On W. 14th St., greenery to replace grittiness
BY SYDNEY PEREIRA
Along a stretch of 14th St. between
Ninth and Tenth Aves.,
the Meatpacking Business Improvement
District plans to add greenery
planters and about a dozen trees to the
wide, often empty streets on that portion
of the border between the West Village
and Chelsea.
“We wanted to enliven the streetscape,”
said Jeffrey LeFrancois, the BID’s operations
and community affairs director.
The idea, according to the Meatpacking
BID, is to visually connect the “Chelsea
Triangle” and Gansevoort Square to
the High Line with trees and planters.
“Oftentimes, people are walking down
14th St., they get to Ninth Ave., and they
see this big wide street with not a lot of
life, not a lot of things going on,” Amy
Tse, the BID’s neighborhood engagement
director, told C.B. 2. “They do not continue
walking down that street.”
The crosstown thoroughfare is slated
for extensive changes this season and
into next year amid the L train shutdown
beginning next April 27, but LeFrancois
said the BID will fi nish the work ahead
of the subway’s shutdown.
“We’re timing it with our goal of having
this done by the time the L train shuts
down — so that way, the neighborhood is
in the best possible condition it can be,”
he said. LeFrancois is also a Community
A design rendering showing new tree planters slated for W. 14th St.
under a plan supported by the Meatpacking Business Improvement
District.
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Board 4 member, but recused himself
from votes at C.B. 4 on the issue.
Pending fi nal approval by Boards 2
and 4, the BID will move forward on
obtaining city approvals. The community
boards’ Parks committees signaled
support last week. However, one C.B.
2 member, Susanna Aaron, the C.B. 2
Parks and Waterfront Committee cochairperson,
questioned the entire basis
of the designs.
“That part of the street is devastated,
and partly because there’s no real destinations,”
Aaron said. Plus, she added, the
street’s historical character is industrial
— not garden-like.
“To me, I feel like it brings a very corporate
tinge to everything,” she objected.
“It doesn’t seem to have any of the real,
gritty texture.”
Ken Smith’s design fi rm is working
with the BID on the greening project.
“We’ve tried to keep it very simple and
very straightforward,” he told C.B. 2,
“and we’ve tried to make it have as much
grit and not be fancy to the degree that
we can do that.”
One apparently gritty aspect of the
design includes Cor-Ten steel planters,
a metal that makes the planters appear
rusty, Smith said.
“We think it fi ts with the Meatpacking
District,” Smith said. “It will link it to
the High Line and fi t the character of the
neighborhood.”
COURTESY KEN SMITH WORKSHOP
Schneps Community News Group TVG November 15, 2018 7