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Check Out "Brooklyn Bridge Beach" And Other Grand Visions For A New "East River Blueway"
By
Jen Carlson
Published Feb 7, 2013
Modified Feb 7, 2013
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By
Jen Carlson
Published Feb 7, 2013
Modified Feb 7, 2013
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Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer has unveiled a new plan to revitalize the borough's East River waterfront, while also protecting it from the next big storm. Stringer calls his plan—which was initiated two years before Sandy hit—the East River Blueway. In addition to protecting the waterfront from the Brooklyn Bridge to East 38th Street, it will also make it more accessible.
The Borough President's office is allocating $3.5 million to help launch the Blueway project, which Assemblymember Brian Kavanagh helped develop—and they're calling it "a model of community engagement for rebuilding other storm-damaged areas" (like Rockaway and Red Hook, which were severely damaged during Sandy). At his annual, and final, state of the borough speech at the Metropolitan Museum of Art today, he added, “In the end, this is a roadmap to recovery built by the community and for the community.”
When Sandy hit New York last October, FDR Drive was quickly flooded, explosions in the area shut down the Con Ed plant at East 14th street, and a vast swath of downtown Manhattan went dark for days. Stringer hopes that this plan will prevent that from happening again. The full plan has yet to be released, but these are the bullet points we were sent today:
- Where there is now a thin concrete bulkhead beneath the FDR Drive from the Brooklyn Bridge to Rutgers Slip, the plan would extend protective wetlands from the shore, and add drainage under the highway to absorb and re-direct the next great surge. Similar wetlands are proposed in Stuyvesant Cove, around East 14th Street.
- Where there is now a narrow, inaccessible beach below the Brooklyn Bridge, there would be an active waterfront destination that also fortifies the shoreline.
- Where the Con Ed plant now stands exposed at East 14th Street, right at the water’s edge, the plan would create a new, green pedestrian bridge that could also serve as a sturdy flood wall.
The NY Times adds that "the major recommendations are the development of a new public beach and kayak launch directly beneath the Brooklyn Bridge, where a naturally occurring sand beach forms a rock-strewn crescent that is now fenced off; the creation of two boat launches at Stuyvesant Cove at the ends of 20th and 23rd Streets; the installation of marshlands and sea walls in especially vulnerable flood zones, and the planting of trees and greenery all along the FDR Drive to provide shade and absorb storm water runoff." There's also the possibility of a bike and pedestrian path over the FDR at 14th Street.
Tagged
blueway
east river
renderings
scott stringer
waterfront
Jen Carlson
Jen Carlson is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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