To the editor,
I’m not looking to diss a Pier.
The new Pier 25 in Tribeca is very nice, clean, and filled with children under 12 and their parents. But this is not at all the old Piers 25 & 26 – not even close. It is generic, cold and sadly void of its local identity with its standard equipment and isolating metal caging. It’s hard to tell if you are actually in Tribeca or Hempstead, Long Island or even Dayton, Ohio.
The old Pier 25 and Pier 26 were pure Tribeca and even living in Battery Park City, I could not help but be drawn to them. They drew hundreds of residents and stoppers by who left thrilled in discovering it, with its personality and warm welcome. The very funky Piers drew thousands to its driving range and watering hole. More than this, they defined the attraction of Tribeca as a new creative community founded by its loft artists, families, and market and downtown workers.
One of the new Pier’s designers stated “there was always a desire to retain an informality and a spontaneity on these Piers. We’re going to take that very seriously and apply ourselves to achieve that.”
Why did we as a community spend countless millions of dollars destroying and then hundreds of volunteer and paid hours attempting to recreate “informality and spontaneity?”
Are we that bored?
For the Hudson River Park Trust to even have contemplated anything but a refurbishment of this neighborhood amenity was a huge error in judgment.
Welcome to Disney Tribeca. Piers 25 and 26 were the heart of our neighborhood. They were perfect or imperfectly perfect the way they were. I have no sympathy for those who destroyed our piers and then tried to recreate it. My sympathy goes out to our wonderful community, which has lost this fantastic space forever.
Pier 25 and 26, Tribeca, are dead.
Long live Pier 25 and Pier 26.
Tom Goodkind