Bike riders, public health advocates, and just plain regular folks are generally happy with the idea of turning various NYC streets into "pedestrian plazas." Tabloid sex columnist Andrea Peyser hates these people, and this idea. People will smoke, outside!

"Last May, the city inflicted the no-car treatment on its iconic Times and Herald squares, throwing a bunch of tables and chairs into plazas that became an overnight hit with wide-bodied tourists, Gauloise-sucking posers and men who carry their worldly possessions in plastic bags. But these zones are almost unvisited by real New Yorkers." Previously, of course, Times Square was a tourist-and-smoke-free zone populated only by real New Yorkers (but not the homeless kind).
[NYP. Also Andrea has already warned us that these plazas will attract hated Hollanders.]