Long-stalled Pier 35 ‘eco park’ fi nally opens
BY SYDNEY PEREIRA
After years of delays, the “eco
park” at Pier 35 is fi nally here.
On Wed., Dec. 19, the city’s
Economic Development Corporation
formally opened parts of the park,
which will include 28,000 square
feet of public open space. The project
is designed by SHoP Architects and
Ken Smith Landscape Architects with
Hunter Roberts Construction Group.
In the spring, a canopy with “porch
swings” at the Lower East Side pier’s
edge will open, and vines will be added
to a wall separating the eco park from
its abutting neighbor, Pier 36, which
the Department of Sanitation uses as a
garage for its trucks.
“It’s a porch to the river,” said Catherine
Jones, SHoP’s Pier 35 project director.
At the water’s edge, what appears to
be a pile of mossy boulders is actually
a carefully crafted “mussel beach” to
attract blue and ribbed mussels — an
ecology-focused feature funded by the
Department of State.
“You can actually see the water come
in and out during high and low tide,”
said Ken Smith, of Ken Smith Landscape
Architects. “It’s an experience
most New Yorkers don’t get to have.”
Plans to renovate the pier near Jefferson
St. were fi rst announced in 2009.
But years of delays, partly due to fi -
nancial troubles of contractor Trocom
Construction, pushed back the project.
Trocom’s eventual bankruptcy led to
delays at other city projects, too, including
At the ribbon-cutting of the Pier 35 eco park last week, from left, 82
Rutgers Slip residents Elaine Hoffman, Linda Matias and Trever Holland,
Councilmember Margaret Chin and Seth Myers, executive vice
president of the city’s Economic Development Corporation.
at Chinatown’s Forsyth St. Plaza
by the Manhattan Bridge, DNAInfo
reported in 2016.
“It’s about time that they fi xed it,”
said Elaine Hoffman, vice president of
the tenants association at 82 Rutgers
Slip.
“We used to spend our time under
the F.D.R. The kids use to come, used
to hang out, and used to play,” Hoffman
recalled. “I hope it just stays like
this. I hope they take care of it,” she
said of the refurbished pier.
The Parks Department is responsible
PHOTO BY SYDNEY PEREIRA
for the site’s maintenance.
Hoffman said she’s happy to be able
to see the Manhattan and Brooklyn
bridges from the pier — particularly
since the view from her home has been
blocked by the recently built One Manhattan
Square, an 800-foot-tall condo
building.
But despite ongoing tensions and
lawsuits in the Two Bridges area over
the development of mostly market-rate
towers and fears of displacement and
gentrifi cation, real estate honchos from
One Manhattan Square joined with
neighbors for the celebratory morning.
“I think it’s amazing,” said Christina
Medina, a senior sales executive at
Extell Development. “I’m excited. It’s
going to add a lot of value to this waterfront
that was neglected for a while.
It’s inspiring.”
Friends of Pier 35, a grassroots park
steward group, will program the space
to ensure it benefi ts Two Bridges residents.
“In an area starved for open space,
we are thankful for the many advocates
who have fought over the years for an
equitable and accessible waterfront
park,” Trever Holland, co-founder of
Friends of Pier 35 and a member of
Community Board 3, said in a statement.
Councilmember Carlina Rivera said,
“We’ll be improving our coastline in
the years ahead and much of it will be
inaccessible during renovation. So the
community needs as much alternative
open space as it can get.”
Open space is an ongoing issue for
Lower East Siders. Though residents
welcomed the completion of Pier 35, a
bit north of there, much of East River
Park is expected to be offl ine during an
expectd three-and-a-half-year renovation.
But many are skeptical the city
can complete such a large open-space
project within that time.
“Will East River Park resiliency plan
suffer same delays?” Tommy Loeb, a
member of the Lower East Side’s Grand
St. Democrats, tweeted after Pier 35
had fi nally been opened.
Israeli Consulate members tour Jewish L.E.S.
BY LESLEY SUSSMAN
In a guided tour of the “Jewish Lower
East Side” fi lled with memories of
things past, members of New York
City’s Israeli Consulate visited several
sites popular with the neighborhood’s
longtime Jewish population, several
of them bringing to mind the days of
the huge Jewish immigration to New
York City from the turn of the century
through the 1930s.
The Thursday afternoon tour was organized
by Karen Blatt, an urban planner
and former district Leader, under
the auspices of the nonprofi t Jewish
Conservancy of the Lower East Side.
Consulate members who attended
the tour included Israel Nitzan, the
deputy consul general; Moti Amichai
Bibas, the consul for cultural affairs;
and Andrew Gross, political director.
Among the sites visited was the Bialystoker
Synagogue, at 7 Willet St.,
an Orthodox synagogue housed there
since 1905 in a building constructed as
a Methodist Episcopal church in 1826.
Also visited was the 167-year-old
Standing before the ark inside the historic Byalistoker Synagogue,
from left, Israel Nitzan, Karen Blatt, Moti Amichai Bibas and Andrew
Gross.
Beth Hamedrash Hagadol Synagogue
on Norfolk St., which in 2016 was nearly
totally destroyed by fl ames believed
to be set by arsonists. Another stop
was the Henry Street Settlement, at
263-267 Henry St., which was founded
in 1893 as The Nurses Settlement by
progressive reformer and nurse Lillian
Wald. The settlement house provided
health and other services to the neighborhood’s
poor, immigrant Jews.
Consulate members also stopped by
the Forward Building, at 173 E. Broadway,
which was built in 1912 and for
many years was the home of the city’s
fi rst Jewish language newspaper, and
Moishe’s bakery, at 504 Grand St.,
where they sampled kosher pastries,
cookies and cakes. Another stop was
the East Side Glatt Butcher Shop, at
500 Grand St., a small longtime local
kosher deli and butcher shop.
“I’m excited about the tour because
this is where everything began for Jewish
New York,” Blatt said. “It’s the roots
of New York City Jewry.”
Nitzan said, “It was a pleasure to
tour various Jewish historical sites in a
neighborhood that has been a cradle of
Jewish life in America.”
Rabbi Zvi Romm of Bialystoker Synagogue
met up with the tour outside the
ruins of Beth Hamedrash Hagodol.
“It is a sad sight to see such a historic
synagogue in ruins,” he said. “But the
ruins of that shul are only a part of the
story of the Lower East Side. Our collective
story is deeply rooted in the past.
But it is also a story of a vibrant Jewish
community which is active right now,
with synagogues, schools, a mikveh
and kosher establishments.”
8 December 27, 2018 TVG Schneps Media