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New York state’s Battery Park City Authority is advancing plans for one of several key resilience projects aimed at protecting lower Manhattan against flooding associated with anticipated sea level rise.

The authority recently awarded a contract for the progressive design-build North/West Battery Park City Resilience Project to a joint venture of Turner Construction Co. and E.E. Cruz & Co. Inc. with Arcadis, Bjarke Ingels Group, Scape Landscape Architecture and WSP. Construction is expected to start next year, the authority says.

The project covers an area along the Hudson River waterfront between the northwest end of Battery Park and a high point on Greenwich Street in Tribeca. Design is still underway, but preliminary plans call for about 8,000 linear ft of flood and seepage barriers, plus interior drainage improvements to protect a 92-acre area, the contractors said in a statement.

The North/West Battery Park City Resiliency Project would synergize with others around Lower Manhattan. Drawing courtesy of BPCA

The authority says deployable floodgates are a likely barrier solution for the project. Most of the Battery Park City shoreline is at the furthest point allowed for the federal navigation channel in the Hudson River, so any construction into the river would be far more complex and costly, officials say.

Officials say they cannot yet share an expected cost for the project with design still underway.

Sea level rise presents “a serious threat” to the area, says Peter Glus, North American growth director at Arcadis and the firm's lead design engineer on the project. During Hurricane Sandy in 2012, many parts of the Lower West Side were impacted by storm surge.

But the Battery Park City esplanade is also a busy area for commuters, tourists and residents who use its waterfront parks. Glus says the team holds weekly meetings with residents to get their feedback on design options. The goal is to make a project that provides benefits during storms and during other times, amplifying the area’s current uses and preserving its design aesthetic, he says.

“There’s been a robust engagement because the authority’s residents are very much cognizant that this project is going to be built on a renowned and trendsetting waterfront area,” Glus says. “The Battery Park City Authority’s property really established what coastal urban life could be like. And right now what we’re trying to do is evolve that concept so that it’s coastal-resilient urban life.”

The project area is located between two other authority-managed resilience projects. Site preparation work for the South Battery Park City Resiliency Project started late last year, with contractors E.W. Howell and a joint venture of Posillico Inc. and Bove Industries selected. A third contractor has not yet been named, an agency spokesperson says. The project, expected to cost at least $221 million, was designed by AECOM. At the northern end of Battery Park City, contractor Speciality Construction Services completed the $7-million BCP Ball Fields and Community Center Resilience Project in 2021.

The three BPCA projects are part of the city’s Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency Project that circles the southern end of Manhattan and continues north along the East Side, with projects protecting the Financial District and Seaport, Two Bridges neighborhood and north to East 25th St.

Manhattan’s density creates unique engineering challenges for flood protection efforts, Glus says. While the various projects have different owner-agencies, they collaborate through the mayor’s office on issues such as performance criteria and collaboration.

Taken together, the projects are “unprecedented,” adds Glus, who also is project director of the Eastside Coastal Resiliency Project.

“Bulldogs were the unsung heroes of the Prohibition Era,” proclaims a monument that popped up in Battery Park this October. Atop the pedestal of that monument sits the figure of a droopy-faced bulldog dressed in a button-down vest and pageboy hat. He guards a wooden barrel that we can assume is full of hooch. After years of dealing with the pandemic and all of the darkness that surrounded it, sculptor Joe Reginella thought the people of New York could use a hero…and a good laugh. Dubbed “the Banksy of monuments” in the New York Times, the Staten Island-based sculptor is known for his memorials of deceptive disasters like the Brooklyn Bridge elephant stampede, an octopus attack on a Staten Island ferry, and a UFO abduction during the blackout of 1977. Reginella aims to “give people a break from disaster” with this latest piece, a monument to Porkchop, the bulldog bootlegger.

According to “research” on a website dedicated to the bulldog bootleggers of New York City, bulldogs helped make deliveries of whiskey and spirits to speakeasies all over town during the 1920s Prohibition era. This delivery system was supposedly pioneered by the infamous bootlegger Bill McCoy. McCoy is “quoted” on Porkchop’s plaque as saying, “That dog had more heart than any man I know. a real gent!” The website also features “historical” images of bootlegging bulldogs mingling with flappers and bellying up to the bar.

The story of Porkchop isn’t completely pulled from thin air. McCoy, for instance, was a real-life bootlegger who ran his yacht from Florida up to the Battery. Porkchop is real as well, but he didn’t live during the 1920s and he didn’t smuggle illicit alcohol through the streets of New York. “Porkchop is my dog,” said Reginella when Untapped New York asked if the statue was modeled after a specific canine. The sculptural Porkchop is about 1.5 times the size of the real-life dog. Altogether, the monument stands about 6.5 feet tall and weighs nearly 250 pounds.

The Porkchop statue was inspired by multiple projects from Reginella’s past. One of those projects was Protector Monuments: Reclaim The Pedestal, created with the help of sculptor Alvin Petit in 2021. The installation honored real-life everyday heroes including people like Isra Daraiseh, who worked tirelessly to help residents affected during the 2016 Flint Water Crisis. “Porkchop is a hero to me and my wife,” said Reginella, so why not make Porkchop a hero for the rest of New York!

Steering away from the disaster theme of his previous monuments, he took a note from another previous project called Toxic Teddies. These figures, at first, “look like something your mom would collect, but they were doing some not-so-nice things.” The cutesy yet “a little devious” tone is what Reginella aimed for again in crafting Porkchop’s story. He chose to include Bill McCoy in the story over other more violent bootleggers because McCoy “was more of a stand-up bootlegger.”

The most exciting part of crafting these installations is watching people interact with them. “People stop and take pictures and with this one in particular they have to be in the photograph with the sculpture,” Reginella says of watching people interact with Porkchop. It’s also entertaining for Reginella to watch people’s reactions morph from shock to confusion and ultimately to amusement. “There is a tour guide who always brings his tours to stop at the monuments,” Reginella told Untapped New York of one of his favorite interactions. “He tells the story as if it’s true and everyone is totally confused. Some people just take it at face value. Then the guide tells them that it’s fake.” Reginella finds that to make a story believable, “the less you tell the better.”

Reginella isn’t out to trick people, though. In fact, his work is used to encourage inquisitive minds to question what they read. His Staten Island ferry attack monument was even featured in a children’s book about how to spot bogus stories on the internet. “I get emails from children at least once a week during school to ask if it’s real,” says Reginella.

If you’re out and about in Battery Park over the next few weekends, enjoying a morning or afternoon stroll, you may come across Porkchop the bulldog bootlegger. If you do, consider throwing him a bone by shopping at Reginella’s online store. The shop features t-shirts, ornaments, and other souvenirs connected to the monuments. Proceeds from the shop fund future installations.

Next, check out Reginella’s other sculptures: A UFO Tugboat Monument and A Monument to Missing Tourists Taken by Wolves

A $231 million resiliency project in Lower Manhattan is getting a major last-minute design change to expand the plan’s lawn space at Wagner Park, after the greenspace is rebuilt 10-feet higher than it is now to help protect the area from storm surge and sea level rise.

The Battery Park City Authority has revised its plan to fortify the neighborhood from flooding, less than two months before construction is set to break ground. The revised plan will add 12,800 square feet of lawn space to Wagner Park—a 74% increase from the South Battery Park City Resiliency Project’s previous design.

Changes to Wagner Park, currently a 3.5-acre waterfront space with a lawn and esplanade that boasts views of New York Harbor, comes following years of community engagement on the plan and calls from locals to boost the amount of greenspace.

“A really important part of this process for us has been balancing the urgent need for resiliency with the value derived from incorporating community voices and concerns,” B.J. Jones, the president and CEO of the Battery Park City Authority, told Crain’s. “We heard the community loud and clear about the value of lawn space in particular and took that seriously.”

Jones detailed those changes in a Monday letter to City Council member Christopher Marte, State Senator Brian Kavanagh and Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine, who had penned a joint letter to the Authority last week emphasizing community concerns about a lack of lawn space, the scale and use of the Wagner Park pavilion and the need for community engagement throughout the project’s construction timeline.

A key component of the coastal protection plan is to bulldoze Wagner Park and elevate it more than 10 feet, similar to the approach the East Side Coastal Resiliency Project is taking with East River Park. The main difference being—so far at least—that community concerns with the project and its approach to Wagner Park have been muted compared to the lawsuits and raucous protests on the east side (demonstrators went so far as to chain themselves to a tree outside of City Hall in September over the east side project).

But the Wagner Park project isn’t absent of dissidents. The Battery Park City Neighbors Association is hosting a Tuesday rally against the reconstruction over concerns with the lawn space, a loss of trees and an increase in the size of the park’s pavilion.

The Battery Park City authority has sought to avoid such pushback by seeking to keep residents and the local community board in the loop about the project for the last seven years, along with alterations to the plan based on neighbors’ input. The last-minute boost to lawn space at Wagner Park is an example of this.

Tammy Meltzer, the chair of Manhattan Community Board 1, is in the midst of digesting the changes and did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Alice Blank, an architect who is the board’s vice chair, said she is also reviewing and learning more about the changes but found the authority’s responsiveness to locals’ input encouraging.

Amy Chester, the managing director of Rebuild By Design, a federal effort launched in the wake of Sandy, said “broadening of the green space is huge,” adding that it’s something the community has long sought. That excitement was echoed by State Senator Brian Kavanagh who said he appreciated that the authority went back to the drawing board. Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine said the change means the project better reflects the community’s needs. Other local officials say they’re generally pleased with the changes but wonder what took the authority so long to react to residents’ greenspace complaints.

“I don’t think it should have taken this long for us to get the maximum amount of lawn space, but I think this is a step in the right direction and this is a good faith action by the authority board,” City Council Member Christopher Marte, who represents Lower Manhattan, told Crain’s. “We’re happy to continue to work with them to deliver on what the community wants.”

That includes ensuring that the new three-story pavilion in Wagner Park, which is replacing the current low-rise red-brick pavilion, has a community centric use. Currently, it’s expected to feature a restaurant along with community space, an education center, and public restrooms. The authority says it aims to issue a request for expressions of interest from potential restaurant operators for the space within three months. Major changes to the pavilion’s design, Jones wrote, are unlikely because they “would require significant revision and delay to the project, we do not believe it would be prudent to alter the design of the Pavilion building at this time.”

Wagner Park will close for two years when construction begins, which the authority anticipates for early October. Work on the park will not be completed in phases to give the community access to part of the greenspace. Officials expect renovations to be complete by March 2025.

The new lawnscape sacrifices 7,000 square feet of hardscaped paths, originally included to ensure universal accessibility throughout the elevated portion of the park. But the project’s design team was able to enlarge the law while maintaining smaller gardens and allow part of an existing walkway to allow for accessibility to the space. The change will also add ten more trees to Wagner Park, for a total net increase of 126 trees compared to the park today.

“We don't believe that there's any sacrificing or compromising the universal accessibility of the park,” Gwen Dawson, Battery Park City Authority’s vice president of real property told Crain’s “nor the means of circulating pedestrians around the lawn area.”

Some residents are encouraged by the changes but remain cautious, particularly since Wagner Park was not majorly flooded during Sandy compared to other stretches of the battery, said Daniel Akkerman, president of The Battery Alliance.

“I think it is a good step forward. But I still would still argue there’s more that needs to be done,” said Akkerman. “We're throwing a lot of money at an area that was not flooded. We need to ensure we’re really accounting for where the flood risks are.”

By Eric Uhlfelder

Any day now bulldozers and chainsaws will visit Wagner Park to flatten it. This remarkable 3.5-acre space, named after the former head of the New York City Planning Commission, Robert Wagner, Jr., is an award-winning model of urban landscaping that was in fact designed as a flood plain. And when Superstorm Sandy came roaring through, the park never flooded.

Yet, the Battery Park City Authority, whose very existence is owed to the man after which the park was named, deems the park’s destruction essential to save it. This is city planning at its worst.

There is a cheaper and more effective alternative provided by the same design firm that planned the original park. It would save more than 100 mature trees that are essential for flood control and avoid the heavy air pollution that will be brought about by the park’s destruction and trucking in thousands of tons of earth to raise the park 10 feet.

After a NY State Supreme Court judge refused to extend the stay on the park’s demolition, arguing there is no time to wait and assess if the BPCA’s plan makes sense, the venerable Sierra Club wrote to Governor Hochul to intervene. The governor is the last hope we have to save this magnificent park.

An abridged version of the Sierra Club’s letter appears below. Here’s a link to the full letter and a detailed discussion of the planning issues: https://savewagner.com/

Here’s a link to the judge’s ruling: https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/fbem/DocumentDisplayServlet?documentId=E6nIxvjac9Wnn0/wKyx6SQ==&system=prod

And to better understand how the city can more effectively protect Lower Manhattan and fight climate change without destroying our parks, see my recent opinion piece in the NY Daily News: https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-stop-clear-cutting-new-york-city-20230302-dyreexmuk5e7llezkr3ijrbbvy-story.html

March 21, 2023

Honorable Kathy Hochul

Governor of New York State

Dear Governor Hochul,

The Sierra Club New York City Group is calling on you as Governor to intervene to stop the unnecessary demolition of Wagner Park in lower Manhattan by the Battery Park City Authority. The destruction of a well-functioning green park and the destruction of trees should always be a last resort. We agree with the Authority on the necessity of protecting NYC from rising sea levels and more frequent and powerful storms. We accept the climate change-related predictions of NOAA and other respected scientific authorities. However, the community and the park’s original designers have jointly proposed an alternative plan that accomplishes the Authority’s stated goal of protecting inland areas from future flooding.

The Sierra Club calls upon you to intervene at this critical time to support and implement the better community-backed, more environmentally responsible option available. The Battery Park City Neighborhood Association and lower Manhattan community worked diligently with Olin and Machado Silvetti, the world-renowned architects and landscape designers that originally designed this award-winning and innovative park in 1996. Olin/Silvetti created an alternative design that protects the inland residential/commercial area from sea level rise and storm surge without disturbing Wagner Park.

By adopting this alternative plan, the park could remain continuously available to the neighborhood without the community enduring a protracted loss of a very needed park space during construction. Importantly, the community plan provides the same height protection as the Authority’s proposed elevation while leaving intact the water absorption elements of Wagner Park.

The BPCA plan will destroy 114 healthy and mature trees, which could endure for decades more to combat sea level rise. The Authority says it will plant a greater number of new trees at higher elevations, but these new plantings will take years to develop the same root systems that the current trees have established, which remain valuable to storm surge abatement and flood water attenuation. The NYC Parks Department states that, “A large, healthy tree removes almost 70 times more air pollution each year than a small, newly planted tree.”

The cost of the Authority’s plan significantly exceeds that of the community’s alternative solution…savings that could certainly be used for other critical environmental or social needs. Further, the Authority’s plans allow the park’s lone commercial restaurant building to add a subterranean floor. But such private sector commercial expansion should never justify destroying a public park and its trees at a needless taxpayer expense.

Governor, we recognize, appreciate, and support your environmental commitment and leadership. We call on you to remain true to your environmental record in this situation by intervening to stop the destruction of a critical green park space in favor of a plan that satisfies all the climate objectives and leverages the latest thinking on climate resilience, that’s also supported by the community.

Sincerely,

Karl Palmquist, Alan Ferson, Irene Van Slyke, and Lucy Koteen

After Feb. 28, Community Board members, applicants and public members *may* be required to attend in person. If they do return to an in-person meeting format, the public is still encouraged to follow the meetings virtually.

So until further notice, meetings are still here online and are recorded and posted to the board’s YouTube page. You can also find documents and draft resolutions here. As always, contact the board at [email protected]. My comments in caps.

2/1 Battery Park City Committee – 6p Presentation on Upcoming North/West Battery Park City Resiliency Project Reach-specific Meetings – Nicholas Sbordone, Vice President of Communications & Public Affairs, Battery Park City Authority THIS IS THE REBUILDING OF ROCKEFELLER PARK Reporting Out from Recent Meeting Between CB 1 and the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey on Brookfield Pier Activity – Justine Cuccia, CB 1 Battery Park City Committee Chair and Jeff Galloway, CB 1 Battery Park City Committee Co-Chair BPC Security Update – Patrick Murphy, Director of Security, Allied Universal BPCA Report – Nicholas Sbordone, Vice President of Communications & Public Affairs, Battery Park City Authority

2/7 Transportation & Street Permits Committee – 6p Agenda to be determined

2/8 Licensing & Permits Committee – 6p

Financial District area 123 Greenwich Street, TNNY AX LLC and Ned NY Greenwich LLC, new application for a liquor license – Resolution 88 Wall Street, 88 Wall manager LLC & JJ Hospitality 1 LLC, application for a method of operation change on their hotel on premise liquor license – Resolution 251 Fulton street/1 Liberty Plaza, World Trade Center Performing Arts Center Inc, application for a new application and temporary retail permit for full service liquor license – Resolution EXCITING! THIS MUST MEAN THE PERELMAN PAC IS GETTING CLOSE (THOUGH i THINK IT’S GOT ANOTHER SIX MONTHS OR SO) 56 Beaver Street, DRG Hospitality Group Inc., d/b/a Delmonicos, new application for a liquor license – Resolution THIS IS A BIT OF A SAGA — NOT SURE WHAT TO BELIEVE…

The following notices have been received for renewal, upgrade, corporate change, minor alteration or transfer of wine and beer or liquor licenses, temporary retail permits, renewal of sidewalk café permits, and recurring street closure permits: Gouverneur Lane South Street Pier 11, application for a renewal liquor license for Seastreak LLC boats 33 Vesey Street, application for a renewal liquor license for Legends Hospitality LLC 80 Nassau Street, application for a renewal wine beer cider liquor license for Mekong 88 d/b/a IMM 195 Broadway, application for a renewal liquor license for Nobu 195 LLC d/b/a Nobu Downtown

Seaport/Civic Center area 96 South Street, Fulton Seafood market LLC & Creative Culinary Management Company LLC, application for an alteration to restaurant liquor license – Resolution 161 Water Street,1st floor, 169 Cafe LLC, application for a new application and temporary retail permit for wine, beer and cider license – Resolution ALL OF THESE ARE FOR THE RENOVATION OF AN OFFICE BUILDING THAT THEY CLAIM WILL HAVE AFFORDABLE SPACES FOR CREATIVES. THE OPERATORS ARE HAPPIER PEOPLE MANAGEMENT 161 Water Street 5th and 6th floor, WSA Community Arts LLC, application for a new application and temporary retail permit for full liquor license – Resolution 161-169 Water Street,10th floor, Lets Pow Wow LLC, application for a new application and temporary retail permit for full liquor license – Resolution 161 Water Street 15th floor, Culinary Pursuits LLC, application for a new application and temporary retail permit for full liquor license – Resolution 161 Water Street 16th through 18th floor, Culinary Pursuits LLC, application for a new application and temporary retail permit for full liquor license – Resolution

The following notices have been received for renewal, upgrade, corporate change, minor alteration or transfer of wine and beer or liquor licenses, temporary retail permits, renewal of sidewalk café permits, and recurring street closure permits: 80 Beekman Street, application for a renewal wine beer cider license for G.E.N and M Inc. d/b/a Squires Coffee Shop

Battery Park City area Agenda to be determined

The following notices have been received for renewal, upgrade, corporate change, minor alteration or transfer of wine and beer or liquor licenses, temporary retail permits, renewal of sidewalk café permits, and recurring street closure permits: 2 World Financial Center aka 225 Liberty St, application for a renewal liquor license for The Institute of Culinary Education Inc. d/b/a Peter Kumps NY Cooking School 225 Liberty Street, Store 120, application for a renewal liquor license for Hanover Ventures Marketplace LLC d/b/a Le District

Tribeca area 86 Warren Street, Warren Street Hotel LLC, new application for a hotel, on-premise liquor license – Resolution THE HOTEL ON WARREN WILL HAVE AN “ORANGERIE”

The following notices have been received for renewal, upgrade, corporate change, minor alteration or transfer of wine and beer or liquor licenses, temporary retail permits, renewal of sidewalk café permits, and recurring street closure permits: 79 Walker Street, application for a renewal liquor license for 79 Walker Street Restaurant LLC d/b/a Au Cheval Diner 266 Canal street, West store, application for a renewal liquor license for August Gatherings NYC Corp

2/9 Landmarks & Preservation Committee – 6p Agenda to be determined

2/13 Land Use, Zoning & Economic Development Committee – 6p Affordable Housing Proposals for Office Conversions – Presentation by John Sanchez, Executive Director of the 5 Borough Housing Movement THESE ARE PICKING UP STEAM…

2/14 Youth & Education Committee – 6p Agenda to be determined

2/15 Quality of Life & Service Delivery Committee – 6p Agenda to be determined

2/20 Office closed – Presidents Day

2/22 Environmental Protection Committee – 6p Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency (LMCR) quarterly update by Jordan Salinger, Mayor’s Office of Climate & Environmental Justice (MOCEJ)* THESE ARE THE FOLKS WHO HAVE PROPOSED A CONCRETE WALL FOR THE WESTSIDE CB 1 Comment for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers NY & NJ Harbor & Tributaries Focus Area Feasibility Study (HATS) – Discussion & Resolution

2/23 Executive Committee – 6p

2/27 HRPT/CB1 Sponsored Engagement Meeting- The Estuarium (Tentative) Location and time TBD

2/28 CB 1 Monthly Meeting – 6p Location: Manhattan Borough President’s Office 1 Centre Street, 19th Floor – Southside