New York is notorious for being unfriendly to those with reduced mobility. Some of its most iconic places like Grand Central Terminal are hard to navigate and are built in a way that is challenging to get around.
Flights of stairs lead to the western area of the main hall, and some of the elevators are hard to find, just out of sight in the industrial area off the tracks. In many cases, it is easier to exit the station and enter through a different doorway instead of trekking through the complex maze inside the building.
Similarly hard to navigate is the Queens Public Library Hunters Point. When it was opened in 2019, it received critical acclaim for its sleek, modern design, but a deeper look reveals a myriad of problems. Most of the building consists of a series of mezzanines connected by stairs, which is where the problems arise. The library is impossible to navigate for those with reduced mobility, and it is hard to navigate even for able-bodied people.
So, in 2019, Tanya Jackson, a woman with mobility issues, filed a lawsuit against the library, the board of trustees, and the city, for discrimination. Last month, New York City filed its own lawsuit against Steven Holl’s office, who designed the library.
There are not only fundamental problems for patrons of the library, but for the librarians as well. The atrium takes up most of the space, and the whole building is only 22,000 square feet. The passageways are extremely narrow, and there’s only a few feet of space between the stacks and the banisters. The curving atrium walls make book carts unable to fit neatly on the wall, meaning that librarians will have little to no space to work.
The library is impractical, has no accessibility for those with limited mobility, and it was a waste of money from the city and a faulty design from Steven Holl and his architectural firm.
Source: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/newsletter/2023-06-24/how-did-a-new-york-public-library-by-steven-holl-architects-get-accessibility-so-wrong-essential-arts-arts-culture
Flights of stairs lead to the western area of the main hall, and some of the elevators are hard to find, just out of sight in the industrial area off the tracks. In many cases, it is easier to exit the station and enter through a different doorway instead of trekking through the complex maze inside the building.
Similarly hard to navigate is the Queens Public Library Hunters Point. When it was opened in 2019, it received critical acclaim for its sleek, modern design, but a deeper look reveals a myriad of problems. Most of the building consists of a series of mezzanines connected by stairs, which is where the problems arise. The library is impossible to navigate for those with reduced mobility, and it is hard to navigate even for able-bodied people.
So, in 2019, Tanya Jackson, a woman with mobility issues, filed a lawsuit against the library, the board of trustees, and the city, for discrimination. Last month, New York City filed its own lawsuit against Steven Holl’s office, who designed the library.
There are not only fundamental problems for patrons of the library, but for the librarians as well. The atrium takes up most of the space, and the whole building is only 22,000 square feet. The passageways are extremely narrow, and there’s only a few feet of space between the stacks and the banisters. The curving atrium walls make book carts unable to fit neatly on the wall, meaning that librarians will have little to no space to work.
The library is impractical, has no accessibility for those with limited mobility, and it was a waste of money from the city and a faulty design from Steven Holl and his architectural firm.
Source: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/newsletter/2023-06-24/how-did-a-new-york-public-library-by-steven-holl-architects-get-accessibility-so-wrong-essential-arts-arts-culture