City Hall Park Kiosk Allows Delivery Bike Workers to Rest and Recharge
Local and federal officials gathered yesterday (April 7) for a ceremonial ribbon-cutting to open the City Hall Park Deliverista Hub—a facility designed to offer support services (such as safe battery charging, free bike tune-ups, and a place to rest) to the many two-wheeled workers who carry meals, medications, and myriad other kinds of merchandise across New York.
Located on the Broadway side of City Hall Park, the new structure replaces a newsstand that had been shuttered since the Covid pandemic. The new kiosk contains 48 lockers for charging detachable e-bike batteries, additional capacity to charge mobile phones, a bike maintenance facility, and a rest area. It does not, however, contain a restroom.
The idea for the project came from U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer, who recalled, “the hub was born from an amazing bike ride I took with Los Deliveristas Unidos,” the bike delivery workers’ union, “where I heard directly from deliveristas, and experienced their daily struggles.”
“New Yorkers’ insatiable demand for 24/7 food delivery has created a vast workforce that keeps the City running,” he continued. “Yet these workers often have nowhere to go to rest, take shelter from harsh weather, or for basic needs.”
Earmarking $1 million from pandemic recovery and stimulus funds funds, Mr. Schumer partnered with the administration of then-Mayor Eric Adams in 2022 to repurpose the newsstand site.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani said, “delivery workers keep this City running. After long hours on the street, workers deserve a place to rest, access resources, charge their e-bike batteries safely, and be in community. This space provides all that and more.”
There are estimated to be 80,000 app-based delivery workers in New York City. Gustavo Ajche, a delivery worker who also co-founded Los Deliveristas Unidos, said, “for years, we’ve been working on the streets without the most basic support—generating billions of dollars for app companies that exploit us in return and treat us as disposable.”
Community Board 1 opposed this plan when it came up for review in 2024, primarily because the newsstand was a product of contextual design, meant to blend seamlessly with the surrounding streetscape in a legally protected historic district. The design of the deliverista kiosk is starkly modern and, at 21 feet long and 14 feet wide, approximately one-third larger than the previous structure.
The New York Landmarks Conservancy sided with CB1, cautioning, “we do not feel that the currently proposed design is appropriate for our City’s historic districts. The structure’s curved shape and cantilevered canopy would draw a conspicuous amount of attention to itself.”
Both CB1 and the Landmarks Conservancy were overruled by the City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission, however, which approved the plan in April 2024. The facility was originally slated to open in fall of that year, but was delayed by successive layers of regulatory review by multiple agencies.