Deciding the Future of the FiDi/Seaport Waterfront
Community organizations are urging local residents to attend or tune in to a public meeting on Monday, March 16, starting at 6pm (originally scheduled for February 23) that will offer a detailed look at the evolving designs for the Financial District and Seaport Climate Resilience Plan being formulated by the City’s Economic Development Corporation. The plan will rebuild the dense nine-tenths of a mile of waterfront between the Brooklyn Bridge and the Battery, and has been given the provisional name of Harbor View Park.
“What kind of Lower Manhattan waterfront should the City build for you and future generations? Decisions of this scale will shape how our shoreline functions for decades, influencing public access, neighborhood character, economic vitality, and climate resilience,” says Zach Bommer, district manager of Community Board 1, who is urging downtowners to make their voices part of this defining conversation.
“Come in person or show up online, but be there and be heard!” say the leaders of the grassroots organization Save Our Seaport, who intend to challenge the planned demolition of Pier 15.
Alice Blank, chair of CB1’s Environmental Protection Committee, said, “this is a landmark proposal – eight-plus acres of new public open space designed to serve as a model for integrating critical flood defense into the City’s dense urban neighborhoods. The committee will write a resolution, which will likely be one of the few opportunities for public comment before the environmental review process begins.”
Interested members of the public are invited to attend the meeting either in person at the Municipal Building, One Centre Street, Room 2202 North, or online. Whether in person or online, meeting attendees will have the opportunity to ask questions and make comments.
At the January 12 joint meeting of two CB1 committees (Land Use, Zoning, and Economic Development, with Environmental Protection), CB1 members voiced concerns about the FiDi and Seaport resilience plan.
CB1 member Laura Starr, who is also landscape architect, began the discussion by observing, “I feel like we’re not pushing for the park that we want down here.”
Referring to the proposed design of the rebuilt Pier 11, the East River facility used by NYC Ferry, Ms. Blank said, “when they call it Harbor View Park, that’s difficult to swallow, because really what you’re looking at is a very large ferry terminal. If you took away the river, you could put that thing in the middle of Indianapolis. It’s really a major transportation hub, and you’re not seeing a great deal of park. This has been pointed out many, many times.”
CB1 chair Tammy Meltzer noted that laws governing funding rules for resiliency, “allow community use opportunities. We could have a dive school or some kind of boat program. There could be an educational facility built there. But none of that is included in this resiliency plan.”
Ms. Meltzer turned the discussion to the plan for demolishing Pier 15, demolishing and rebuilding Pier 16 (home of the tall ship Wavertree and the lightship Ambrose), and creating an entirely new Pier 19 at the foot of Peck Slip. “We have been on the record saying we didn’t want Pier 19, and that we wanted to keep Pier 15,” she said. “There’s truly no reason it needs to be demolished. But we’ve lost Pier 15 entirely in this plan, and we lost the opportunity for more public space. There’s no connection to the water. There’s nothing here that supports maritime use. You’re just looking. There’s no nature, no touchdowns, nothing.”
CB1 member David Sheldon observed, “If you want to call it ‘Harbor View,’ that’s because you can look but you can’t touch.”
He continued, “the point is, we have seen no reason whatsoever why Pier 15 and Pier 16 have to be destroyed. Sure, Pier 16 needs some work, but Pier 15 is brand new.” (Pier 15 was rebuilt in 2011, using federal recovery funds earmarked for Lower Manhattan after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.)
The South Street Seaport Museum, which owns a fleet of historic vessels docked along the East River waterfront, is directly affected by the Financial District and Seaport Climate Resilience Plan. The Museum’s president, Captain Jonathan Boulware, told the Broadsheet, “the South Street Seaport Museum lauds the City’s and EDC’s efforts to protect our vulnerable, irreplaceable, cultural and community asset, New York’s historic Seaport. And hard prioritizing decisions will need to be made. However, relocating Pier 15 does not make sense. It removes vital berthing space that the Museum lost some 15 years ago. And it will expose Pier 16, with its venerable, irreplaceable fleet of ships to still more wake action and damage.”
He continued, “a better course would be to elevate Pier 15 with integrated wake- and wave-reducing attenuation and provide at least some of this space to the Seaport Museum for visiting educational and diplomatic ships as well as its own fleet. Manhattan has lost its ability to host visiting ships from nations around the world in the past few decades. Not only are these visits contemporary relationship maintenance; they’re historically informed. New York is what it is because of its watery connections to the world.”