Field of dreams (how big?) at Gansevoort
BY MICHELE HERMAN
Vacant 5.5-acre chunks of prime
Manhattan landfi ll with river
views on three sides don’t come
along often. I went to a Community
Board 2 presentation at the Greenwich
Village Middle School, at 75 Morton St.,
last week to learn more about what’s in
store for the one at Gansevoort Peninsula
near the northwestern edge of the
Village.
This rectangular parcel that juts into
the Hudson is in the process of becoming
part of Hudson River Park now that
the Department of Sanitation facilities
that used to sit on it have been demolished.
Needless to say, different constituencies
are drooling at the possibilities being
presented by the new section of the
park. Actually, to judge by those in the
audience of roughly 100 who spoke up
during the question-and-answer period
after the presentation, there are mostly
two constituencies: the large, well-organized
school soccer-team community
(parents, coaches, league directors and
after-school program organizers) fi ghting
for the biggest possible ball fi eld, and
assorted others quietly advocating on behalf
of passive green space.
Some things at C.B. 2 never change.
The faces of the soccer proponents were
mostly new since I last attended a meeting,
but their ardor was the same as ever.
However, I was pleasantly surprised by
the civil, even good-natured tone of the
meeting.
The fi rst brave, witty soul to speak
out for passive green space began his
statement by saying, “Can I risk being
lynched?” The second said to the soccer
people, “I know you’ll win, but a ball
fi eld is exclusionary. I’m advocating for
everyone else. As we teach our kids: You
have to share.”
The Hudson River Park Trust, the
park’s governing state-city authority,
hired James Corner Field Operations, a
landscape architecture fi rm known for
connecting city dwellers to nature and
for integrating culture and history into
its designs, to come up with a concept.
Field Operations’ presentation followed
up on the initial one in March,
with a third scheduled for Sept. 4. The
design process is somewhere in the middle
stages, which means there is a basic
concept and many lovely color sketches,
but still some wiggle room as the designers
continue to refi ne the concept
and respond to community feedback.
According to Noreen Doyle, the Trust’s
executive vice president, Gansevoort’s
construction budget of $50 million is
in place and the building of the park is
expected to take one and a half to two
years.
A space of 5.5 acres (an acre smaller
than Union Square) may seem like a lot,
but Lisa Tziona Switkin, senior principal
at Field Operations, explained that the
A rendering of the “Upper Beach” at Gansevoort, playing paddle ball
and relaxing in view of David Hammons’s “Day’s End” sculpture.
designers and engineers have to work
with a large number of conditions and
givens. The givens include passive recreation,
no commercial uses or development,
a beach, a maintenance-andoperations
building, a comfort station, a
concession and a permanent art installation
by David Hammons — sponsored
by the Whitney Museum of American
Art — that is at once enormous and unobtrusive,
because it’s a stainless-steel
ghost frame of the pier shed that once
stood on the peninsula’s southern edge.
The conditions consist of unexpectedly
lively wave action on Gansevoort’s
south side, as revealed by underwater
modeling, which makes the dream of an
actual sand beach unachievable. Instead
there will likely be sand yielding to new
riprap (loosely packed rocks or concrete
chunks) at the shoreline. Other conditions
include the C.S.O. regulator (the
underground sewage drainage system);
unstable soil (the technical term, Switkin
explained, is “pudding”) on both the
north and south edges of the 19th-century
landfi ll; the recently installed Spectra
high-pressure gas pipeline, and the
Fire Department road and turnaround
that has to accommodate the largest fi re
trucks, which connects to the fi re-boat
station at Gansevoort’s northwestern
corner.
As currently conceived, the park
would include a ball fi eld with artifi cial
turf in the center of the space, oriented
east-west and elevated somewhat above
the level of the manmade peninsula. The
building housing the M&O, restrooms
and concession would be on the inland
side and broken into three separate
low-slung structures to allow for views
between them, with a single green roof
above. To the north the designers envision
a series of salt marsh “nooks”; the
unavoidable fi re road leading to the Fire
Department boat stationhouse, softened
with lawns and gardens; an outdoor
“gym” with exercise equipment, and a
dog run that, at 250 feet, would actually
be long enough for running. To the
COURTESY JAMES CORNER FIELD OPERATIONS
west there would be furniture — including
seating — and trees, a rolling lawn
for sunset views and a picnic grove. To
the south there would be kayak access
(though no rentals), tidal pools for education
and exploration, and the beach.
Switkin said she hopes some of the trees
would be willows, which can thrive in
sandy soil.
The aforementioned wiggle room in
the design comes down mostly to the size
of the ball fi eld. As young soccer players
grow, they require bigger fi elds, with designations
that correspond to kids’ ages.
There is plenty of room on Gansevoort
for baseball and for two U-10 (“under
age 10”) soccer practice fi elds. One U-11
fi ts comfortably, and one U-12 fi ts. The
trouble is that a U-13 fi eld — which is
full size for middle- and high-school kids
but still not big enough for regulation
playoffs — does not fi t on the peninsula
without cutting into some of the passive
features and probably eliminating the
space for the outdoor gym.
The soccer supporters are pushing
hard for the largest fi eld. Jacqui Getz,
principal of the 75 Morton middle
school, wrote a letter of support, noting
the school will be adding an additional
grade in the fall for a total of 900 students.
“We have no access to a fi eld; there’s
a shortage,” Getz wrote. “Kids commute
two hours back and forth to East River
Park to play an hour of sports. We urge
the full-sized fi eld so we can serve the
local community.”
Others chimed in with ever-more dire
statistics. There are only four U-13 fi elds
in the city. There are only three gyms
Downtown to serve nine schools. Those
fi elds are booked seven days a week for
10 hours, so overused that they have
become unhygienic. Downtown Soccer
League will have to turn kids away for
the fi rst time.
Schneps Media DEX August 8 - August 21, 2019 9