Pandemic Dining Sheds Preserved in Penny Hardy's New Book

A new book collects dozens of photographs of the improvised dining sheds that transformed New York's streets between 2020 and 2024, when restaurants fought to operate under indoor dining restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Author Penny Hardy shot the sheds on walks through Downtown Manhattan during the height of the pandemic and afterwards — many structures stayed up for years after the 2020-2021 lockdowns. Rizzoli recently announced the book, Pandemic Architecture: NYC Dining Sheds 2020-2024, which pairs Hardy's images with essays by New York writers including Michael Bullock and Fred Bernstein.

Most of the sheds have since been deconstructed as the city works to implement a standardised shed programme that keeps outdoor seating while meeting safety and sanitation standards. New York mayor Zohran Mamdani recently cleared the legal way for year-round installation.

What did the sheds change?

Hardy argues the structures permanently altered how New Yorkers use their streets.

"These structures created a new typology for building in public space and have forever changed the way we use the street," she told Dezeen.

"Before this new typology, the street was aggressively preserved as a place of transit by the city. Now, in addition to transit, it offers a place for people to connect and socialise."

She added that the recent legislation opens room for a return of creativity that high winter storage and assembly costs had limited.

"The restaurant owners' resourcefulness, humour, and wildly different tastes made the streets more varied and alive," said Hardy.

"The structures were raw, inventive, funny, and as varied as New York itself. They brought an old-school punk, DIY spirit back into an increasingly polished city."

What do the ten sheds reveal?

Hardy's commentary walks through ten examples across Manhattan neighbourhoods:

• "Suburban design via Home Depot" in Greenwich Village — a colonial moulded interior door surrounded by magenta plastic panelling, taped heart detailing and painted soft pink plywood. "Why didn't they paint the door?" Hardy asks.
• "Less is enough" in West Village — the neighbourhood institution Julius opted for simple tents. "Perhaps the owner was a camper – bring in a tent from the country, order a few more, and they were done."
• "Learning from Las Vegas" in Little Italy — Baby John's curved vinyl banquette, monumental crown and block-visible signage created what Hardy calls a VIP experience that "drew long lines and gave the place instant cachet." She suggests Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown "would surely have joined the queue."
• An "imposing mash-up of classical architecture" in Little Italy — a longtime restaurateur's blend of classical and gothic detailing, whose grandeur plays against the sheds' temporality.
• "The wild west" in Chinatown — "Exposed electrical wires brought air conditioners and fans into the sheds. Practical and terrifying at the same time."
• "Take me away" in SoHo — a thatched roof, white curtains tied with rope tassels and tropical plants conjure "a beachfront cabana."
• "Co-existing" in West Village — a shed that absorbs a postal relay box and carves out space for a neighbouring tree. "Existing street infrastructure becomes part of the architecture."
• "Living in the street" in NoHo — dark-stained wood panelling and framed paintings evoke "the feeling of dining in the countryside."
• "Architecture, design and construction professionals enter the fray" in Flatiron — a classic gable roof, clapboard siding and exposed stud framing suggest "a general contractor with spare materials from their last project?"
• "Even the heaters have been carefully considered" in Nolita — a minimal, modular design with heaters integrated beneath the seating that suggests an architect's hand.

Many of the restaurants photographed have since closed or moved. With Mamdani's year-round clearance now in place, the question Hardy's book poses is whether the city's standardised programme can preserve the DIY inventiveness it documents.