Bike Path Link Between East and West Sides Reopens
The Battery Park City Authority and the Battery Conservancy formally opened the last phase of the South Battery Park City Resiliency Project on Thursday, by returning to public use the bike path that winds along the border of the historic park at Manhattan’s southern tip. The new path, part of which is elevated, reconnects the Hudson River Greenway (along West Street) and the East River Esplanade. These, in turn, link to a 31-mile waterfront bicycle path around the perimeter of Manhattan.
Thursday’s event served as a bookend to the July 2025 reopening of Wagner Park after a 32-month hiatus, during which the park was raised by ten feet and a flood mitigation infrastructure was built and buried below it. The resilience project includes deployable gates and above-ground flood walls, including a berm and new stone wall – over nine feet high in some sections – that extends from Pier A Plaza to Bowling Green, where it will eventually link to the “Southern Tie-In,” a planned connection with two adjacent initiatives: the FiDi-Seaport Resilience project and the Battery Coastal Resilience project.
“The contours of The Battery are changing to meet the challenges of storm surge and sea-level rise, while preserving the beauty and character of this extraordinary public space,” Paula Recart, president of the Battery Conservancy, said at the Thursday event.
“The completion of the South Battery Park City Resiliency Project represents a significant step in strengthening Lower Manhattan against coastal flooding, while the reopening of the Battery Bikeway restores a scenic connection along our waterfront,” said Alice Blank, chair of Community Board 1.