Click on the name of the publication to open the link in a new page.
Can Lower Manhattan survive climate change? New York’s sea level rise plan faces pushback
David Knowles, Editor, Yahoo News, June 4, 2019
“…in September, following years of planning and community meetings, the plan to begin the 10-mile barrier ring with an 8-foot berm bordering East River Park was abruptly halted so as to avert a lengthy shutdown of traffic lanes on the FDR Drive. In its place, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration announced the city would dump more landfill over the existing park, creating a narrower 10-foot high obstruction to keep seawater from again reaching the streets of the Lower East Side.”
City Plans Playground, Turf Upgrades On Manhattan’s East Side
by Sydney Pereira, Patch,
To make up for closing and flattening East River Park, other spaces will be spruced up, the Parks Department outlines in this story. “Parks says the department will execute the plans ‘quickly.’” Those promises are dubious, if history is any guide, as the article points out: “A complete transformation of Pier 42 has been riddled with delays for years, but a passive open space in the upland area of the pier will be open by 2021, Parks said.”
RIP East River Park
EV Grieve, March 21, 2019
“Someone placed memorial ribbons commemorating the life of East River Park: ‘We will miss your breeze, your trees, your plants and flowers and your birds and bees.’
BQE and the road to New York’s future: Highways that split neighborhoods are things of the past
by Amy Chester, Rebuild by Design, NY Daily News, April 25, 2019.
“Rather than plow ahead with a rebuild of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway running through Brooklyn Heights, Mayor de Blasio set up a panel to discuss alternatives.”
“The panel was appointed only because the residents of Brooklyn Heights — one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the city — greeted with a deafening “NO!” the city’s plan to turn the beloved Promenade into a temporary highway, spending more than $100,000 of their own money on consulting experts and lobbyists to fight this plan.”
Chester tells how other, less well-to-do neighborhoods beg for the same consideration and how other cities are covering highways.
East Side Storm Protection Project’s Public Review Moves Forward
“The city is still evaluating options to re-open portions of East River Park during construction and will re-route bike lanes inland,” by Sydney Pereira, The Patch, April 5, 2019.
Overhaul Of Storm Protection Plan Outrages Downtown Residents
By Sydney Pereira, The Patch, March 5, 2019
“EAST VILLAGE — A massive $1.45 billion project designed to avoid a repeat of the devastation Hurricane Sandy wreaked on Downtown Manhattan will close the East River Park for years — and has left many locals furious.
Nearly seven years after the storm left Downtown basements flooded and the South Street Seaport a virtual no-go area for months, the city has yet to break ground on the East Side Coastal Resiliency project that’s intended to protect residents from the impacts of climate change.”
“City Admits It Failed to Inform Residents on Overhaul of East Side Resiliency Plan”
by Rebuild by Design, January 30, 2019
“Did we communicate the change properly? No, and that’s on me and I take responsibility on that and I apologize,” said Lorraine Grillo, the commissioner of the Department of Design and Construction.
“Communities Push Back on BQE and East River Park Plans”
Brian Lehrer show, broadcast by WNYC, January 28, 2019
City Council Member Carlina Rivera discusses need to involve the neighborhood in decisions about how the park will be fixed.
“To Save East River Park, the City Intends to Bury It”
by Joseph Hanania, January 18, 2019
A cogent article in the New York Times about the new plan and our community’s problems with it:
“Flood of concerns over E. Side resiliency redo”
by Sydney Pereira, December 14, 2018.
A good outline of the the city’s proposed East River Park plan in The Villager.
“Making Waves: New York City’s coastal resiliency plan receives a redesign”
by by Ali Oriaku, Oct. 4, 2018
Announcement of the plan in the Architects Newspaper
Also in Curbed:
“LES & East Village Residents Feel ‘Duped’ By City’s Surprise Plan To Bury East River Park”
By Jake Offenhartz in Gothamist
“We demand that the city work with us acre by acre, bench by bench, tree by tree,” said Harrington. “As you know, our community is resilient, our community is just, and our community is very, very loud.”
“The city’s odd storm splurge: Mayor de Blasio wants to spend $700 million more on a resiliency plan. Why?”
by Amy Chester and Tom Wright, Oct. 29, 2018
https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-the-citys-odd-storm-splurge-20181025-story.html
East River Alliance 