Street Lab 2025 Recap
Street Lab has been on the streets of New York City 557 times this year— a new record for us—bringing New Yorkers together and deploying new ideas in 105 public spaces across 54 neighborhoods. Pop-up cooling stations, play streets and school streets, custom designs and programs, 96% of the time in low to moderate income neighborhoods. And we’re already gearing up for 2026.
The year began with uncertainty and funding cuts, and Street Lab’s team responded by committing ourselves to showing up for our community partners, solving problems, moving gear by hand, doing whatever it took so that New York City streets continued to evolve into better, healthier, safer spaces for all of us. We continue to envision a city filled with places that inspire, where all New Yorkers have places to gather and ways to connect, right in the heart of neighborhoods. To our team, volunteers, and partners, thank you for being out there every day, bringing that vision to life. And thank you to our donors and supporters, giving at every level, to help make this possible.
Here’s a look back at what we accomplished together…
We popped up 557 times in 105 locations, with high quality programs, each one in response to a community request, 60% on School Streets and Play Streets, 43% in the Bronx, 97% in low- to moderate-income areas.
We worked with 45 community groups to develop new Open Streets—15 are operational now, and 30 will launch with us in early 2026. And we’re signing on new partners each day.
We worked with 22 schools to help them use Open Streets to address issues like attendance, lack of dedicated space for physical fitness, and public safety issues. And we’ve increased our capacity to serve many more schools in 2026 in partnership with a new administration.
A study is underway that measures levels of physical activity and socialization on days when streets are activated with Street Lab pop-ups. We’ll share results soon!
Street Lab designed and installed two new pop-up designs and a mural to activate a courtyard adjacent to an Open Street, in partnership with Riverdale Avenue Community School, Equity Design, and NYC Health Department.
Street Lab’s Community Planner Jim Lammers led Street Lab’s work helping communities launch successful School Streets, Play Streets, and other Open Streets, using a unique mix of engagement, planning, activation, and even design and fabrication to get the job done. (Shown here with Equity Design team.)
We re-launched and expanded our youth programs with a grant from the Pinkerton Foundation, creating paid internships for NYC high school students who worked alongside Street Lab’s team to run summer Play Streets in the Bronx.
We designed and fabricated two new cooling solutions for NYC—watch for them on the streets in 2026. A pop-up shade structure was created in partnership with Resilient Cities Catalyst, and Misting Arches was supported by Con Edison.
Street Lab’s Program Manager Dekendra Dazzell worked with our partner Bridge Street Development Corporation and NYC DOT to create the city’s largest ever neighborhood Halloween celebration—11 blocks and half a mile of pop-up activations that deployed Street Lab’s entire fleet for a day.
Street Lab has been activating commercial corridors in ways that support small business and bring the community together, right on the street, using our Meet a Small Business cart and One Big Table.
We also continue to deploy our pop-ups to parks, plazas, and other green spaces to help increase public safety and make a place for learning and community.
The World Cup is coming to NYC, and Street Lab is preparing to help communities find more space and new ways to express their love of the game.
In a nutshell: Street Lab weathered a challenging year by going back to our roots as a start-up, stretching limited resources to keep our commitments to our team, our partners, and the city. We’ll keep that scrappy approach in 2026 as city leadership changes hands, and we’ll be on the street more than ever before. Stay tuned!
