Tangled Downtown Intersection Slated for Simplification
Good luck if you’re trying to drive through Lower Manhattan’s Chatham Square, where seven streets come together in a tangled knot and traffic agents wave desperately in futile attempts to synchronize traffic. Be on high alert if you’re a bicyclist getting through this chaos, as traffic signals change unexpectedly and vehicles come at you out of nowhere. And if you’re a pedestrian, never, ever, attempt to cross straight through, even at a run. Go around, no matter how long it takes.
The City’s Department of Transportation (DOT) and the City’s Economic Development Corporation (EDC) want to redesign this byzantine intersection in Chinatown, with a proposal that would turn the confluence of seven streets – where Worth, Mott, and Oliver Streets meet St. James Place, Park Row, East Broadway, and the Bowery – into a standard four-way junction.
The proposed redesign aims to transform Chatham Square into a more typical cruciform junction by connecting Worth Street directly to East Broadway and St. James Place to the Bowery. This would be accomplished by moving Kimlau Square west and expanding its footprint. In this scenario, Mott Street and Park Row would still end at Worth Street, but no longer do so in the midst of the intersection, which will have been moved east, while St. James Street will flow straight into the Bowery without any turns required. Both instance of streamlining will be accomplished by locating the newly created intersection on the current site of Kimlau Square. Oliver Street will continue to end at St. James Place.
A DOT spokesman says, “the redesign would dramatically expand pedestrian space while simplifying a complex intersection, improve circulation with shortened pedestrian crossings, and provide more direct routes for drivers. The project will also include opportunities to plant trees and greenery to beautify and expand available public space, including in Kimlau Square, the small park in the center of Chatham Square.”
The newly enlarged Kimlau Square (see illustration) would, for the first time, be able to accommodate public events such as Lunar New Year and Mid-Autumn Festival. The plan next goes before the City’s Public Design Commission, which has the legal authority to approve or veto projects on city-owned land.
The Chatham Square redesign is part of the larger Chinatown Connections project, a $55-million initiative to bolster neighborhood identity and culture, expand pedestrian space, and support connections with surrounding communities by creating safer pedestrian and cyclist connections.
The Chatham Square proposal, however, fails to address a longstanding demand from the local community, that Park Row, which once connected the Financial District and Civic Center to Chinatown, be reopened to traffic. The thoroughfare, which has been closed to civilian vehicles as a “temporary” security measure since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, under the rationale that a buffer was needed for the nearby Police Headquarters building, along with other government offices.
During the years since, Park Row has served as an unofficial (and free) parking lot for police officers’ personal vehicles and those of employees of adjacent court houses. Today, cyclists and pedestrians are permitted to use the thoroughfare, as well as the M103 and M9 buses – but no other vehicles.
In a resolution enacted in December 2024, Community Board demanded that “Park Row [be] opened to all forms of traffic,” based on a DOT traffic study. This analysis found that traffic queuing at the northern end of Park Row (at Chatham Square) is three times the local average, with 1,141 vehicles converging there during a typical morning rush hour and 1,362 during the evening peak. Opening Park Row would help ease congestion at Chatham Square.