Newly Landmarked Harlem Square To Get Traffic Fixes, City Says

HARLEM, NY — Months after declaring Dorrance Brooks Square a historic district, the city is planning to make the picturesque intersection a bit more pedestrian-friendly.

The small sitting area between West 136th and 137th streets, facing St. Nicholas Park, also lends its name to a historic district that the city designated last June, covering 13 brownstone-lined blocks surrounding the square.

Despite its beauty, the square currently suffers from an awkward design, with a wide, white-striped gap separating it from the crosswalk at West 136th Street. At 130 feet, the crosswalk itself is also unusually long, posing a hardship for pedestrians, staffers from the Department of Transportation told a Harlem community board earlier this month.

To improve things, the city is now planning to extend the square's south side by painting over the street, connecting it to the intersection and shortening the crosswalk. The square's east side, along Edgecombe Avenue, will also get a painted sidewalk extension, while a few extra parking spaces will be opened up along the Edgecombe side as well.

Work will begin this fall or in the spring of 2023, according to the DOT.

Notably, once the painted extensions are in place, the city will consider making the fixes permanent by installing longer-lasting materials like stone hexagon pavers, DOT leaders told Community Board 10.

"When we install painted materials, DOT sees that as a temporary treatment that we’ll eventually build out as a capital project," DOT project manager Karissa Lidstrand said during the April 12 meeting.

But it will likely take at least 10 years to design, fund, and secure permission from the Landmarks Preservation Commission to get that project started, Lidstrom said. That long wait caused dismay among some safe-streets advocates, who complained after DOT's presentation that enlarging the modest square should not need to take a decade.

Still, the city hopes the painted extensions will improve safety at the intersection, where at least nine people have been injured in crashes since 2015.

Related coverage:

• Harlem's New Historic District Gets Street Markers From City
• Harlem District, Library Are Designated As Landmarks