaces. You can look to New York where many of the curbside dining options that have sprung up have already utilized barriers and coverings to extend their usage through poor weather. Some as simple as plastic walls under tents, or all the way up to intricately themed booths that extend the indoor experience seamlessly outdoors.
Outdoor dining options around New York City
Currently the only parklet dining options in Syracuse do not make use of any coverings and feel temporary. Adding solid roofs, planters, wood decking, etc., can go a long way in making the dining experience in these parklets feel more cohesive and less vulnerable to the traffic around them. This should be employed on the open streets as well. But while these booths can help extend the dining experience, we should also look to make use of the entire street, keeping it closed to traffic long term.
Sidewalk Labs explored the idea of using a modern version of STOA in our urban environments to help protect people in our cities during inclement weather. STOA is a traditional architectural feature of covered walkways, like those in many older Italian and Spanish cities. These walkways make it possible to actively participate in city life without running to our cars for protection. A simplified version of this could be utilized to connect these new dining booths with the buildings, reducing the amount rain or snow reaching the sidewalk while still permitting air flow onto the streets.
Outside of the dining booths, and in the middle of the street, should be gathering places. Fire pits, Adirondack chairs, tables with heated blankets (as showcased in this City Lab article) surrounded by lights could help create an inviting atmosphere. Combating our desires to retreat inside in winter not only requires us to provide outdoor heat but also to amp up the lighting. Along with these gathering spaces we need to permanently end the ban on unsealed containers in certain areas. Allowing visitors and residents to walk freely between restaurants and bars in specific locations will help keep any one space from becoming overcrowded as patrons feel free to move around instead of laying claim to a single spot.
These ideas shouldn’t just be kept to Armory Square, but should be used throughout the city. Some restaurants have invested in bubbles around tables, while others, in some European countries, have created mini greenhouses around tables adding to the visual aesthetic of the area. Perhaps its time for Syracuse to open up a permanent rooftop bar and mimic the lighted igloos that have become popular Instagram spots in New York.
For a city that continually wins the title of “Snowiest City in the Country” we should be leading the country on how to embrace winter during this pandemic and beyond. Simple changes and bold decisions can reshape how we feel about this season. Perhaps even turn what many see as a reason to leave the area into one that attracts others to it.
