Public Meeting Previews Battery Resilience Designs
A public meeting on July 22 offered Lower Manhattan residents a glimpse of plans to transform the local waterfront, as well as a voice in the design process. The City’s Economic Development Corporation (EDC), which is overseeing the FiDi-Seaport Climate Resilience Plan – a project that aims to safeguard the nine-tenths of a mile between the Brooklyn Bridge and the Battery against rising sea levels and extreme-weather events by building a network of decks, berms, and breakwaters that will extend into the East River between 90 and 200 feet – hosted a workshop at Fraunces Tavern Museum (54 Pearl Street) focused on the Southern Tie-In. This refers to the point of connection between the FiDi-Seaport project and two adjacent resilience plans: those for the Battery and for Battery Park City. All three will converge at Bowling Green.
Three alignments now under consideration for the Southern Tie-In include two along State Street (one adjacent to buildings; the other hugging the perimeter or the park) and one within the park, cutting through the Battery’s upland green spaces. All three options would leave part, or all, of the Battery exposed to flooding, in anticipation that resilient park improvements on the floodable side of the barriers will provide protection.
This phase of the resilience plan is focused on technical studies and engineering for flood protection infrastructure, as well as access and green spaces. At three outreach events in May, during which EDC staff manned tables in the Battery, 117 responses helped gauge public sentiment about designs for the Southern Tie-In and its possible impacts on the Battery. Among the priorities cited by respondents were enthusiasm for the Battery’s award-winning gardens and its popular Urban Farm, as well as interest in enhancing habitat, biodiversity, and pollinator gardens. Goals cited by participants included a desire to remove the building housing The View restaurant in order to prioritize open space and unobstructed views of the waterfront, along with an emphasis on improving multi-modal (bike/pedestrian) mobility and safety.