Street Lab

Originally founded by Leslie Davol and Sam Davol in 2006 in Boston (and moved to NYC in 2011), Street Lab is a nonprofit that transforms New York City streets into places that improve lives, strengthen neighborhoods, and bring New Yorkers together. Street Lab uses design, fabrication, and a pop-up approach to bring their vision to life across the city. They work closely with neighborhood families as well as local government to bring immediate benefits to residents while building support for long-term change, with priority given to serving low-income neighborhoods. Street Lab also assembles and send kits around the world for other cities to use to enact needed change in their neighborhoods.

Street Lab’s philosophy involves activating public spaces of all kinds across New York City, using programs that rely on physical designs to offer a place to gather, working in support of place-making efforts already underway by local groups. They focus on solutions that communities can’t easily implement themselves, and then share the resources generated by these collaborations across the city. Street Lab chooses locations based on requests from community groups, and work in partnership with city agencies, prioritizing underserved areas.

City

New York

Country

United States

Region

N. America

Year of Creation

2006

Featured Project

PLAY

Street Lab’s PLAY program enables safe, hands-free play for children on closed-off streets in high-need neighborhoods. The program builds on our work at NYC play streets since 2013, and was designed from the ground up with industrial designer Hannah Berkin-Harper in response to COVID-19. The program launched in July 2020 in conjunction with the launch of the city’s first official Play Street Program. Program elements include: a touch-free obstacle course with colorful barriers, hurdles, balance beams that can be arranged in any configuration and combined with chalk drawings for custom challenges, street chalk and layouts for creating engaging, appropriately-distanced zones for street games, physical activities (maze, race track), signage guiding people through the installation and encouraging all to maintain a safe distance, custom-designed benches stored on a rolling dolly in a compact stack, and Street Lab staff to oversee all.

PLAY: Pop-Up Obstacle Course

Resources

“2025 Joan Shaw Herman Award Honors Street Lab Creators Leslie Taylor Davol ’87 and Sam Davol ’88.” Concord Academy, 2 May 2025, https://concordacademy.org/news/2025jshaward/.

Alleyne, Kibin. “Open | Street Lab.” Uploaded by BronxNet to YouTube, 8 Aug. 2023, https://youtu.be/sIO5xSQ6ukQ?si=DkueefhCO_kc5J0X.

AmeriCorps Board of Directors. “AmeriCorps Board of Directors Meeting Transcript, 19 July 2023.” AmeriCorps, Corporation for National and Community Service, 19 July 2023, www.americorps.gov/sites/default/files/document/Board-meeting-transcript-2023-07-19.pdf.

Hu, Winnie. “Go Play in the Street, Kids. Really.” New York Times, 1 Apr. 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/01/nyregion/street-lab-open-streets-nyc.html.

“Reinvention, embracing individuality and a nod to the ‘parking gods’ in Prospect Lefferts Gardens.” WNYC, 27 Feb. 2023, https://www.wnyc.org/story/reinvention-embracing-individuality-and-nod-parking-gods-prospect-lefferts-gardens/.

“Streets for People: Open Streets and the Future of Public Space Management in NYC.” Report, New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, 25 Apr. 2025, https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/streets-for-people-open-streets-and-the-future-of-public-space-management-in-nyc/.

Stewart, Dodai. “In New York, Schools Are Reclaiming Roads for Recess.” New York Times, 2 Sep. 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/02/nyregion/streets-wars-open-streets-for-schools.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&sgrp=c-cb.

More Information

streetlab.org

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