Making Scaffolding Artful

Good morning. It’s Monday. Today we’ll find out why art is coming to scaffolding on buildings in New York City. We’ll also get details on the fire commissioner’s sudden resignation over the weekend.

Zazu Swistel’s “The Urbanite’s Clinic for Decadence and Decay, 2024.”Credit…Zazu Swistel

They are an everyday sight on practically every block in New York City: buildings with scaffolding, surrounded by fences or sidewalk sheds at street level. Some scaffolding are swathed in netting from the top down. The look is utilitarian, uniform and uninspiring.

The city wants them to look more like art galleries, with temporary visual art on the temporary protective structures — and there are a lot of them. If the construction fences and sidewalk sheds were laid end to end, the city says, they would stretch 300 miles, or roughly the driving distance from New York City to Burlington, Vt.

In 2013, when the facade of the Plaza Hotel was being cleaned, an architecturally correct rendering of the famous hotel was printed on mesh that was draped around the building to hide the scaffolding.

Now the city is making artwork the default look on the fencing, netting and sidewalk sheds that go up when buildings are under construction or undergoing renovation. Today the Department of Cultural Affairs is posting an online gallery of “preapproved designs” that developers and project managers can choose from. The eight designs were chosen for a program called City Canvas, from 500 submissions by artists who answered an open call for sketches.