Good news for anyone who’s tired of walking through dark green plywood tunnels: NYC’s sidewalk sheds are officially on the decline.
This week, the city announced it has taken down about 1,200 sidewalk sheds since January, a drop of more than 15% in just 10 months.
And the sheds that do need to stay up are about to get a serious glow-up, with new see-through designs heading to streets across all five boroughs.
It’s set to be a visually appealing glowing up, and it’s coming quicker than you think. Here’s everything you need to know.
1,200 sheds down, and counting
Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Deputy Mayor Leila Bozorg and Department of Buildings (DOB) Commissioner Ahmed Tigani shared the numbers this week.
According to the city, tougher DOB oversight is pushing building owners to finally start long-delayed repairs, which means more sheds can safely come down.
The mayor put it simply: New Yorkers shouldn’t have to accept “dark, obstructed sidewalks as a fact of life.”
The new rules for sheds
The rules for keeping a shed up are getting stricter.
Under two local laws passed in 2025, building owners now face:
- More frequent permit renewals
- Stronger penalties for sheds left up with no active work happening
- New limits on sprawling sheds at large “campuses” like NYCHA developments and universities, where coverage can stretch far from the actual buildings
Meet the new see-through sheds
For sheds that are genuinely needed, the city is rolling out designs that actually let the light in.
Two new models by architecture firm PAU just made their sidewalk debut outside DOB headquarters in Lower Manhattan, the first time either has been installed on a city street:
- The Baseline Shed: clear polycarbonate decking and an angled roof let natural light pour onto the sidewalk, so you can actually see the shops behind it. It comes in heavy-duty and light-duty versions.
- The Speed Shed: a lighter-duty design with a rockfall-netting roof that catches debris while letting the sun through. It even has detachable wheels, so it can be rolled from spot to spot.
They join two designs from engineering firm Arup that went on show this summer, and those just scored some major bragging rights: TIME named Arup’s sheds one of its Best Inventions of 2026.
Not bad for scaffolding!
When will they show up on your block?
The city expects to finalize the rules that make the new designs available citywide before the end of the year.
The designs are owned by the city and can be freely copied, so building owners and contractors can use them without paying a cent for the plans.
Want a sneak peek in the meantime? Commissioner Tigani is encouraging New Yorkers to stop by DOB headquarters in Lower Manhattan over the next several weeks to see the new designs up close.
Side by side with the old pipe-and-plywood sheds, the difference is pretty striking.
Why this is a big deal
If it feels like sheds have been everywhere forever, that’s because they kind of have.
Back in 2023, the city counted around 9,000 active sheds stretching nearly 400 miles of sidewalk.
Some stuck around for an absurdly long time. The record holder, outside a landmark at 409 Edgecombe Avenue in Harlem, stood for 21 years before finally coming down in 2023.
So the next time you spot a shed that’s suddenly gone and sunlight hitting a sidewalk that hasn’t seen it in years, you’ll know why.
Brighter days are, quite literally, on the way.
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