LMDC Presents Its Options for a Closed Park Row by Barry Owens Barring a reversal of security policy from the Police Department, a pedestrian mall or permanent parking lot may be in Park Row's future. Now closed to traffic between Worth Street and Police Plaza, the street had been a major thoroughfare for Downtown drivers and local residents, who have been holding out hope that it eventually will be reopened. But with no such plans in sight, the city and the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. are trying to decide what to do with the street. At the same time, they are looking for ways to bring some order to Chatham Square, where Park Row and East Broadway, St. James, Oliver, Division, Bowery and Worth streets now converge. "Our goal is to ease congestion and find ways that make sense in dealing with Park Row," Holly Leicht, the LMDC's director of planning, told Community Board 1's Seaport/Civic Center Committee last month. Plans for reconfiguring the Chatham Square intersection, estimated at $8 million, are still in early stages, Leicht presented possible ways to "normalize" traffic flow at Chatham Square as well options for Park Row. But any option that excluded opening Park Row did not make the committee happy. "This is a huge thoroughfare that was taken from us and you're not replacing it with anything that has the capacity to replace it," said the committee's chairman, Marc Donnenfeld. "It seems like an exercise in futility." The city is reviewing several options for Park Row: one calls for wider sidewalks and narrow street access for police and emergency vehicles; another has space for a residential parking lot; and a third surrenders the street wholly to a pedestrian promenade. Any of those plans, Leicht said, can be reversed if the street is reopened. And might that ever happen? "Obviously, the first touchstone in evaluating what to do is going to be the NYPD's views of security," Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff told the Trib. "We're still in the process of reviewing what the options and concerns are."