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De Blasio Reveals New Plans for Lower Manhattan Waterfront – One Step Forward, Two Steps Back for the Community

(The East River Park Amphitheater, built in 1941, which will be destroyed when the city moves forward with its new "Preferred Alternative Plan" for the ESCR)


      With little fanfare this past Thursday, March 14th, the De Blasio administration announced that they would be pursuing new plans for the East River Park and Lower Manhattan shoreline; not only presenting additional designs for extending Lower Manhattan up to two blocks into the river, but implementing a new phased-construction plan for the East Side Coastal Resiliency Project (known as ESCR). In September, the city revealed that they would be abandoning previous designs for the ESCR, in favor of a new plan which "involves completely destroying East River park, 'elevating' it with 8 feet of landfill, and rebuilding a new park on top." That disastrous proposal was met with a predictably disastrous response from local residents, politicians, and community advocacy groups. Organized in the wake of the city's new design for the ESCR, the East River Alliance emerged as a leading voice in local resistance to the lack of transparency and community oversight in the city's new plans. 
      Over the course of the last six months, the ERA has been in contact formally and informally with the city government, been present at every community meeting related to the project, and worked alongside other organizations and politicians like Carlina Rivera, to pressure the city towards more inclusive environmental and urban planning procedures for the ESCR area. Speaking to ERA steering committee member Emily Curtis-Murphy via-email, she expressed gratitude that the "mayor heard us and now plans to the implement the plan in stages", though insisting that there is much needed to be done immediately to fortify the neighborhood against flooding. The ERA asks that "the City offer the same emergency flood protecting measures (tiger dams, HESCO barriers) described in the new Seaport Distric Plan, for immediate protection of our vulnerable ESCR area, by hurricane season this year", and will be putting out a press release on the matter soon.
     While Curtis-Murphy writes that the city's new plan to stage the demolition and re-building of the East River Park in parts, "gives us renewed hope that the city may return to a collaborative, transparent, and inclusive process that reflects the diverse needs of our community in creating a resilient waterfront that will protect us," it is also certainly a small concession in the face of the city's plans for astronomical re-development of the Lower Manhattan waterfront. 
      One overwhelming question that remains in the face of De Blasio's announcements on Thursday is what the materialization of new land on the East River will mean for ongoing struggles over land-use, affordable housing, and residential re-zoning. While various public resources like parks and schools are on the table for these new blocks, so is essentially everything else –– the city demonstrating with the Amazon HQ2 proposal flop or the Two Bridges Towers construction, their complete willingness to circumnavigate community or political organizations in speculative development deals. 





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