Round 2: BPC Residents Take on Another Fight Against Monument Plans

Left: Justine Cuccia, left, chair of Community Board 1's Battery Park Cilty Committee, and Tammy Meltzer, the board's chair, at the July 7 meeting about new proposals for the Essential Workers Monument. Right: Rendering of one of the options for the monument, which would be located next to the Irish Hunger Memorial. Photo: Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib; rendering: Battery Park City Authority

Update 7/12/21: In a statement issued today, Battery Park City Authority Chairman George Tsunis said Labor Day is no longer the deadline for completion of the Essential Workers Monument. Tsunis said the authority still intends to place the monument in the neighborhood, on a site to be determined by an expanded advisory committee "comprised of local stakeholders, essential workers representatives, and others" to review the options. There will be recognition of essential workers in Battery Park City on Labor Day, Tsunis said, without elaborating. He noted that "potential litigation by residents would further delay the process."

An “embarrassment.” A “travesty.” A “kick in the teeth.”

Battery Park City Authority officials got an earful for more than four hours at a Community Board 1 Battery Park City Committee meeting Wednesday as residents sounded off on new options presented for the Essential Workers Monument, and Gov. Cuomo’s Labor Day deadline. 

The sit-down came after protesters [1] on June 28 prevented the bulldozing of a section of Rockefeller Park for the monument, and the Authority soon agreed [2] to find another location for it.

One of the two options—and the one the Authority appeared at the meeting to favor—calls for the monument to occupy 8,000 square feet on what is now the rectangular lawn area between the Irish Hunger Memorial and 300 Vesey Street. Much like the scrapped project for Rockefeller Park, it features 20 trees representing the various essential workforces, flag poles, an enclosed “eternal flame,” and benches. Stanchions with the engraved names of the different categories of essential workers are also part of the design. No trees would be cut down and there would be no net loss of green space, according to the Authority. Another option presented includes many of the same elements, but on the volleyball court on Esplanade Plaza, south of the North Cove.

At the hybrid meeting, the committee and BPCA representatives heard one resident after another slam the proposal, and the rush to complete it. 

“These current designs are not designs,” Laura Starr, a landscape architect and CB1 member, said of the renderings shown by the Authority. “They’re not going to work, they’re not in character, and they’re going to wreck the landscape of Battery Park City.”

“The design is a complete embarrassment,” said Eric Gyasi, a leader of the protest in Rockefeller Park. “It doesn’t in any way capture the loss or the sacrifices of these essential workers.”

Battery Park City Authority Chairman George Tsunis, who fielded most of the critics’ comments, called the design next to the Irish Hunger Memorial “better than what is there now.”

“We have taken pains in the design to make sure that it’s aesthetically more beautiful, and also user-friendly,” he said.

No landscape architect is credited with the design, which was drawn up by a state agency, the Office of General Services. A commission of 19 union leaders convened by Cuomo signed off on the designs and the choice of sites, according to the governor’s office. Three other state-owned locations—Denny Farrell State Park, Roberto Clemente State Park, and Roosevelt Island—were considered and rejected, the Authority said.

Many questioned the “rush” to complete the monument by Labor Day.

“When were these alternate sites that you’re showing us designed?” Alice Blank, an architect and the CB1 vice chair, asked Tsunis.

“Within the past week,” he replied.

Declaring herself “amazed and appalled” by the hurried process, Blank, like others, called for a delay, “allowing the community and the design world to really engage. This is not a small project and it should be done well.”

Kathy Gupta, a long-time Battery Park City resident said she spent years participating in the planning for the Sept. 11 Memorial, and benefited from the time spent listening to experts during the process. “It was enormously valuable,” she said. “So if there’s any way to step back from the Labor Day deadline, I think in the end you’re going to have a better, more respectful and meaningful piece to the essential workers themselves.”

“What we’re looking for is a compromise to get more time, to have a dialogue, to have a more open process,” CB1 Chair Tammy Meltzer said. 

But Tsunis said the deadline is not subject to compromise. “We made a commitment to honor essential workers with this at Battery Park City,” he said. “That’s what [the commission] chose, by Labor Day. And people want to keep their word.” 

Hour five and the committee pressed on with drafting a resolution. Among other things, they called on the Authority and Cuomo to site the monument in a community that’s home to many more essential workers, to establish an open design competition, to scrap the eternal flame due to safety and environmental concerns, and to consider creating a temporary monument by Labor Day, rather than the much decried permanent ones now before them.

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