The cumulative effects of the 1961 Zoning Resolution can be seen in this map of the two-block zone between Fifth and Seventh Avenues from Central Park South to 40th Street, which shows all the plazas (blue) and arcades (orange) that have been built since the resolution’s passage. In an effort to emphasize the effect of the zoning resolution on midtown Manhattan, public spaces built before 1961, such as the plazas around the Time & Life Building on Sixth Avenue between 50th and 51st Streets, are not shown.
The data for this map were compiled by Jerold S. Kayden, a professor of urban planning and design at Harvard University who, in conjunction with the New York City Department of City Planning and the Municipal Art Society of New York, published an exhaustive study of the privately owned public spaces built under the 1961 Zoning Resolution. Above all, the map illustrates how the succession of public plazas created along Sixth Avenue has erased the street wall there and how the addition of mid-block arcades between Sixth and Seventh Avenues has added a de facto secondary street to the 1811 grid. CY