What’s up with that project? A BPC roundup

 

New Ballfields

Lights and an outfield fence have been put up on the site of the new Battery Park City ballfields, and they’re probably enough to have young sluggers dreaming of home runs in Downtown’s first night baseball games. But thanks to the recent wet and cold weather, the chances of Little Leaguers playing on the fields next spring have slimmed in the past few weeks, Battery Park City officials said at a meeting of Community Board 1’s Battery Park City Committee on Dec. 3.

If the crews constructing the fields can’t finish preparatory work and then lay down sod by Dec. 20, they will have to wait until the spring, said Tessa Huxley, executive director of the Battery Park City Parks Conservancy. Since it takes at least two months for the grass to “knit,” or attach itself to the soil, strongly enough for kids to play on, that would mean that the fields would not be ready until about June.

“Unfortunately, the weather has not been with us, but we’re not ready to give up yet on our projected opening date,” in time for Little League’s opening day on April 1, Huxley said. “You can’t work the soil when it’s wet, and when it’s cold it doesn’t dry out as fast.”

Even if the sod is put down this month, the weather will still determine if the fields will be ready for the start of baseball season, she said. “If it’s a very cold winter, it will be tough.”

If the fields cannot open in April, the Downtown Little League will have to find alternative playing sites, as it did last year.
New Dog Run and Tot Lot

Previously scheduled to begin this past October, the renovation of Monsignor Kowsky Plaza in Battery Park City, including the creation of a permanent dog run and the construction of a new, larger playground for small children, has been delayed at least until late next spring and probably won’t happen until next fall, according to Tessa Huxley, executive director of the Battery Park City Parks Conservancy, and Stephanie Gelb, vice president of planning and design for the Battery Park City Authority.

Top executives at the Authority have yet to sign off on a design and budget for the project, which they have been reviewing since early summer, and the window for doing construction this winter has closed.

“It’s being reviewed by the executive staff and Chairman Gill,” Huxley said, referring to James Gill, chairman of the Authority. “We just haven’t gotten a yea or a nay.” Huxley and Gelb said they did not know the reason for the delay.

Whenever the executives okay the design, it will be presented to CB1’s Battery Park City Committee for consideration, Huxley and Tim Carey, the Authority’s president have said. After the community provides its input, Claire Weisz, the designer of the renovated plaza, including the dog run, will require several months to draw up final construction plans, while bids are solicited from contractors.

Construction itself is expected to last at least six months, and the Authority and the Conservancy say they prefer to do it in the winter, when noise and dust are less likely to be a problem for nearby residents.

“We thought we would wait again for the cold weather, when it’s not open-window season,” Huxley said. If work begins next fall, the plaza would not be completed until the spring of 2004.

Anthony Notaro, chair of the Battery Park City Committee, asked that the community board be given a chance to review the construction schedule once a decision on the plans are made, saying that some residents may prefer that the playground and dog run be completed earlier.

The Authority first proposed putting a dog run in the bosk area on the western end of the plaza (formerly called Pumphouse Plaza), between the Gateway Plaza residential complex and North Cove, two years ago. The plaza, which is the roof of an underground water pumping station that used to supply heating and cooling water to the World Trade Center, had to be ripped up, waterproofed and renovated anyway. But last spring, some Gateway residents protested that a dog run would create too much noise near their buildings.

A committee of Community Board 1 members, Gateway residents and representatives of the Authority and the Parks Conservancy scrambled to come up with a solution, which the Authority said had to be finalized by summer so it could be incorporated into the plaza’s reconstruction plans.

The committee came up with a proposal, approved by CB1 in May , to place the 3,000-square-foot dog run on the plaza above the police memorial, encompassing what is now a toddler playground, a little further away from Gateway. The playground would be moved west to the bosk area overlooking the esplanade, where there are now benches and trees, and would be significantly expanded.

Weisz, the landscape architect, presented three variations to the Authority in June, from which Huxley and Gelb chose one to pass on to the Authority’s top executives for approval. Since then, it has been a waiting game.
Gotta Go? New Public Restrooms Coming

In planning the residential building that is now under construction at 20 River Terrace, known as the “green” building for its environment-friendly features, the Authority has not only heeded the global need to sustain the earth’s natural resources, but it has also attended to the basic needs of Battery Park City park users, who want to sustain long afternoons outdoors.

New public restrooms are being constructed on the ground floor of the new building, at the corner of River Terrace and Murray Street and across the street from Rockefeller Park. The high-rise is being constructed by the Albanese Development Corporation and is scheduled to be completed next spring.

“They will be as large as the restrooms in Wagner Park,” Tessa Huxley, executive director of the Battery Park City Parks Conservancy, told CB1’s BPC Committee on Dec. 3. “We will phase out the restrooms in Rockefeller Park, which have been insufficient since they opened.”

The new restrooms will accommodate users of Rockefeller Park as well as of Teardrop Park, just east of 20 and 22 River Terrace. That park is scheduled to be finished in early 2004.
New York Water Taxis Cutting Boat Noise

Responding to complaints from some Gateway Plaza residents that its boats were making too much noise going into and out of North Cove, New York Water Taxi has made adjustments in its operations and is working on other fixes to cut the amount of noise reaching buildings near the cove, a company official told CB1’s Battery Park City Committee on Dec. 3.

Brendan Sexton, a consultant for the Durst Organization, which is backing the company, acknowledged that since the water taxi service began in September, the boats had been causing more noise in North Cove than expected.

“North Cove is a unique situation,” he said. “Acoustically, it forms a sort of echo chamber.”

Sexton said the company has been retraining boat captains “to pull out further from shore before opening up the throttle, and to operate further out—at least 200 yards—when traveling north-south.”

Anthony Notaro, chair of the Battery Park City Committee, and Michael Fortenbaugh, head of the Manhattan Yacht Club, which is based in North Cove, said they had seen a marked noise reduction in recent weeks.

Sexton said the company was also redirecting exhaust pipes, which are the main source of noise, from the side of boats to the rear, “so they’re always aimed toward open water, and not toward buildings.” The changes should be in place later this month, he said.

For the longer term, New York Water Taxi is looking into a new, quieter muffler system for new and existing boats. “We’re paying to have engineers try to redesign the muffler system, but we can’t promise that it can be done,” Sexton said.

The water taxis already use low-emission engines to cut air pollution, and low-wake hulls.

“Our engines use 2007 diesel emissions standards, and I think we have the only engines on the east coast, on water or on land, meeting those standards,” Sexton said.

Board members applauded Sexton and New York Water Taxi for addressing noise complaints and candidly discussing the issue at the meeting, in contrast, they said, to NY Waterway, which dominates the commuter ferry business in New York Harbor. Community Board 1 and local residents for years have complained about air pollution, noise and wakes caused by NY Waterway ferry boats, but they say the company is not responsive to their concerns.

“If people complain, it’s a problem to us,” Sexton said. “We’re very concerned about being a good-neighbor service. If locals don’t like us, we’re in trouble. We’re not catering to the cross-river commuters.”

New York Water Taxi has three boats in operation, which run back and forth from Fulton Landing in Brooklyn to West 42nd Street, with stops at South Street Seaport, Pier 11 at Wall Street, North Cove and West 23rd Street. The company hopes to add three more boats, and additional stops, next year.

In the middle of the day, when the water taxis run most frequently and carry the most passengers, the boats stop in North Cove about every 20 to 30 minutes. The company hopes to install a new docking facility in the cove within a few months, and intends to use the Port Authority’s new permanent ferry terminal, just north of the existing World Financial Center terminal, when it is completed in a couple of years.