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Park on Canal Street Gets Going at Last
By Barry Owens
MAY 2, 2006
For all the city's talk of plans to create a park on the triangular lot at Canal, Varick and Laight Streets, the site for years has been nothing more than dusty dead space, marked off by orange construction barrels and wind-whipped police tape. But last month there was finally a sign of life in this tiny corner of Tribeca—"Please keep off the newly sodded lawn," the sign read. It was posted on a new fence and signed by the city's Parks Department.
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Organizers of the Tribeca Film Festival footed the bill to lay sod on the triangle (Tribeca Cinemas is located across the Street from the site), and seemingly overnight it was transformed from an embarrassing neighborhood eyesore to an inviting green space, though off-limits for now.
The Parks Department says there is more to come. A fresh design plan is in place and it's riding the fast track through city channels.
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| "It is a very simple plan," said Gail Wittwer-Laird, a landscape architect who has designed a new look for the park that will include trees, benches, a lawn and an ever-rushing fountain in the form of a canal. "I think everyone is anxious to move this forward. |
Wittwer-Laird presented the plan for the unnamed park to Community Board 1 last month and said that the design had already passed muster with the city's Arts Commission, which must approve changes to city-owned property that are visible from the street. Getting the commission's approval is no small hurdle. A previous plan for the park, created in 2002 by a landscaping contractors association from outside the city as a gift to the neighborhood following the Sept. 11 attacks, failed three times to win acceptance from the commission. The group finally walked away in frustration last year, leaving the city to plan anew.
"It is loosely derived from the plan of several years ago," Wittwer-Laird told the board, referencing the original city plans for the park that were drawn up in 2001, but set aside following the terrorist attack. "It has been a long time coming, but I think it is going to be great when it is finally built."
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The board voted to approve the plan with little hesitation. "I remember approving this before 9/11," said member Albert Capsouto.
The design presented last month calls for a fenced-in park with three gated entrances, lined with a perimeter of trees and cut through with a winding path of granite stones. In the center will be a small lawn under the shade of a large tree.
Along the north side, artist Elyn Zimmerman hopes to create a canal—120 feet long, 12 feet wide and eight inches deep—where recycled water would flow from high to low ground.
The installation is inspired by the former channel through Lower Manhattan that gave Canal Street its name. But Zimmerman, who designed the memorial for the victims of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing (which was destroyed on Sept. 11), said the water feature would more closely resemble a mini-Panama Canal with its series of locks and dams.
"Call it poetic license, but this will make it more interesting," she said.
The park is one of six public spaces for which the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation in February allocated $19.5 million, which the Parks Department will receive in June. Construction is expected to last 18 months.
Until work begins, the sod will remain. So too will the old concrete curbs that Wittwer-Laird and Zimmerman, in a moment of inspiration, rescued from the rubble when new sidewalks were installed around the park site. The curbs were placed in the center of the lawn to serve as benches.
"Totally temporary," said Zimmerman. |
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