A catalogue of anti-sitting devices installed to keep New Yorkers on their feet and off anything they could possibly sit on. Iron-and-steel spikes and railings grow like ivy, covering banisters, windowsills, standpipes, steps, and exhaust vents. No horizontal surface is too small to defend from the threat of temporary inhabitation. Installed by property owners, the devices are the product of the defensive, inward-looking architecture that emerged in New York in the late 1960s.
J. Marston is a writer, photographer, and researcher who now lives in Hudson, New York. He has been photographing anti-sitting devices for his blog, Transfer, since 2003.