New (and for some, suggestively shaped) concrete bollards are being installed on Ninth Avenue between Little West 12th and West 13th Street, as part of an ongoing new measure to calm traffic and make the streets of the Meatpacking District friendlier to pedestrians. The intersection [2] has long been a kind of car-and-pedestrian free-for-all.

 

The new concept cuts a triangular plaza out of an extremely wide cobblestone street. An early rendering, with the plaza and extended sidewalk marked with bollards:

  The new plaza is the work of the Greater Gansevoort Urban Improvement Project, with help from the Project for Public Spaces [3]' Open Planning Process. The group conducted a thorough study before suggesting improvements, a good summary of which is available here [4].