When the Manhattan waterfront greenway opens in just a few weeks Mayor Michael Bloomberg will have achieved what 25 years of planners and policymakers could not: a nearly continuous waterfront esplanade (in pdf format) for walkers, cyclists, joggers, skaters, birdwatchers and many others in the world's most famous borough.
With this esplanade the mayor will have wiped away more than two decades of attention deficit disorder that plagued previous administrations, but the key to harnessing the waterfront to benefit the long-term growth of the city lies well beyond this thin green line. Here’s why:
Popular visions for the waterfront of the future generally swing between two extremes. The first is the sweeping green ring around the water’s edge in places like Little Neck Bay, East River Park, or along the Shore Parkway. The second vision of the waterfront is the “Gold Coast” model, where the remnants of industry are replaced with glistening towers in glass and steel.
Each of these models falls short in certain respects. One, the ribbons of green were in reality little more than decorative trim, a green lace edge alongside the massive investment of waterfront highways and parkways which themselves really cut communities off from the waterfront. The development of Hudson River Park is the most recent version of this thin green edge. The “Gold Coast” model similarly falls short as a community development tool because it generally only accommodates the high-end of the income spectrum. Herein lies the Catch-22 for post-industrial waterfront revitalization: can new life be brought to the waterfront in ways that accommodate all city-dwellers as residents and users, or will this new investment physically and economically exclude most people in favor or higher income brackets?
The city’s rezoning proposal for the waterfront of Greenpoint and Williamsburg will test this limit, and largely determine whether those casually referred to in the popular media as “inner-city” dwellers will in fact be relegated to literally inner city districts laden with asphalt and stricken with highways, or whether the city's emerging vision of a new waterfront will serve poor folks too.
One of the problems with a continuous ribbon of green is that it defies the reality that we are a city of islands. As such, we should be embracing modes of transportation that harness the waterways. In Manhattan, the city is making great efforts to expand ferry transit, with a slew of new or upgraded terminals ring the island from East 90th Street south around the Battery and north to West 38th Street (all connected by the greenway). There are efforts afoot to improve or expand landing facilities further north along the west side even as far north as Dyckman Street. But in addition to the city’s need to create new options for white collar commuters, there is a tremendous need to improve the movement of goods in and through Manhattan, home to two of the three largest central business districts in the city.
When the trend toward containerization carried the port to New Jersey nearly a half century ago, it inevitably took a lot of manufacturing and distribution facilities with it. All of these activities continued the seemingly irreversible trend towards highway and truck transport. Since that time, as traffic has increased exponentially, no new freight connections have been created. Getting a truckload of computers or foodstuffs from New Jersey to Brooklyn relies wholly on the same bridges and tunnels that existed back in the Great Depression more than 70 years ago. And Canal Street sure shows it!
While the Manhattan waterfront greenway celebrates the fact that we are an island, it doesn’t help us address the fact that in the grand scheme of highway-dependent economics Manhattan is nothing more than a congested through route to I-95, the Cross Bronx, or the Long Island Expressway. Yes, pedestrians, cyclists, and birdwatchers vote, but it’s the tens of thousands of trucks passing through Manhattan each day that are literally and figuratively paying the freight. Just as the first layer of asphalt on this new path is being laid, neighborhoods such as Washington Heights and Chinatown are still suffering the effects of noise, vibration, and air pollution of this perpetual truck dependency.
One of the greatest benefits of the greenway plan is that it will connect activity and opportunity that already exist at the water’s edge. Fort Washington, the Battery, Stuyvesant Cove and Harlem River Park will be linked to Riverbank and Hudson River State Park as well as dozens of other attractions. Surely every waterfront neighborhood needs such green destinations at the blue water’s edge, but the city also needs places for less-appreciated activities such as the transport of garbage or generation of energy. The pending sale of the Waterside Generating Station by Con Ed, for instance, has already placed pressure on the Lower East Side by causing the expansion of the East River Generating Station. The development of Hudson River and Riverside South parks on the West Side are only creating added pressure to relocate facilities such as the 59th Street marine transfer station which moves thousands of tons of recyclable paper every day. These facilities shouldn’t be closed, they should just be engineered to perform better. In reality, Lower Manhattan probably needs a state of the art marine transfer station far more than it needs more luxury housing.
Perhaps the greatest legacy of the Manhattan waterfront greenway will not be the greenway itself, but the chain reaction of land-use pressures that heat up on the waterfronts of the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn. Now that Mayor Bloomberg has vanquished twenty five years of inaction for Manhattan, let’s hope he puts forth ambitious and positive plans for waterfronts of the opposite shores that have been abused or ignored for even longer.
Carter Craft, an urban planner, is program director of the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance.
In a close early-morning vote just before the end of the legislative session, New York State lawmakers approved the use of a section of Van Cortlandt Park for a controversial water filtration plant. In doing so, they broke a long tradition of going against the wishes of the legislator representing an area -- in this case, Assemblymember Jeffrey Dinowitz -- in turning parkland over for a non-park use. If Governor George Pataki signs the bill, it will put in motion a deal worked out between the Bloomberg administration and Bronx politicians to build the $1 to 2 billion facility underneath the park's Mosholu Golf Course in exchange for $243 million of park improvements in the Bronx.
The bill the legislature passed will not permit construction of the plant until the city completes a supplemental environmental impact statement on siting and running the facility in the park, which is like closing the barn door after the horses have escaped. The review is highly unlikely to conclude that two possible alternative sites would be preferable, although it may lead to better mitigation at the Van Cortlandt site. It would not consider a fourth site Assemblymember Dinowitz recently proposed, under the Major Deegan Highway in his district.
The law also requires the city to issue a Memorandum of Understanding, ratified by the City Council, identifying how much money will be dedicated by the city to "acquire and/or improve" Bronx parks and providing a list of eligible projects.
The city is under a court order to filter the part of its water supply coming from the Croton Reservoir to assure the safety of the drinking water. The city's first attempt to build a filtration plant partly underground in the park, proposed during the Giuliani administration, was derailed when the State Court of Appeals ruled that removing parkland from the public, even temporarily, amounted to a taking of parkland that required state legislative approval.
Under the revised plan by the Department of Environmental Protection, the filtration plant would be smaller and completely underground. As in the original plan, the golf course driving range would close during construction and be rebuilt on top of the plant, although plant opponents question whether this would be possible given the security concerns that have arisen since 9/ll. The golf course would continue to operate during construction, but would displace the open space used by the nearby community.
Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe said that the plan would provide "the greatest renaissance in Bronx parks since the WPA in the 1930s." He said that the parks department has a long list of projects that could be funded, including ballfields, playgrounds, and greenways, and will be seeking ideas from Bronx communities.
Organized labor has vigorously supported the siting of the facility in the park, although only about 5 to 15 percent of the various union members live in the Bronx and the legislation does not mandate that construction jobs go to city residents.
People who live in the neighborhood near the site, a low-income, ethnically mixed community, are still vehemently opposed to the plan because of the traffic, noise, and pollution that would be generated during construction and the years-long loss of parkland and of a popular after-school golf program. They are also concerned about additional truck traffic and the transport of chemicals to the plant when it is in operation. The communities near the park have had greatly increasing asthma rates> in recent years.>
Park advocates are concerned about the precedent of taking parkland for an industrial facility, and say that the enviromental "review" as well as a city land use review - should have been conducted first to determine whether the park is truly the best site, and not just the easiest and least expensive one. "Parks are always the cheapest sites if you think of them as free land," said Elizabeth Cooke Levy, president of the non-profit Friends of Van Cortlandt Park.
The advocates are also leery because the city has not yet released detailed plans for the facility and has made no written guarantees about the amount of money promised for Bronx parks and what projects would be included. Cooke said that she thought the parks department is "naive in believing they're going to control how the $200 million is spent."
Groups concerned about development in the Croton watershed question the necessity of building the plant at all, saying that the city should focus on watershed protection or look at newer technologies. They predict that filtering the Croton water would undermine efforts to protect the water at its source. Three major environmental groups had independent experts review the Department of Environmental Protection studies, and concluded that both filtration and watershed were necessary to safeguard the city's water supply.
Anne Schwartz is a freelance writer specializing in environmental issues. Previously, she was the editor of the Audubon Activist, a news journal for environmental action published by the National Audubon Society, and an editor at The New York Botanical Garden.
There are wide disparities in the conditions of New York City's neighborhood parks, according to a "report card" recently released by New Yorkers for Parks, a non-profit advocacy group for parks. These are the smaller parks and playgrounds, the basketball courts and playing fields, the leafy spots where senior citizens sit on benches and chess players look for a game.
Almost a quarter of the parks received at least 90 percent for their excellent condition, and another 36 percent earned a 70 or above with reasonably well-kept lawns or playing fields, safe and clean playgrounds, and benches and paths in good repair. But a significant number had bedraggled plantings, dusty, uneven or littered fields, and bathrooms that were locked or out of order. Twenty percent of the parks got a failing grade, 59 or below. Parks in Manhattan and Staten Island fared the best.
Overall, the report card found much better conditions in the areas where the parks department has focused capital investment in recent years - playgrounds, sitting areas, and paths and sidewalks. Citywide, these features received an average score of 80 to 83 percent. The areas most in need of improvement were the active and passive recreation areas, as well as the bathrooms and drinking fountains. The average grade for bathrooms citywide was 48. The authors of the report noted, "In too many cases, existing bathrooms were either locked or desperately in need of maintenance and supplies."
The report card was compiled from a detailed survey of 181 of the city's 220 parks that are from one to 20 acres in size, conducted in the summer of 2002. (Parks not surveyed were either closed for renovation or lacking the park features on which the survey focused.) Trained staff from New Yorkers for Parks graded each park for cleanliness, maintenance, safety and structural integrity in eight "major service areas" - active recreational areas; passive recreational areas; playgrounds; sitting areas; bathrooms; drinking fountains; sidewalks, streets and paths; and how well the park is insulated from the surrounding environment. The group developed its rating system through focus groups with community members and park experts, aiming to assess park conditions from a user's perspective.
Some of the report card's conclusions differ from the parks department's highly regarded Parks Inspection Program, geared to improving park management and maximizing resources, and using somewhat different criteria. The department visits 200 parks a week, with 5,000 inspections annually, and finds 85 to 90 percent in acceptable condition. The department's web site posts the citywide results and will be adding park by park data this summer.
Regarding the park amenities that have improved and those most in need of attention, the parks department found the survey in line with their own assessments, according to a parks department spokesman. Deputy Commissioner for Operations Liam Kavanagh provided a statement that said, "Through our rigorous inspection program and direct experience, we know that the condition of our parks is strong citywide. We have identified and launched programs to address the same major service areas identified by New Yorkers for Parks in their report card." Among the programs under way to address these issues is the renovation of ball fields with artificial turf - so far, 21 such fields have been put in, with 11 more under construction, and 17 in the planning stages. Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe has also launched a large horticultural initiative that includes training parks maintenance staff in gardening basics. The department's "Operation Relief" targets drinking fountains to fix them and make sure they are turned on.
New Yorkers for Parks conducted the survey to quantify the varying conditions at the smaller, low-profile parks, which are mostly dependent on public funding. The goal, said the group's spokesperson, Rowena Daly, "is to use these results to understand where our parks are failing and draw together public and private support to lift up neighborhood parks in greatest need."
Anne Schwartz is a freelance writer specializing in environmental issues. Previously, she was the editor of the Audubon Activist, a news journal for environmental action published by the National Audubon Society, and an editor at The New York Botanical Garden.